208 Book(s) Related to taylor swift jake gyllenhaal

"Jessica, you can't escape.

There's nowhere in the world that I can't find you. No matter where you run, I will find you."

But what he never expected was that he had used all of his power and connections to search for her, but there was no record of Jessica at any airport, high-speed railway station, bus station, or even hotel.

Was it true what she said, that she evaporated from this world like a human being, and really went to a place where he could never find her again?

On her eighteenth birthday, she receives an unexpected gift: an acceptance letter from a magic academy.
That's when she discovers she's a shapeshifter. Her biological parents left behind only a single letter, telling her to find the truth at the academy.
The school is full of danger. Even worse, she can't shift at all.
On her very first day, she's almost burned to ashes by a dragon, the most feared student on campus.
Wait... She only wanted to be friends with the dragon. How did she end up becoming the academy's public enemy?
School Rule No. 1: Never go outside on the night of a full moon. But she does, and comes face to face with a werewolf who has completely lost his humanity.
The last dragon in the magical world: "A bet is a bet. Next time, you're watching a movie sitting on my back."
The Alpha of the werewolf pack: "I won't let anyone lay a finger on you."

Emerald thought that she and Jace Higginson were divorced. After five years, she returns to the country to collaborate with his company and eventually takes her revenge. What will she do when she sees a different Jace, making her uneasy whenever they meet? What would she do when her supposed ex-husband was still her husband because he didn't file the divorce? Will Emerald give Jace his rights to their son whom she conceived before she left?
Find out how Emerald will try to fight her own feelings towards Jace and his eagerness to win her back as she tries to find her nanny who will eventually unfold her true identity.

Earth is in turmoil from frequent attacks from strange creatures when brilliant but insecure researcher Jane, her boyfriend Paul, and her team capture a supernatural being; it is a merman. Allen, the merman, called himself the last Dragon King. Jane, Paul, and her team wonder why a merman would want to be called a dragon and are putting him through a series of tests. Allen vows to destroy humanity’s experiments of his kind.
Jane and Paul were in the facility being romantic when there was crisis once again in the world as dragons attacked their facility and it seemed that Allen would die in his test chamber.
Unknown to Jane, Allen summoned for the dragons to come and rescue him but Elara defies her team and their laws putting herself at great risk to set him free only to see him morph into a dragon and fly away
He gives her a mark, which she doesn't understand.
She was having terrible dreams seeing herself in a different world when she realized Allen marked her as his mate.
Now she is in trouble with her team on Earth as she released the dragon and was about to face punishment when Allen returned and took her to his own world, leaving Paul brokenhearted. A world she spent all her life debating whether was real or not, studying from a distance.
She learns the true reason behind the research on the non-humans. It wasn't to understand them. It was to kill them.
Would she accept her true fate as the mate of the dragon king and conquer the earth before humanity's greed consumes them all?

To end two years of a long-distance marriage with my husband, Sutton Brennan, I quit my job and moved halfway across the state to join his top-tier medical center.
But from the moment I clocked in on day one, a nightmare awaited me.
IV pain pumps violently popped open in my hands, medication cabinets rejected my fingerprints, coffee machines sprayed me with boiling water, microwaves exploded in public, and the employee lockers locked me out entirely.
My colleagues laughed at me, calling me a walking disaster. The head nurse publicly berated me for being incompetent. And my husband, the man I trusted most, simply smiled his gentle smile and said, "You're just tense. Give it a few more days."
In my past life, I believed him. I gritted my teeth and held on until the bitter end—and ultimately died inside this very hospital.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back on my first day of work.

“Finally...I’m here.”
Tyler murmurs as he stares up at the skyscraper.
“I will pull this place down, every brick of it. No one among them will escape,” Tyler, the Emperor returned, whispers, his hand on the locket hidden under his shirt.
After going through fire and enduring the bitterness of those who should have been family, Tyler, once taken away in disgrace, returns in dark glory to take revenge on those who have his parents’ blood on their hands.
What happens when a sheep becomes a wolf? What happens when the rejected stone strikes back?
A gripping tale of epic comeback, payback, and astronomical rise to the top.

I loved Finley for two years.
Until 1:00 AM on a Tuesday, when his best friend, Orion, sent me a half-naked photo and a jarring voice note."
If I actually bag her, don't go flipping out on me. A deal's a deal."
I booked the first flight out to confront him, only to catch the boy I loved naked and thrusting into another woman.
But that wasn't even the part that broke me.
When my roommate bypassed the hockey team's private Discord server, I found a channel named: #locker-room-bets.
There was my boyfriend, typing the words that shattered my world: "She's boring... She's like a lost puppy, you can't shake her... Play with her all you want."
My loyalty and two years of my life were nothing but a sick joke.
The entire hockey team had put money down on when I would willingly spread my legs for his best friend.

