196 Book(s) Related to towards zero agatha christie

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.

They ranked me at birth. Zero.

Not omega. Not low blood. Zero. A rank so low it sits below the list, separated by a black line like even my name is something the pack does not want touching theirs.
For twenty years I carried the dangerous jobs. The deadly ones. The assignments ranked wolves passed down because their lives were worth something and mine was the math that made that possible.
I never argued. Not because I was afraid. Because I was watching. Building a map of every weakness hiding behind every rank.
On the night of my twentieth birthday something inside me opened its eyes.
It had been there the whole time.
It is not a wolf.
My rise begins now. And I will not be gentle about it.

The terminal reads.
Eight seconds. Ten. Fifteen.
I have never seen a terminal take fifteen seconds.
At seventeen seconds the screen flashes once, goes dark, and then displays.
RANK: UNRANKED. CLASS: ANALYST. COMBAT ATTRIBUTES: NONE. SKILL TREE: NONE. STAT GAINS: NONE.
Then someone laughs. Once one person laughs the rest follow, not because anything is funny but because laughter gives people permission to stop sitting with the discomfort of watching something go wrong for someone else.
The scouts have already turned away. But...

In 2263, humanity cracked the code on destiny. Before a child takes its first breath, parents watch its future on a screen and choose the strongest. The result was the most powerful generation ever to walk the earth.

The A-Band. Warriors who bend the will of every creature on land and in the sky. A wolf's ferocity. An eagle's sight. A lion's kill. All of it theirs on command.

The L-Band. Human machines. Bodies and minds engineered beyond the limits of biology.

The Z-Band. Masters of the elemental forces. Air. Earth. Fire. Magma.

The U-Band. Commanders of every creature beneath the ocean and every drop of water on the planet.

And above all of them. The most feared force humanity has ever produced. The R-Band. Commanders of the human mind and blood.

Humanity called this progress.

Something older called it an invitation.

Because they are coming.

Nine Bergons.
Three Suns.
Dragon of the Sea.
Lady of Chaos, the serpent of Ergom whose greatest joy is in the tears of men.

And the worst yet to come.

Zenorah. The ancient god of pain, blood and magma. The curse of the earth. Before whom everything that came before him is merely a warning.

The abyss has been unlocked. The first four are already here. And the gateway that will unleash Zenorah himself is opening one breath at a time.

Who can stop them?

Not the powerful bands.

Ken.

An ordinary man with no power, and no place in a world built for the chosen. The system recognises nothing in him as strength.

But he must find the two Seekers of Light. And close the gateway before Zenorah accesses it.

The apocalypse has begun.

Can the lost son of Hercules, god of lightning and thunder, find the Seekers and save what remains?

Twenty-two-year-old Zara Calloway is standing in a hospital room watching her mother die when it happens. Her mother — comatose for forty-seven days, declared beyond recovery — opens her eyes. Grabs Zara's wrist. Delivers a warning: Don't let them hollow you out. Then flatlines. For real this time. Before Zara can process a single second of grief, text materializes in her vision — clean, cold, and impossible: PLAYER DESIGNATION: NULL-001. YOU HAVE BEEN DRAFTED. Zara is now a Player in the Verdict Protocol — an invisible, deadly game run by a god-like entity called the Summoner who conscripts human beings and forces them to complete missions: survival trials, dungeon dives, battle royales, and worse. Players who refuse are voided. Players who fail are killed. No one has ever broken their contract. She has twenty-four hours to complete her first mission or cease to exist. Armed with nothing but a Tier F ability called RECALL — the power to replay anything she's witnessed with perfect clarity — and a mind that never stops looking for the exit, Zara fights her way up from the lowest designation ever recorded in the history of the Protocol. But the deeper she gets, the more wrong it all feels. Her drafting wasn't random. Her mother's warning wasn't an accident. And Dorian Voss — cold, brilliant, infuriating Dorian Voss — keeps appearing at the exact intersection of every secret she's trying to uncover. She was drafted to play the game. The Summoner intends for her to replace him

We both ran towards each other, when we got face to face, we smashed our lips together, kissing passionately. Then pulling at each other's clothes until we are naked, I gently lay her down in the grass. I could not control myself, or should I say my wolf could not. My hands roamed all over her sexy curvy body. I got one hand on her breast playing with her nipple, while with the other I inserted my finger inside of her and moved it in and out of her wet pussy. My thumb is going nuts on her clit, I look up into her mesmerizing emerald, green eyes. My wolf surfaces and I guess Her’s did too, because the next thing I know is that my cock is inside of her thrusting hard into her and we are both marking one another.

I was about to cum inside of her, when I heard several growls coming from behind us. We looked behind us and there were three wolves standing there ready to attack. We finally stood after being frozen in place, I grabbed the towels that I brought with me and handed her one so she could cover herself, I took the other one for myself.
Pulling her into a protective embrace, I kissed the top of her head and put her behind me. I then growled in a very dominant voice at the three wolves standing there. When out of nowhere my mate yelled to them.

"You three shift back"!

I was shocked when they listened. As they were dressing themselves, they did the same.

“What if your instincts could evolve into unstoppable power and the system that guides you…had a mind of its own?”

