140 Book(s) Related to r.k. lilley

Ten years ago, Isla fled Hollowcreek—a quaint town filled with memories—and the boy who loved her enough to let her go.

After her grandmother's death, Isla returned to Hollowcreek. Seeing the vibrant white lilies constantly appearing on the porch, she might have guessed who had left them, but she didn't know the purpose behind them.

Isla's hopes grew: she longed to meet the mysterious figure who had given her the lilies. The moment the mystery was revealed, she would have to make a new choice: leave once more, or finally take root where she had always belonged...

I'm Lilly. After my rescue from a rival club, the Reckless Renegades gave me a new start. I was just getting my life on track when my past comes back to haunt me. With a newfound passion for singing will my old guardian who is set on selling me ruin the future I am building. After an accident that my guardian set up in a kidnapping attempt, I lose my vision. I have to learn how to live my life differently. I need to overcome my new challenges and give up on my dream. Will I rise to the challenge? Will my guardian win? Will I get to find love and happiness despite everything that has happened to me?
I'm Tank. I fell for her hard but I don't deserve her. She is light and innocent. I'm a dark biker. She deserves more than me. When her past comes back I need to step up and claim what is mine.

Death should have been the end.

Instead, I wake up choking on warehouse air, a stranger's hand around my throat.

This time, I remember the man who was desperate to kill me.

Victor Sterling.

"Your scream killed my daughter!"
"I'll make you pay double."

In every loop, he finds me and kills me.

Julian pulls the trigger on himself just to turn back time one more time.

This time, I'm not waiting to be saved.

If the world insists on killing me, it had better be prepared.

This time, I'm rewriting the whole damn film.

If darkness comes for me again, I'll meet it on my terms.

This book is dedicated to you. We don't always have a perfect romance, but sometimes it is our reasons that keep us moving forward.

I have tried to write the story as best as I could, and each time I started I ended up deleting it. So I wanted to write a different kind of story and maybe I really messed it up or maybe I did a great job, either way, this is how it all went down. Thank you so much for reading my work and for your support, not just in buying the books but sending me those emails and encouraging me to continue writing. You are the hero in my stories.

note from Kylie Bray

In order to understand the reason why I've made the choices I have, when I became the person I am today, you would have to understand why. To do that, I would need to start from the very beginning.

But before I do, understand that this is not a sappy happy romance, this is my life, this is the story of where happy endings come from. This is the path I led. So while many people would always start and end with their true love, I would start with my first. Because isn't a first love the most life altering one.

I stare at him, watching his chest expand.

How is it that someone so strong, so powerful, so dangerous to find become so small when faced with an adversary? The adversary being me.

I see him, knees on the cold tiled floor, his eyes fixated on me in equal parts disbelief. I disconnect my vision from his small form, looking briefly at what I'm wearing.

This morning when I woke up, the sun was shining, snow melting on my front lawn. My kids were sleeping, my husband gone, as usual, working, making money.

Everything was normal except when I woke up this morning, I received a message. This message contained a lot of things I've been waiting to hear but one part, in particular, stood out and made today different. This person on his knees in front of me was the big difference in my day. So when I woke up this morning and decided what I was going to wear I decided I would not wear black because black represented the sign of mourning. I wasn't going to wear white. After all, white represented a sign of new beginnings and not blue.

Blue, well blue was a sign of trust and green with a side of healing so when I woke up this morning I decided I would wear beige, it was an indifferent color something that matched any mood any desire any belief it doesn't necessarily represent anything but nor did it negate anything.

'You know what is so satisfying about killing you?"

'What?" He inquires with that tilt of his mouth and thin lips I have seen a time or two. Many women found this man handsome. sexy even. I was not different, but I knew more than many of them what made him, his colors, the layers that fell away leaving only the middle left and when you looked at it with naked eyes you'd see it was rotten.

I laugh.

'I became a player in this cat and rat game much later. I find it comical that I am the one who gets to catch you, considering there are many people who started in the beginning. What is even funnier is I am the one who would get to kill you."