Vera Sinclair had everything, wealth and a future mapped out by her ambitious father. But on the night of her extravagant eighteenth birthday party, a heated argument with her father shattered everything.

Seeking an escape, she drowned her pain in reckless indulgence, only to wake up in the arms of Logan Grey, the dark, untouchable heir to one of the most feared Mafia empires. She had worshiped him from afar for years, but after taking her innocence, he left her with nothing but a cold shoulder.

Determined to forget him, Vera tried to move on. But fate had other plans. A missed period led to a devastating revelation, and a family who would rather erase the problem than endure a blood entanglement with the notorious Grey heathens.

But Vera wanted to keep her baby, so with no other options, she ran to Logan, the very man her family wanted her to stay away from. Logan, however, had his own secrets, the one rule his father insisted on: never sire a child out of wedlock.

This meant that Vera's pregnancy could cost him everything, his position, inheritance, and freedom. Logan had no intention of being forced to marry her.

But what he didn’t expect was another threat lurking in the shadows, his estranged brother. A man just as powerful and dangerous, eager to claim what Logan refused. Vera soon found herself not only a mother to a Mafia heir but also at the center of a battle between two men who had been feuding since birth.

My beloved husband was left completely paralyzed after an assassination attempt targeting our mafia family. Consumed by despair, he begged for death every day. "Let me die, Carla... This is better for both of us," he whispered through his oxygen mask.
Desperate to give him a reason to live, I told him a merciful lie—that I was pregnant. Seeing hope rekindled in his eyes, I knew I had to make this lie reality. I made a morally unthinkable decision: to seek help from Ricardo's brother, Alessandro.
In his luxurious Manhattan office, I made an impossible request. "Give me a child," I pleaded with the ruthless head of our crime family. But Alessandro's response was ice-cold: "You overestimate the value of blood relations."
When he finally considered my desperate proposal, his terms were devastating: "Five minutes. You have five minutes to make me want you."

Elle Davidson, orphaned at 12 with limited memory, is taken in by the Alpha and Luna of the New Moon pack. There she meets Damon Ledger, the future Alpha and her nemesis. Damon does everything he can to control Elle's life, and his friends do everything they can to make her life hell. All of that changes after Damon comes home from Alpha training, and their undeniable chemistry makes staying away from one another impossible.
What will happen when Elle's past finally catches up to her? Will Elle be able to fight the increasing attraction she has for Damon, her ultimate enemy? Or will she succumb to the lust she feels for him?

Charlotte Sinclair was murdered at the hands of her abusive boyfriend. After dying, she wakes up in the body of another. She pieces together information from her first day as Aribella Voss, realizing that she's been reincarnated into a book she knew all too well. The only problem: She was fated to die in this story as well. She sets out on a mission to ensure that doesn't happen, but when she begins changing important parts of the story, she also changes the plot of the story she knew. Without the upper hand, Aribella no longer has idea what lies in her future.

‘I had not expected to breed you, little girl.’ He said, his voice emotionless but his eyes were hot with lust,’ You were just a plaything to be used till I tired of you, but there was no way I would let any child of mine grow up as a bastard.’
My breath caught in my throat at the sheer cruelty, the heartlessness of his words. Was that all I had been to him?
The young innocent woman and the older, heartless Mafia Boss who cannot have enough of her.

When the cynical, jaded Mafia Don Lucien Delano, meets eighteen-year-old, Proserpina Martinez, she falls in love with him without realizing that she is just a plaything for him. By the time she comprehends reality, it is too late. Pregnant and alone the spirited young woman does something that takes the Don by surprise.
She runs away.
But the Don has never had a woman dump him; He is the one who leaves them, Incensed, he sets out to get them back
What happens next?
Read it to find out how the stormy, passionate lovers battle their emotions and themselves.

Elle Davidson, orphaned at 12 with limited memory, is taken in by the Alpha and Luna of the New Moon pack. There she meets Damon Ledger, the future Alpha, and her nemesis. Damon does everything he can to control Elle's life, and his friends do everything they can to make her life hell. All of that changes after Damon comes home from Alpha training, and their undeniable chemistry makes staying away from one another impossible. What will happen when Elle's past finally catches up to her, revealing unknown enemies and a secret identity? Will Elle be able to fight the increasing attraction she has for Damon? Or will she succumb to the lust she feels, risking everything?

He feeds me his blood.
He locks the doors.
And he tells me I belong to him now.

I wake up in a vampire’s mansion with no memory of how I got here—only the hunger, the burning sunlight, and the man who refuses to let me leave. Thad Samford is cold, commanding, and absolute. He says my transformation isn’t finished. Until it is, my life—and my body—are under his control.

When I try to escape, the sun nearly kills me.
When he saves me, he binds me to him in blood.

The bond changes everything. His voice settles the hunger. His presence pulls at something deep inside me. I should fear him—but my body craves his blood more than freedom.


As Thelma learns how to exists in this new world, she starts piecing together the truth he's been hiding. Her turning wasn't random. She was chosen, and Thad knows why. Even if he won't tell her.

The more Thelma uncovers, the less she knows what to believe. Thad claims he's protecting her, but from what? Why does his protection feel like a prison? As rival clans close in and dark secrets come to light, Thelma has to decide if she can trust the man who helped steal her humanity or if she should walk away before he destroys her completely.

I gasped, fear gripping me instantly. My gaze met the black holes in my ski mask. A sharp pain shot through the back of my head, and warm, wet blood trickled down. My mother lay dead in a pool of blood. Someone had broken into my house and killed her, but the culprit pointed to my abusive, alcoholic, and cruel father. I had no proof.

I thought my life would forever be shrouded in the shadow of my mother's death, until I left my hometown and unexpectedly encountered another monster who had bullied me in high school. I was once again drawn into a strange emotional entanglement with him, and even discovered he harbored a dark secret. My already tragic life became even more unpredictable…

Liam O’Grady is a powerful loan shark and realtor, a man mixed in crime and an underground fighter, a King. He owns all the main gambling dens in the city and in the areas around and does not hesitate to use muscle or kill his opponents.
Between them, his half-brother Finn St Just and he run the city of Hunter’s Folly, with the strength of their muscle and money power.
The brothers are Dominants and they enjoy subjugating the women they take. And they have the habit of sharing a woman.
But the jaded Liam knows that something is missing. He has turned thirty and he feels cynical, bored.
Like a breath of fresh air, innocent young Bianca Cruz turns up at their doorstep, asking for help. The nineteen-year-old is trying to get her family free of the clutches of the evil Dean Nelson, who was also responsible for the death of her father.
Liam agrees to help her, for he is intrigued by the young woman who is untouched and other-worldly, an innocent who appeals to his jaded self. It is like a jest to him, this chance to bed a girl who is totally inexperienced in the ways of his world. A virgin at that!
He along with his brother proposes a deal with the desperate young woman. They will help her; they will even restore her father’s beloved bakery and hand it over to her.
But the price is this:
She will be their willing submissive for a year.
*
Does she cave in and accept their terms?
And what will happen during this year to the girl who has no experience of men?
Worse, what will happen to her at the end of the year?
For Bianca is a sensitive young girl.
And the men who will own her are experienced , hard-hearted and callous men who do not care for the women they bed…

Sparks fly when attorney Kathy Brooks agrees to represent Charles Morgan, Jr. in a high-profile lawsuit against a powerful government defense contractor. But when Charles’ hidden agenda threatens to expose the government’s dirty little secrets, what started out as the case of a lifetime could cost Kathy her heart, her career and even her life.Just Dreams is a page turning action packed romantic legal thriller set in Miami complete with military heroes, FBI agents, spies and hackers. If you like fast paced romantic suspense, then you’ll love Just Dreams. Just don’t start it at night if you want to sleep.

Five years. Five years I gave everything to Paxton Sterling—my heart, my body, my wolf's soul. I built his empire as Chief Strategy Officer while wearing his mark like a badge of honor.

Then she came back.

Layla—my pure-blooded half-sister with her perfect smile and poison tongue. Within days of her return from Europe, Paxton was ready to throw me away like yesterday's news.

"I want to sever our bond, Freya. Lyra is my true mate."

Wrong move, Alpha.

He thinks I'm just another submissive mate who'll quietly disappear. He's forgotten I'm a mixed-blood Alpha who's been playing nice for far too long. While he's busy playing house with my backstabbing sister, Lucas Morgan—the most dangerous Alpha in the territory—is making me an offer I can't refuse.

Paxton wants to discard me? Fine.

But he's about to learn that some women don't just walk away—they burn everything down on their way out.

I'm done being the good girl. Done being the perfect mate. Done hiding what I really am.

They say some secrets are meant to stay buried.

I used to believe that too—until Roman Aldridge walked back into my life fifteen years later, no longer the broken thirteen-year-old boy I once held through his darkest nights, but a devastatingly handsome man who looked at me like I was his salvation and his damnation all at once.

"I've never stopped loving you, Vivian."