'You didn't catch me Mrs. Catelli."He says my surname with a pinched face as though he can't bear the sound of it coming from his lips.

'Then what do you oppose I did?"

He smiles, but it is not a nice one. It is filled with the ugliness which has corrupted him over the years.

Copyright © 2022 Shan R.K

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction from the Author's imagination.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any manner without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotations for reviews or fan-made articles.

Any names resembling any living person are purely coincidental.

First Edition.

April, 19th 2022

Written by Shan R.K

Dedication

I dedicate this book to you the reader. Please enjoy it and look out for the anthology on my website coming soon for free.

"When I was younger, I was a beggar by circumstance,

When I got older, I remained a beggar by choice."

Today was the first day back at school. While most of the asshats who attended Liston High Private School actually went in for the first day, I was stuck scrubbing the toilets of the Hallow mansion.

And regardless of what my brother says I look like, I am not a scholarship kid. I'm Dainy Hallow and the guy with the Goku hair wiping puke off the pebbled bathroom floor is my older brother Aiden.

Last night as is customary to do the night before school starts, we had a huge ass party.

Our initial plan was to go to school, skip last period, get home and clear out the evidence before our parents arrived back the following day.

Let's just say that plan went to shit fast when Aiden called mom. He asked her to pick up the suit he ordered from G&G for the cancer benefit we were hosting next month. A simple question followed by an unexpected answer.

Apparently, my brother and I were misinformed with regards to my parents return. My parents were actually arriving today in less than three hours.

Two hours and four injuries later, the beer bottles are gone. The bathrooms now sanitized, and beds clothed in fresh unused linen.

The rest of the house is tidy but not clean. My brother and I aren't dumb, we've been doing this for five years.

Unlike most siblings, Aiden and I don't bicker all the time.

This book is a work of fiction. All characters are fictional.

Any religious references made was done solely for the purpose of

Bringing the story to reality and making it believable to the readers.

No dis-respect to religious beliefs was intended.

Once upon a time I met a girl, I loved her with everything in me.

My love was something that happened so sudden, like a real fairy tale.

She was my beauty and I, her beast.

When she stared in my eyes I was lost in her black soulless depths, forgetting the soul I didn't see.

When Beauty looked into my HEART I saw the future in her cold hard stare.

Her body was my glory, I ignored the weapon it showed me.

I was obsessed in the slope of her curves, the movement of her hips as she put one foot in front of the other.

Her touch blinded me.

When Beauty touched me she awoke the beast, called to the killer and hummed to the sniper, until she was where my heaven began and my demons ended.

I remember the day when just a glimpse of her gutted me in the chest.

Beauty was where my madness sang and in less than a month I was hers.

My pops once told me that every man has his falling point.

Every brother has a day to mourn.

"Sometimes love comes in like a breath of fresh air,

it finds you and consumes every piece of your existence."

Capo Dei Capi

Leonardo da Vinci once wrote, Black is like a broken vessel, which is deprived of the capacity to contain anything. I wonder what he thought of the color white. Did he think it was a sign of purity? Or did he too look upon whiteness as a false brightness, a lie?

2-years-ago if I stood on this very podium, with this man across from me, I would have smiled similar to the way I am now. The white dress hugging my body then a promise of honesty and trust as I glowed with a warmth knotting my stomach walls.

Only then, my smile would've been comfortable, wrapped in genuine joy, because then I loved him. At that stage in my life, he was my world and I would have laid myself on the floor where he walked with his blood-stained soles. And I would have done it naked, ready to bare myself to this one man with a smile on my face.

A smile that wasn't bold, or soaked with the whisper of revenge. My heart would have beat with love, and not in the threat that now lurks outside these Church walls, waiting with finite patience that would soon be over. This marriage is no fairy-tale.

This book has been rewritten and is dedicated to my Grandmother, Marie Valerie Perrett. Her flesh and bones now lay as ash, while her spirit glows within the ones fortunate to have breathed her air, as memories, and moments from the past become those that define our future. In my life some of those are memories and lessons that she has taught me, not just by words, but by actions.