Those seven words shattered the carefully constructed walls I'd built around my heart. Because the truth? I'd never stopped loving him either.

Fifteen years ago, I was his dead mother's replacement—a twenty-three-year-old political advisor tasked with caring for a grieving child. I held him when he cried, watched him grow, and somewhere along the way, developed feelings that terrified me so much I fled Seattle like my life depended on it.

Now I'm back. Divorced, desperate, and apparently still weak enough to melt under those same dark eyes that once looked at me with innocent adoration but now burn with a man's desire.

The scandal writes itself: Governor Candidate's Son Seduces Former Caregiver. Or is it the other way around? Does it matter when the entire world thinks you're a predator who groomed the boy you were supposed to protect?

Roman doesn't care about the headlines. He doesn't care that loving me could destroy his political future, his relationship with his father, everything he's worked for. He says he'd rather burn the whole world down than live without me.

The problem is, I believe him.

And God help me, I think I might let him.

Because sometimes, the most forbidden love is the only one worth fighting for.

Even if it means that a woman falls in love with the child she once nurtured.

I died—not in the way you'd expect, but slowly, painfully, while he was entangled with her.

He called her his savior, the woman who sold everything to rescue his failing empire. Little did he know, it was my money, my life's work, that he squandered.

The betrayal burned hotter than any flame, and I vowed he'd pay.

Now, he's gone—a leap from the heights he once ruled, his fall as swift as his rise.

When my husband handed the project I bled for to his "depressed" childhood sweetheart, he told me to be mature. "You're my wife. You shouldn't care about the credit."

So, when I was in the hospital miscarrying our baby while he threw her a party, I didn't cry. When she posted selfies wearing my anniversary necklace, I didn't scream.

Julian thought he had finally broken me into the perfect, obedient housewife. He truly believed I was nothing without him.

What a pathetic joke.

He had no idea his entire "business empire" was secretly kept alive by my family's trust fund.

He certainly didn't know the "mundane paperwork" he blindly signed this morning was my resignation—and our divorce agreement.

At our seventh wedding anniversary dinner, my husband Nathan audaciously discussed the name of the child his mistress Victoria was carrying, speaking in Spanish right in front of me.
They presumed I could not understand. Yet, not only did I comprehend every word, but I had also long ago uncovered evidence of their affair—including those passionate videos filmed in his car...
But when I vanished completely, he went into a frenzy.
When the news of the 'plane crash' broke, he spent fifty million dollars, deploying twelve rescue helicopters to search relentlessly through the storm for seven days and nights.
When the rescue team informed him that 'there were no survivors,' this once indomitable man knelt on the deck, weeping inconsolably like a child who has lost his mother.
Little did he know, there was no trace of me on that 'lost' plane.
And now, it was my turn to make him experience the true meaning of loss.

I spent two years alongside the Mafia don, serving as his most obedient secretary and most transparent wife, watching as he bestowed all his tenderness upon his shining muse. With great effort, I deceived him into signing the divorce papers and, turning away, fled to war-torn Syria, carrying his child within me. I believed I would never cross paths with him again, until one day, drenched in blood, he knelt amidst the rubble, desperately clawing at the stones, screaming my name. It was only after I left that he truly understood the meaning of loss...

I was forced by my father to fulfill an arranged engagement with an Alpha I'd never met face-to-face. Pushing open the jewelry store door, I found my fiancé Kane spoiling his childhood sweetheart Briar, who was trying to snatch my mother’s ring. "Security! Get this stray out of here!" Briar screamed, pointing at me. When I revealed my identity, Kane sneered coldly: "What bullshit pact? I would never marry a woman like you." Briar snatched the ring and threw water at my face: "Kneel down and beg me to give it back!" When I fought back, Kane exploded in rage: "How dare you touch my woman? Hold her down!" Four warriors pinned me down as Briar laughed cruelly: "Let everyone see this delusional bitch who doesn't know her place!" They stepped on my hand while Kane watched coldly, even urging her on: "Hurry up, let her learn her lesson." Just as she was about to chop off my finger with a knife, the door suddenly burst open—"Do you have any idea whose daughter you're humiliating?"

I died on my 28th birthday.

My family was throwing a birthday party for my sister Stella—yes, we share the same birthday, but in this house, only hers was worth celebrating.

My corpse was slowly rotting in the storage room while laughter and birthday songs echoed from the living room. They thought I was just "throwing another tantrum," completely unaware of the torment I had endured before dying.

The irony was crushing: I had spent five years ghostwriting musical compositions for her, making her the "genius composer" everyone adored. Meanwhile, I—the real creator—was dismissed as nothing more than a jealous older sister.

By the time they finally discovered my body, guided by the stench of decay, it was far too late.

But death was only the beginning of my revenge.

Every single person who had hurt me would pay the price.

Including those I loved most.

When I opened my eyes once more and beheld the familiar glint of scheming in my sister's gaze, I knew—she had also been reborn.

In my past life, she shattered the souls of my child and me with a forbidden moonlight ritual, driven solely by envy of my perfect partner and healthy heir. In my dying moments, I saw no remorse in her eyes, only a twisted satisfaction.

In this life, she still seeks to seize everything from me—my fiancé, my child.

This time, I have chosen the one whom everyone scorns as the "exile."

They call him a monster, curse him, and claim that any woman who unites with him will bear only deformed beasts.

What they fail to comprehend is that as I lay on the brink of death, it was he whose golden eyes reflected the anguish of despair. What they know even less is the secret I harbor—one that even I scarcely believe.

My dear sister, do you desire the perfect heir? Do you yearn for supreme power?

Come, then.

Let us see how long your hypocritical facade can endure when the blood moon rises again, and all discover the true "monster."

I was but eighteen when I found myself captivated by my best friend’s brother.

At twenty-one, I mustered the courage to confess my feelings. He welcomed me into his bed but never once into his heart.

For three long years, I reassured myself: "Just a little while longer. He will see me in due time."

Then Stella returned—the girl he had always yearned for, even while his hands roamed my body in the shadows.

He greeted her return with champagne and candlelight, and then, locking his gaze upon me amidst a gathering, he coldly declared:

"You crawled into my bed and offered yourself. Don't you see how cheap and pitiable you appear?"

I raised my eyes, meeting his once more.

"I shall no longer trouble you."

I retrieved my phone, navigated to a contact I had seldom engaged—my betrothed by arrangement—and typed: "I consent to the marriage."

Minutes before the Stanford Hackathon began, my childhood friend decided to bail to help his girlfriend shoot a TikTok video.

I was just about to stop him when his inner voice suddenly exploded in my head: 'I actually got reborn?'

'Last time, I listened to Maeve and stayed for the competition, securing my spot at Stanford. But Sloane went to Malibu alone to shoot her video and fell off a cliff!"

'Even though I pushed Maeve off a roof to avenge her, I still lost the love of my life.'

'This time, I'm not losing Sloane. If Maeve dares to stop me again, I'll make her pay with her life all over again!'

My blood ran cold, and the words of persuasion died in my throat.

If he wanted his tragic romance so badly, he could have it.

On the eve of the violin competition, I was dragged into the basement and tormented for three excruciating hours, my hands shattered by iron rods, rendering me incapable of ever playing again.

As I lay in the hospital awaiting emergency care, I discovered the truth: it was my own father who had hired the assassins to ruin me; it was my fiancé who deliberately delayed my surgery, aiming to leave me permanently disabled; and ultimately, it was my pampered sister, cherished by the entire family, who had set fire to gasoline with the intent to burn me alive.

Fifteen years ago, a sorcerer had proclaimed that my sister was the 'blessing' of the Winslow family, while I, through my very existence, was deemed a 'curse' that needed to be eradicated.

Due to this absurd prophecy, I became the target of my family's ambition to be rid of me.

They wished for my demise, yet I am determined to survive — to witness them pay the price for their choices today.

Last lifetime, my mate, Kael, had faked his own death just to openly sleep with his sister-in-law without judgment.

I screamed until my throat bled, pointing at the man pretending to be his dead twin brother.

For telling the truth, he dragged me to the sacred altar and burned my mark off my skin, while our four-year-old son was thrown into a pitch-black cell for crying out for her father.

We were banished, torn apart by rogues.

But the Moon Goddess is fair. She woke me up on the exact day of the funeral.

As the pack howls in mourning for their "dead" Alpha, I look at the man hiding in his brother's skin.

I won't expose him this time.

If Kael wants to play a dead man just to play house with his whore, I'll make sure he stays dead forever.

On our fifth anniversary, my Mafia Don husband kissed my cheek, then switched to Corsican to tell our adopted daughter how much he enjoyed getting her pregnant piece by piece.

He didn't know I spoke seven languages. Corsican included.

He didn't know that in three days, I would vanish — no body, no trail, no goodbye.

When I disappeared, he lost his mind.

Now it was my turn to teach him what losing someone really meant.

The floodwaters rushed into the basement, trapping my sister Isabella and me in the surging currents.

My brother, a former Navy SEAL, smashed through the window. Without a second of hesitation, he secured the rescue rope around Isabella.

"You're a good swimmer, figure your own way up! Isabella can't take the cold, I have to get her out first!"