She gave me the tools to be a strong woman, and at times I admit I struggled to stand, but my grandmother held me by both hands at those times and lifted me up. Then she let me go, because she knew, she knew all along that one day I would need the strength to stand on my own. To lift my own daughter by her hands and learn to let her grow so she can become stronger.

Who you were or the way you felt, my Grandmother loved without judgement.

When she looked at me, spoke to me I never doubted her love, it was always an invisible beam between us. When I was younger we used to lay on her bed and she used to read to me stories from the bible while I used her arm as a pillow. I remember when I got a bit older and she read to me then I asked her, "Gran why does a story always start with Once Upon A Time?" She said because now it is a fairytale but once upon a time it was true. It was then I imagined life, I convinced myself that aliens were real. That I could be anything I want.

There is never a moment that is perfect to let the one you love go and she was one of the very few who I have loved and still do. I took my books off the pre-order today and I am glad I did. Because I get to share her memory with you guys. And dedicate this book that she waited so long to read but barely started. On Tuesday, December 4th 2018, I read the first chapter to her.

I wish I knew that it was the last day, but we never really know when death comes naturally, do we.

"You dare touch my mate!? You should not have touched what is MINE."
"My King, I didn't know she was you..your mate!" my attacker stutters out. I don't need to see his aura to feel the very real fear permeate the air.

*****Velvet was left in the mortal world and has no idea what her true identity is. Her power is limited in the mortal realm.

The Fae King is slowly going mad, he needs to find the other half of his soul but where could she be? King Axe rules the Fae realm. In this realm, all males must find their mates or they lose themselves to madness.

"I don't f*ck virgins, red,"


When feisty Eleanor, accidentally stumbles on an arrogant infuriating billionaire Liam James, he's instantly captivated by her. However, on first meeting, he treats her like a piece of dirt. Flaunting his money on her face.
Falling for him would be the death of her.
But how long can she resist?

Drawn kicking and screaming into a centuries-old war, can a woman on the brink of madness fulfill the realm's bloodiest prophecy?  Crystalyn Creek is a tenacious survivor in her fading, hi-tech birth world. So when she spots a tome full of strange symbols at her otherwise mind-numbing job, she's grateful for the distraction. But after her odd affinity for the book's designs inadvertently opens a portal, she's shocked when her carefree younger sister tumbles through.  Determined to pull her sibling back to safety, Crystalyn dives through the otherworldly doorway and becomes embroiled in an ages-long battle between light and dark magic. But when she discovers using her fascinating new power is slowly killing her, she's angered by the knowledge that her rescue mission could fuel the death of the land… and her own demise.  Will Crystalyn survive her dangerous quest to save her sister before the entire realm falls to its doom?  Beyond The Sapphire Gate is the intricate first book in The Flow of Power science fiction fantasy series. If you like captivating characters, richly detailed world-building, and surprising twist endings, then you'll love R.V. Johnson's struggle for survival.  Get Beyond The Sapphire Gate to channel destiny today!

I was just Jade Knight, the daughter of a man branded a traitor, an omega, a girl nobody wanted.
Until the Ashridge triplets, heirs to the Shadow Moon Pack, decided I belonged to them...
Ryder, Ronan, and Renzo. Three names that once meant friendship, now whispered fear, danger, desire, and lust in every heartbeat.
They dominate, they torment, and they watch me with eyes that make my blood run hot and my pulse betray me. I hate them.
I want them.
I should run…. but every instinct in me knows I can’t.

"I, Logan Carter, Alpha of the Crescent Moon Pack, reject you, Emma Parker of the Crescent Moon Pack."

I could feel my heart breaking. Leon was howling inside me, and I could feel his pain.

She was looking right at me, and I could see the pain in her eyes, but she refused to show it. Most wolves fall to their knees from pain. I wanted to fall to my knees and claw at my chest. But she didn’t. She was standing there with her head held high. She took a deep breath and closed her wonderful eyes.

"I, Emma Parker of the Crescent Moon Pack, accept your rejection."

When Emma turns 18, she is surprised that her mate is the Alpha of her pack. But her happiness about finding her mate didn't last long. Her mate rejected her for a stronger she-wolf. That she-wolf hates Emma and wants to get rid of her, but that isn't the only thing Emma has to deal with. Emma finds out that she is not an ordinary wolf and that there are people who want to use her. They are dangerous. They will do everything to get what they want.

What will Emma do? Will her mate regret rejecting her? Will her mate save her from the people around them?

In a world ravaged by fear and violence, humanity wages a merciless war against supernatural beings.

Gabriel, a brooding warlock haunted by the loss of his family, embraces a life devoid of love while honing his magical skills and evading the inquisitors. His only companion is his loyal friend, Nick.

Aria, a beautiful witch unaware of her powers, is forced to flee her destroyed village and seeks help in the city. Her path intertwines with Gabriel's, but who are they to each other?

As their kind faces imminent destruction, they must find each other in time to save themselves and preserve their future.

Will they overcome their pasts and unite against the encroaching darkness? Their journey will test their strength and reveal the power of love amidst chaos.

"I, Logan Carter, Alpha of the Crescent Moon Pack, reject you, Emma Parker of the Crescent Moon Pack."

I could feel my heart breaking. Leon was howling inside me, and I could feel his pain.

She was looking right at me, and I could see the pain in her eyes, but she refused to show it. Most wolves fall to their knees from pain. I wanted to fall to my knees and claw at my chest. But she didn’t. She was standing there with her head held high. She took a deep breath and closed her wonderful eyes.
"I, Emma Parker of the Crescent Moon Pack, accept your rejection."

When Emma turns 18, she is surprised that her mate is the Alpha of her pack. But her happiness about finding her mate didn't last long. Her mate rejected her for a stronger she-wolf. That she-wolf hates Emma and wants to get rid of her, but that isn't the only thing Emma has to deal with. Emma finds out that she is not an ordinary wolf and that there are people who want to use her. They are dangerous. They will do everything to get what they want.

What will Emma do? Will her mate regret rejecting her? Will her mate save her from the people around them?

"I, Madeline Clark, rejec…," I started speaking, but Alpha Dimitri stopped me by putting his hand over my mouth.
He pulled me closer to him and growled.
"What the hell are you doing?!" he shouted. "I am not letting you do this, Maddie. I've waited for you for months and I am not going to lose you!"
His eyes held so much pain and his voice was laced with panic.
"You are mine, Maddie," he said as he leaned in and pressed a small kiss on my forehead. "You are mine, and I am not letting you go."

Madeline is a 17-year-old girl who still hasn't shifted into her wolf. Her father abandoned her mother when she was very young. She's been bullied and laughed at all the time. After she lost her mom, the person who loved her the most, Madeline is completely distraught and broken. Her father comes back to take her back to his pack. Madeline is against it, but her financial situation forces her to go with him.

Dimitri is a Lycan wolf, the Alpha of his very successful pack. He is 22 years old, and he still hasn't found his mate. When Madeline comes to his pack, he is very surprised to find out that she is his mate. He is also very frustrated because she is his stepsister who still hasn't shifted. She can't recognize him as her mate.

Madeline struggles in the new pack. She doesn't have the best relationship with her stepmother. She can't wait to turn 18 and leave.

What will happen when Madeline finds out who her mate is? What will Dimitri do after she rejects him? Will he be able to convince her to stay?

Rachael Quincy's life changes when she comes across Ethan Frost. Everything she has known turns out to be false. She isn't the ordinary human she thought she was.... She was much more!

The worst of all, she is forced into a contract marriage she couldn't reject and a love interest that slowly pulls her to her doom.

With her enemies approaching, Rachael must discover herself, fight and make the ultimate decision to protect those she has come to love or watch the world die?

My name is Diana Hammington
A thousand years ago, my siblings and I had a happy life, one that was very short lived compared to the endless agony that came after.
Our father was a pirate and our mother was a witch, both had an insatiable greed for power and in their quest to command more authority, they got the very Hammington name Cursed

My siblings and I were condemned to an eternity of misery, struggling with powers neither of us understood
We roamed the earth for centuries and we became savageries giving in to the very cursed beast within us

We are the monsters children were taught to dread
We are the evil lurking in the shadows
We are broken, bloodthirsty, savage and wild beasts
We are The Hammingtons

In the course of our immortal life, we wandered round the world in search of the one thing that continuously evaded our grasp, happiness
Will we ever find what we seek? Or will we continue being victims to our own monstrosity........