He abandoned me and turned to hoist the rope, accidentally kicking away the only wooden crate keeping me afloat.

Once Isabella was pulled up, she reached down and slid the outer latch, deadlocking the only vent grate.

The floodwaters instantly swallowed me whole. Mud and debris violently surged into my mouth and nose. I was drowned alive.

The child I brought into this world through sheer determination now calls my husband's mistress "mother"; the youth who slew my father for my sake and was imprisoned, now confines me beyond the threshold, forcing me to hear his carnal symphony with his stepmother. Only then did I comprehend: the sixteen-year-old boy who committed patricide for me had long perished within the prison walls.

I knelt on the ground as my husband forcefully pried my fingers from his clothing, coldly uttering the words: "Get rid of this child."

This was my third child, a flesh and blood connection to him, yet for the sake of the white moonlight in a wheelchair, he plunged me into the depths of hell.

My in-laws remained indifferent, my husband betrayed me, and even my own parents cried out, “This child cannot be kept.”

I could not comprehend why a stranger confined to a wheelchair could dictate the fate of my child with a single phrase. Why did she, each time she entered that church, seal my child's fate?

It was not until the day she perished in a self-immolation within the church that I stepped inside and truly understood. Her confession, my loss, our collective suffering—all were intricately woven into a carefully orchestrated scheme spanning over a decade.

I thought I had the perfect life.

A mansion in Westport, a successful husband, a beautiful daughter. Sixteen years of marriage that seemed unbreakable.

Until I found another woman's watch band in my husband's car.

Until I discovered that woman was my daughter's soccer coach.

Until I realized my nine-year-old daughter was helping her father lie to me.

Some betrayals strike like lightning. Others seep in like slow poison, until you discover your entire world is a lie.

When I stood on the platform at our annual community barbecue, armed with evidence and burning with rage, I understood a truth that would have destroyed the woman I used to be:

Sometimes the only way to save your family is to destroy it first.

When my husband pushed the divorce papers in front of me for the hundredth time, demanding I sacrifice myself for my sister, I didn't cry or make a scene. I simply signed my name, willingly giving up the man I'd loved for eight years to Ivy.

A few days later, Ivy got drunk and drove into a state senator's only son during a street race, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. Once again, I stepped forward to take the blame and bear all the consequences.
When they later suggested I donate my kidney to Ivy, I readily agreed.

Mom and Dad said I'd finally grown into a mature and responsible sister.

Even my cold husband stood by my hospital bed and, for the first time in so long, gently stroked my cheek. He whispered, "Don't be afraid. The surgery will be a success. When you recover, we'll go traveling."

But he didn't know that whether the surgery succeeded or not, I wouldn't be going anywhere with him.

Because I was already terminally ill, with little time left.

I was the most revered pureblood Light heir.

In my past life, I married the Supreme Holy Knight, Arthur, only to give birth to an Ash-blood cub—the lowest of all.

In a rage, he incinerated my baby alive. He then dragged my bleeding, postpartum body into a saltwater dungeon to drain my magic, leaving me to be devoured by venomous insects.

Meanwhile, my lowly Ash-blood sister miraculously birthed a Light-blood cub. Stepping on my corpse, she became the realm's new ruler.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back at our Mate-Selection Ceremony. Arthur publicly rejected me and chose my sister.

Seeing his smug, calculating smirk, I knew immediately: he had been reborn, too.

But how could a parasitic knight, who survived entirely by draining his wife's magic to fake a holy bloodline, ever father a supreme dragon?

I was here because of missed periods and abnormal bleeding—a suspected threatened miscarriage.

When asked about our relationship, my boyfriend didn't even look at me.

"We're just classmates," he told the nurse.

He thought he was cutting ties with a worthless nobody so he could chase after a billionaire's daughter.

What he didn't know was... I was the heiress he was desperately looking for.

When the car crashed, I took the brunt of the deadly, mangled steel for my brother, Damon, letting half of my face be sheared off and my spine destroyed.

When I woke up in the intensive care unit, he mercilessly tossed an Engagement Termination Agreement onto my hospital bed.

"You're disfigured now, practically a paralyzed cripple. Give Julian up to Lily."

"She's beautiful, healthy, and she's always been in love with him. Having her take your place at the wedding is the best option right now."

The hospital room door wasn't fully closed. I could clearly hear him and our adopted sister, Lily, whispering out in the hallway.

"Damon, you deliberately caused that crash just so I could replace her in the marriage alliance. What if she finds out?"

Damon's tone was indifferent. "She grew up stealing the spotlight as the family heir. Giving Julian to you is the least she can do. Once she signs the papers, I'll put her in the best private nursing home. Consider it compensation."