I paused at the ajar conference room door, attempting to balance the tray of coffees. Creedon was my new boss, now also my boyfriend. I listened at the door.

“Where is that slut of yours, Creedon? Must be a hell of a lay. The coffee is going to be cold,” Michael complained. “What's the point in keeping her around? She's not even your breed.”
Not his breed?
“You know me, I like nice accessories, Besides, she is smarter than she looks."
An Accessory?
“Stop toying with the girl. You're letting her get too close to us. Not to mention the scandal you’ll have with the press once they realize she's a poor country girl. America will fall in love with her, you will just crush them when you’re done with her. Poor Image...” The sound of fits hitting the table silenced the room.

“She’s mine! She is no concern of yours. I can fuck her, breed her, or cast her aside, remember who's in charge here. “If I want to use her as a cum bucket, I will." His anger explosive.
Breed me? Cast me aside? Cum bucket? I think not!*

“She is pretty, but she’s of no value to you, Creedon. A pebble in a sea of diamonds, darling. You can have any woman you desire. Fuck her out of your system, and sign off on her,” Latrisha spat. “That one is going to become a pain in your ass. You need a bitch that will submit.”

Someone, please, come mop up the word vomit this woman has just spewed.

“I have her under control, Trisha, back the fuck off.”

**Control? Oh, hell naw! ** He hadn't met the take no bullshit southern bitch I could be.

Rage brewed as I elbowed open door.

Well, here goes everything.

Beck
I am still here by the threads of my existence, tied to living by the penance, grief-stricken heart. It’s been almost 20 years since the light of my existence left this world in such a way that brutality and suffering can only touch the surface of her last hours. My escuing women wronged irrevocably by the likes of men like those who took my Alley from me. I was ready to meet her again on the other side. About to take my last ride, when a blonde ran into me a week ago, covered in bruises she tried to hide. The moon goddess kept finding reasons to prolong the inevitable…my overdue ending. Adelaide, however, had hit my heart harder than all the others. A seemingly human woman, obviously abused. So I helped her escape the Alpha. The entire thing was a puzzle I was still trying to piece together; my only conclusion was that Adelaide didn’t know what she was.

I returned to end him. A fucking CEO alpha wolf with too many layers of security for me to get through. That's why I’m sitting in an alley across from her best friend's apartment when I see and scent two bears roll up. She’s a hacker; I need her help. I’m already seeing red as I hear their words.

But nothing prepared me for what I was faced with now. A human woman and her cub. A combination that was as good as a death sentence in our world. If the wrong bears got their hands on them, they were worse than dead. Alley wouldn’t accept that future, so I wouldn’t either. What I didn’t expect was how deeply they would burrow into the shattered depths of my heart.

"White wolf! Kill that monster!"
That roar stole my eighteenth birthday and shattered my world. My first shift should have been glory—blood turned blessing into shame. By dawn they'd branded me "cursed": cast out by my pack, abandoned by family, stripped of my nature. My father didn't defend me—he sent me to a forsaken island where wolfless outcasts were forged into weapons, forced to kill each other until only one could leave.
On that island I learned the darkest edges of humanity and how to bury terror in bone. Countless times I wanted to surrender—dive into the waves and never surface—but the accusing faces that haunted my dreams pushed me back toward something colder than survival: revenge. I escaped, and for three years I hid among humans, collecting secrets, learning to move like a shadow, sharpening patience into precision—becoming a blade.
Then, under a full moon, I touched a bleeding stranger—and my wolf returned with a violence that made me whole. Who was he? Why could he wake what I'd thought dead?
One thing I know: now is the time.
I have waited three years for this. I will make everyone who destroyed me pay—and take back everything that was stolen from me.

I was reborn on the eve of the arranged marriage, and the first thing Liana and I did was swap our marriage contracts.
In my past life, gentle Liana had married Kael, the cold and ruthless Alpha of the Wolf Clan.
But Kael always put the scheming daughter of his savior first, condemning my cousin to a lifetime of endless grievance and suffocating misery.
As for me, with my fiery temper, I’d been wed to a mediocre, weak Beta.
He spent every day complaining that I “wasn’t a woman at all”. Endless quarrels and the crushing burden of the family eventually led me to a tragic end—dying exhausted on the battlefield.
Now I opened my eyes again, staring at the fateful marriage contract on the nightstand. I clenched my fists and looked at my teary-eyed cousin.
“Tomorrow, you’ll marry that Beta. And as for that cold-blooded Alpha? I’ll take care of him.”

When I woke up again, the air was torn apart by the staccato crack of gunfire.
I had been reborn. I was four months pregnant—exactly when Luca’s "first love" had conspired with a rival syndicate to ambush our estate.

In my previous life, the moment the shooting started, I hadn't hesitated. I immediately dialed my husband, the Don of the family.

To protect the heir growing inside me, he had decisively dragged me out of the line of fire first.

But the price was steep. His beloved Isabella took a bullet straight to the heart in the chaos, dying instantly.

Afterward, with bloodshot eyes, he told me he didn't blame me. He even stepped away from the mafia empire, remaining at the estate to play the perfect husband, solely to ensure I had a safe delivery.

I believed him. Until the day I gave birth.

During the sacred baptism in the family chapel, he tore off his mask and personally sent both me and our infant son to hell.

In my final moments, I would never forget the look in his eyes—a hatred that burned down to the bone.

"If it weren't for you, she never would have died," he had said, his voice ice-cold as I lay in a pool of my own blood. "She bled out that day. You and this bastard will bleed twice as much today."

"How much longer are you going to drag this out?! "My husband, Julian, kicked the bathroom door open, violently snapping my lipstick in half. "I don't have time to waste on a psycho. Find your own way to the gala!"
He snatched the unlabeled bottle from the vanity, dry-swallowed two capsules, and slammed it back down before driving off.
When I arrived at the gala alone, his mother asked where he was.
"He'll be here later," I said with a perfect smile.
But I knew he would never make it.

At Holy Oak High, being the Top Flyer isn't just a crown.
It’s a ticket to the upper class.
Girls would pay any price to stand at the top of that pyramid.
But I didn't understand that the spotlight hid a man-eating abyss until I had to put on that blood-stained uniform.
Listen. Do you hear that scratching sound coming from inside the locker?

I have been tormented by a strange illness for ten years, with blood draws and surgeries being commonplace.
My mother always encouraged me, saying, "Nian Nian, bear with it a little longer. The pain will be over soon. Mom and Dad are doing this to save your life."
Hoping to be cured as soon as possible, I gritted my teeth and endured ten years of painful treatments, even if it meant living like a lab subject.
That was until I accidentally overheard my parents’ cruel conversation:
“Increase the blood draw even more. It doesn’t matter if she dies—she was only picked up to save Ying Ying. As long as she has a breath left, she owes it to us.”
At that moment, I finally understood: I was never sick at all.
The decade of daily treatments were nothing but a way to use me to extend the life of their biological daughter.

Carter and I have been together for five years. We never had actual sex.
During our most intimate moments, he would only ever slip a dark Violet Pearl deep inside of me. I honestly thought it was his way of cherishing me.
Until tonight.
I woke up totally naked to find a phone set up on the bed, its lens glaring right between my thighs, with a red "LIVE" icon blinking on the screen.
[The pearl matures Oct 31. Five years of cultivation!] the chat kept scrolling.
I checked the screen on my phone.
It’s October 30.

Since when is eating a snack before dinner a capital crime? All because of a bag of gummies, my parents beat the hell out of me, and a judge coldly sentenced me to death. I was absolutely convinced the candy was laced! It wasn't until moments before my execution that I accidentally found out the truth: my family... were never actually my family to begin with.