I bit down hard on my cracked lips. Tears smashed against the deep, bone-exposing lacerations on my face, burning so intensely it made me want to carve the flesh right off.

Lily's sweet voice drifted in: "I'll make sure to compensate her in the future, too."

But Damon, even if I don't sign, you'll both get exactly what you want very soon.

Because the doctor just told me that my body has gone into multiple organ failure due to the severe trauma. I only have a few days left to live.

I died on my birthday.

While kidnappers shattered my limbs and violated me to death, my family was throwing a grand party for my sister Chloe—yes, we shared the same birthday, but only hers was worth celebrating.

I called my father for help. He sneered and hung up: "Stop using this pathetic kidnapping stunt to ruin Chloe's birthday."

I called my fiancé Mark. He said with disgust: "If you're going to die, do it somewhere far away."

In the final second before the flames consumed me, I finally understood—

I was never loved in this family.

And now that I'm truly dead, now that they've discovered Chloe hired those men to kill me, now that the truth has been exposed to the world...

Will they regret it?

Or will they, as always, continue to favor Chloe and blame everything on me—the dead one?

I was the reincarnation of the Ancient Star God and the fated mate of the Obsidian Dragon King, Ignis.

For seven years, I nearly bled my divine blood dry to break his curses. Everyone knew I loved him unconditionally.

Until his cold sneer shattered it all.

"Seraphina has laid my egg. After the Hunting Festival, I'll crown her as my queen. Keep Elara around to placate the Alliance. She's so madly in love with me, she'll gladly be a shield for them."

Something snapped deep within my chest. My empathy veins—the very magic that bound my emotions to him—shattered.

No heartbreak. No hysteria. That suffocating love was erased in an instant. Looking at Ignis now was like looking at a worthless stone.

I calmly returned to the temple and activated the marriage decree sent by the Elven High King, Aurelius.

The realm portal was charging. Departure: three days.

I severed our Mate Bond with my own hands.

In that moment, I lay unconscious, bleeding under the silvery moonlight, while he knelt some distance away, clutching his chest as if he had been hollowed out.

Once, he shielded me from nine silver stakes, only to crown another woman; he placed my protective pendant around her neck, then cast me into a water prison. He professed, “I love only you,” yet stood outside my hospital room, nursing her child as if it were his own.

I loathed him, resolved to leave.

I believed this was the end.

Little did I know, as I thought I had finally gained my freedom, he would chase after the debts of blood and regret, intruding upon the new life I was rebuilding—

To redeem a love that no longer sought redemption.

My husband, the terrifying Mafia Don, dropped fifteen million dollars on a luxury yacht just to throw a lavish, high-profile birthday celebration for his precious first love.

And today marks exactly seven days since I died of an infection in a Detroit slum, simply because I couldn't scrape together a few cents for antibiotics.

At the banquet, an oblivious guest tactlessly brought up my name.

Alessandro dialed my number for the first time in five years.

"Genevieve, if you've suffered enough, crawl back here and beg Elena for forgiveness."

That is, until the estate doors were violently shoved open.

A scavenger walked in, leading a little boy whose face was an eighty-percent match to Alessandro's.

Six hundred years into our marriage, I found out my husband had a son.

I had ended my border patrol three days early, wanting to surprise Valerius.

Not far away, Valerius was channeling his exclusive magic, teaching a boy how to weave the darkness.

"Dad! I did it!" The boy looked up. His bright eyes were a near-perfect reflection of Valerius's.

My mind instantly went blank.

Dad?

A woman walked over.

She draped a small cloak over the boy's shoulders, her hand brushing against Valerius's chest with practiced familiarity. "Valeri, the wind is picking up. He'll catch a cold now that he's sweating."

Valerius naturally wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "My fault."

The image of them huddled together like a picture-perfect family was an ice-tipped needle driven straight into my eyes.

The sharp sting made my breath hitch in my throat.

The man who had sworn before the Senate to love me for all eternity—the man bound to me by a Soul Blood Pact—had already betrayed me!

A sudden, agonizing cramp seized my lower abdomen.

It was an old wound from six centuries ago.

When the Sunfire Curse nearly reduced Valerius to ashes, I had offered my high-born pure blood and my womb as a sacrifice to forcibly block the hex for him.

The price was permanent infertility, along with an excruciating backlash of pain I had to endure every single month.

Back then, Valerius had held me, his eyes red and tear-filled. "I don't want any children! I would rather lose my seat in the Senate than ever betray you!"

Yet the scene before me crushed those words into fine dust.

I stumbled backward, my chest feeling as though it had been ripped open by bare hands.

I was terrified I'd lose control and rush over to scream at him.