At my bedside, for what felt like the hundredth time,my family asked me nervously,“Are you still planning to look for Elias?”
I blinked in confusion, asking, “Who is Elias? Why would I look for him?”
And at that moment, the doctors declared me “recovered.”
I was finally allowed to leave the psychiatric clinic that had tormented me for more than a year.
They told me—that Elias never existed, that I had fallen into delusion, loving a man created by my imagination.
I understand that only by obeying them can I regain my freedom.

I just bought my daughter a ruby choker. But the moment I fastened it around her neck, my world came crashing down.
The shopkeeper called me a sick freak. My loving husband demanded an instant divorce. My best friend called me a monster.
Why? It’s just a piece of jewelry... right?

On a stormy night, an intruder broke into the estate and slashed my husband's throat.
I didn't call the police. Instead, I grabbed the bleach and scrubbed away every trace the killer left behind.
The next morning, my mother-in-law dug her nails into my arm. "Tell them! Who murdered my son?!"
"Lady Cordelia, if you saw anything, now is the time to speak." The police captain stepped closer, his voice hard.
I met his gaze without blinking. "The thunder was loud last night. I took my sleeping pills and heard absolutely nothing."

After my divorce, I fled to the unfamiliar streets of Seattle with my daughter. As a Black single mother, the crushing weight of surviving in a strange city nearly broke me.
That is, until David came along. A detective with the Major Crimes Unit, he became our safe haven, wrapping my daughter and me in his fierce, unwavering protection.
I thought I had finally made it through the darkness. I thought I was about to embrace a brand-new life.
Until our six-month anniversary. I showed up for our date full of joyful anticipation, only to accidentally witness him tenderly kissing a pregnant white woman.
With his two young children clustered right by his side...

It was my fourth time putting on a wedding dress.

To protect myself against my own parents, I hired a ten-man security detail.

I specifically chose the most isolated chapel in the suburbs.

Because at my first three weddings, they acted like absolute maniacs—destroying my rings and making me a complete laughingstock in front of everyone.

I just couldn't understand what kind of parents would do such a thing.

This time, I actually thought I could finally marry Liam in peace.

Until the bridal suite door was kicked open.

And my dad, once again, snatched my diamond ring away.

"Come see our wedding invitations!" I excitedly held up the document folder I'd grabbed from ,my fiancé, Lorenzo's study, showing it off to his men in his private safe house on the Upper East Side.

Lorenzo and I had been running ourselves ragged this month preparing for the wedding.

Lorenzo's guys raised their glasses, waiting to see our custom-designed invitations. I eagerly turned the folder upside down—

Marriage certificates, wedding photos, and a property transfer document came tumbling out onto the floor.

Dead silence.

"Oh, these aren't our invitations..." I was still grinning foolishly. "Must be the wrong folder."

"Let me see which lucky lady is about to become a happy bride."

I looked down at the wedding photo. A beautiful brunette woman in an elaborate white gown smiled from the center of the picture, looking so blissful, so content.

When my eyes shifted to the groom beside her, my world collapsed.

It was Lorenzo. He wore a perfect black tuxedo, but he was tenderly embracing a woman I'd never seen before.

On our seventh wedding anniversary, my Alpha husband missed the candlelit dinner for the seventh time.
He rushed off to rescue an Omega surrounded by vampires, leaving me alone in the villa.
That same night, a jarring photo spread through the pack.
Damien, covered in blood, held Rose tightly in his arms, his lips pressed against her forehead.
Everyone was waiting for me to be jealous, to rage.
But I didn’t scream or argue like I used to.
Instead, I poured out his favorite champagne, closed my eyes calmly, and prayed to the Moon Goddess.
“You once said I have a destined mate.”
“If he will make me strong and free me from this wretched marriage, let him come for me in seven days.”

As the tyrant ruling the underworld, Victor was ruthless and bloodthirsty, showing no mercy to anyone.

Women who tried to climb into his bed usually didn’t even get a whole corpse, yet I was the only one he kept by his side.

I’d taken a poisoned bullet for him, and nearly bled to death on the rotting floor of a safe house giving birth to his son.

He once kissed the bullet scar on my shoulder and promised me that when he sat on the godfather’s throne, I would be his only family matriarch.

But the moment he slipped on that black onyx ring symbolizing power, he carried another woman into the master bedroom of the manor.

I burst for the door, and he ordered his bodyguards to pin me outside, forcing me to listen to their sounds of passion all night long.

I banged on the door like a madwoman, so he slammed my paintbrush-wielding right hand in the heavy oak doorframe and crushed it mercilessly.

I finally caved when he threatened to cut off my mother’s hospital treatment.

On the second floor of this old Victorian house is a long hallway with a dark red rug. Six doors are evenly spaced along its walls.
We lived here peacefully for ten years.
Until last month, when my seven-year-old sister, Maeve, suddenly refused to set foot in it.
The adults dismissed it as a childish phobia.
Until late one night, hiding under the covers, she pressed her face to my ear and whispered:
"Don't count the doors."

The smell of antiseptic, the sharp sting of restraints biting into my flesh, and the pitying look on Silas's face as he stood by my hospital bed.
"Maeve, you're so sick. The baby is just a hallucination."
In my last life, consumed by despair and self-doubt, I threw myself off the roof of the psychiatric hospital.
But now, my eyes snapped open, my hands instinctively flying to protect my stomach.
My baby is still here!
I'm back—exactly one week before my child disappeared.

I am the most obedient lover by the side of Liam, the Alpha of the Blackwood Tribe.
I am also the only nameless stray in the entire tribe.
For five years, whenever Liam spent the night with other she-wolves, the next morning I would receive a large check or a deed to a house.
People in the tribe say I am a greedy leech.
That for money, I have thrown away the pride of a werewolf.
Even if Liam kissed another woman right in front of me, I would smile, straighten his collar, and then take the money he gave me.
Yes, I love money very much.
If they knew that this money was enough to buy the territories of three small packs, they would probably be green with envy.
As long as the money is good, betrayal doesn’t hurt that much.
Until today, when Liam brought back a pure-blooded white she-wolf.
He handed me a blank check, saying this would be the last payment he gave me.
My wolf spirit roared inside me.
It’s time for me to take the money, disappear, and return to being the queen I truly am.

This was Killian’s tenth time bringing a stray werewolf into our bedroom.
I didn’t growl like before, nor did I threaten her.
I picked up the old cloak from the floor and handed it to the girl trembling in the corner.
“Leave through the back door. The patrol just passed.”
The girl glanced at me fearfully, grabbed the cloak, and ran out.
Killian leaned against the headboard.
Bare-chested, a cigar in hand, his expression was full of arrogance.
“She’s just a newly matured stray werewolf. Don’t scare her.”
“Elira, you come from noble blood. You wouldn’t make a fuss about this.”
“Tonight is her first transformation. I need to be with her. I won’t be back.”
I lowered my head, hiding my golden eyes.
What Killian didn’t know was—
that stray girl was carrying the highly contagious and fatal Rotting Sickness.

When the pain started, my mother-in-law called me a monster, then drove off like a madwoman. My doctor slit his own throat in front of me. My husband locked me away "for my safety."
I thought they didn't want my baby. That they were horrified by the child I carried.
But I was wrong.
The thing growing inside me was never my child at all.

I was diagnosed with hemophilia when I was ten years old.
At first, my parents were terrified. They watched me closely, rushed me to the hospital over every bruise, every nosebleed. I was the fragile one—the child who needed saving.

Then years passed.
They got used to it.
They got tired.

By the time my twin sister was graduating and my family was finally breathing again, I was about to turn eighteen.
And that night, while everyone believed I’d be fine like always, I bled to death.

"Knock on this door over the noise one more time, and you're dead!"
Calling the cops was useless, and I was too broke to move.
Driven practically insane, I recklessly tore open the black box from the dark web—the seller promised that if I just followed the instructions, it would "eliminate the noise at the source."
Less than half an hour later, the deafening rager upstairs completely stopped.
Three mornings later, a homicide detective pounded furiously on my door.
"The father and son upstairs are dead."