Worse yet, in the face of this cozy, happy family of three, I was afraid I'd look like a pathetic, unwanted outsider.

Suffocation gripped my throat. I turned and fled.

When the armored car had room for only one passenger, Damian Russo chose me.

I was saved, but Lilia Brown didn't make it. She bled out in the crossfire, her body left in the rubble. Damian pretended he didn't care and married me as planned.

For three years, he made me pay for her death—beating me, starving me, blaming me for the fact that she was gone.

In the end, he drove us both off a cliff instead.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the docks on the night of the ambush. This time, I stepped aside and let him save the woman he truly loved.

That day, I stood in the rain, donned in a rented wedding gown.

He texted, "I’m sorry, Elena, I won’t be coming."

Five years later, he gazed at me and said, "Come work as a maid at my home, in light of the service you once rendered me."

He believed I remained the wretched creature he had trampled upon.

Little did he know that my current husband, Dante Vancetti, is the man who instills fear across all of San Valero.

And I am his Donna—his queen, his entire universe.

Marco Ricci, welcome to hell.

My mate, Valerius, was struck by a soul-splitting curse from hunters, fracturing him into a dual personality.

The rabid persona is brutal and cold-blooded. His heart holds only his childhood sweetheart, and he casts me aside like worthless trash.

Yet, when lucid, he is my deeply devoted lover—the man who sees me as his absolute salvation.

But the man who deeply loves me is slipping away.

It culminated on the night of the hunter ambush.

I dragged my shattered leg, barely surviving a sea of fire. Yet, to comfort his startled childhood sweetheart, he turned his back and walked away.

In the moment he left, I finally let go.

Because the eyes that had just abandoned me for her... were the deep, dark gold of his lucid state.

Later, when I accepted a deal to erase all traces of my existence and give them their happy ending, he completely lost his mind...

In order to raise the surgical fees for my "blind" boyfriend, I dedicated three entire years to scrubbing toilets.

I believed I was his eyes, the sole beacon of light in his world of darkness.

Until his birthday arrived, I was confronted with the sight of that "incapable" man—who required my assistance even to drink water—coddling his ex-girlfriend while flirting.

"That fool is still busy cleaning toilets," he chuckled with a patronizing grin, brandishing my late mother's memento to charm that woman. "After all, she outshone you at Parsons. Let her serve me like a dog for three years—that'll be her punishment."

It dawned on me that my sacrifices were but fodder for their idle amusement.

Drying my tears, I turned and dialed the number I had blocked for three years—the one belonging to the fiancé who controlled an entire business empire.

"Sebastian, about that arranged marriage... I accept."

I was dragged to the stand of the MRI Memory Court by my own flesh and blood.

Their demand? To forcibly extract my kidney to keep their uremic adopted daughter alive.

A guilty verdict meant losing not just my bodily autonomy, but my freedom for the rest of my life.

Bathed in the global spotlight, my parents performed as tragic heroes, while their adopted saint cried a river of deceit.

They thought they had cornered the perfect victim, waiting for the world to send me to the slaughter.

But the moment the memory holograms ignited and reality bled through, the hunters instantly became the hunted.

My father chose two vampires as marriage prospects for my sister and me.

One was an immensely powerful pureblood aristocrat.

The other was Cassian, crippled by a silver curse. Confined to a wheelchair, he was a laughingstock—wracked by phantom pains and constantly on the verge of madness.

In my past life, I chose Cassian.

I drained my own blood to ease his agonizing curse. I shielded him from the relentless mockery of the Vampire Court. I even gambled my life in werewolf territory to beg for his cure.

But he never seemed to get better.

I didn't care. I remember holding his hand and telling him, "It doesn't matter. No matter what happens to you, I will always stay by your side."

Until the accident. A pack of rogue werewolves ambushed us.

Cassian shoved me precisely into the path of their claws.

Just to shield my sister, Serena, from the fatal blow.

Silver claws completely shredded my throat.

Through my fading vision, I watched Cassian stand up from his wheelchair.

The terrifying aura of a Vampire Lord erupted from him, crushing the werewolves instantly. Countless night-thralls emerged from the shadows, dropping to their knees at his feet.

That was when I understood. He was never paralyzed, and he was never mad.

Because Serena hadn't chosen him, and because he wanted absolutely nothing to do with me, he faked the illness to disgust me for years.

Then, he used my life to save his true love.

"I'm sorry for deceiving you. But I couldn't just watch Serena die."

"Elara... whatever I owe you, I'll repay in the next life."

In the bone-piercing cold, I took my last breath.

When I opened my eyes, I was back on the exact day my father forced us to make our choice.