Veynar Solis starts at Rank Zero, a nobody scraping by in the streets of Veyra City. One life-or-death encounter awakens his Zero Instinct, and with it, a world of superpowers, underground battles, and enemies who will stop at nothing.

With a sassy, sarcastic system at his side and a street-smart ally, Lyra, Veynar must fight, evolve, and outsmart every rival from cunning underground bosses to lethal foils while uncovering the dark secrets of the system itself.

Survival isn’t enough. Power, strategy, and instinct will decide who dominates and who dies.

“You will not sleep until you are finished with AGENT ZERO. The author did a superb job creating a set of characters who are fully developed and very much enjoyable. The description of the action scenes transport us into a reality that is almost like sitting in a movie theater with surround sound and 3D (it would make an incredible Hollywood movie). I can hardly wait for the sequel.”--Roberto Mattos, Books and Movie ReviewsIn this much-anticipated debut of an epic spy thriller series by #1 bestseller Jack Mars, readers are taken on an action thriller across Europe as presumed-CIA operative Kent Steele, hunted by terrorists, by the CIA, and by his own identity, must solve the mystery of who is after him, of the terrorists’ pending target—and of the beautiful woman he keeps seeing in his mind.Kent Steele, 38, a brilliant professor of European History at Columbia University, lives a quiet life in a New York suburb with his two teenage daughters. All that changes when late one night he gets a knock on his door and is abducted by three terrorists—and finds himself flown across the ocean to be interrogated in a basement in Paris.They are convinced that Kent is the most lethal spy the CIA has ever known. He is convinced they have the wrong man.Do they?With a conspiracy around him, adversaries as smart as he is, and an assassin on his tail, the wild game of cat and mouse leads Kent on a perilous road—one that may lead back to Langley—and to a shocking discovery of his own identity.AGENT ZERO is an espionage thriller that will keep you turning pages late into the night.“One of the best thrillers I have read this year.”--Books and Movie Reviews (re Any Means Necessary )Also available is Jack Mars’ #1 bestselling LUKE STONE THRILLER series (7 books), which begins with Any Means Necessary (Book #1), a free download with over 800 five star reviews!

At 2:13 a.m., London died.
Not with explosions. Not with war. But with a message.
Every screen across the United Kingdom from the underground stations of Westminster to the rain-soaked alleys of Whitechapel suddenly goes black before a single sentence appears across the sky.
WELCOME, PLAYERS.
Within minutes, reality collapses into a living nightmare.
Monsters emerge from subway tunnels beneath King’s Cross. Entire streets vanish behind crimson fog. People awaken strange classes, levels, and abilities as the city transforms into a brutal game ruled by an unseen System obsessed with survival, evolution, and entertainment.
Those who level up live.Those who fail are erased.
Twenty-three-year-old Anderson Jones was nobody before the fall just another exhausted courier surviving paycheck to paycheck in East London while drowning in debt, family pressure, and a future that never arrived. But when the System awakens inside him, something goes terribly wrong.
CLASS ASSIGNED: LEVEL ZERO.
No combat skills. No stats. No future potential A dead class.
Abandoned during London’s first massacre and hunted by creatures far beyond human understanding, Anderson discovers hidden cracks inside the System itself strange errors, forbidden quests, and impossible rewards connected to a secret the game is desperately trying to bury.
But the deeper he climbs, the more horrifying the truth becomes.
The towers rising across London were never meant to save humanity.
They were built to select what survives after it ends.
Now Anderson must navigate collapsing factions, traitorous survivors, deadly floor trials, and a System that watches every choice he makes. Because somewhere inside the game, someone is manipulating the rules.
And they already know his name.
In a city where trust gets people killed and every victory unlocks something worse, Anderson will have to become stronger than the game itself or lose everyone he has left.

Kane Cross died at his desk at 2:47 AM.

He woke up in hell.

No class. No skills. No tutorial. Just ash, a dead world, and a System notification blinking in his vision like a bad joke.

DESIGNATION: NULL
RECOMMENDATION: IMMEDIATE TERMINATION

In Aethon, your class is your worth. Your rank is your right to breathe. And a Null is not a person. A Null is a problem to be erased.

They sent hunters. Then a purge timer. Then something worse.

But Kane spent seven years building game systems for a living. He knows how engines work. He knows every system has a logic. Every rule has an edge. Every god has a backdoor.

He has no class. No rank. No name in their registry.

Good.

They can't kill what they can't see.

And Kane Cross is just getting started.

The System has run this world for a thousand years.

It has never met anyone like him.

He offered her a job, her education, and a way out of poverty. The price? Her virginity.
Georgina has nothing. No job. No savings.
Her rent expires in two months.
Then the world's most famous playboy, Alpha Christian, calls out of nowhere. The same man who got her fired. The same man every woman warns you about.
He says he wants to help her. A fresh start. A new life.
But there's one condition.
Desperate and with nowhere left to turn, Georgina agrees, believing she can keep her heart out of it.
One night. One transaction. Then she walks away.
She was wrong.
Because after that night, Christian isn't just obsessed.
He won't let her go.
And the deeper she falls, the more she realizes: his wife isn't the only danger.
Now Georgina is trapped between the man who owns her body and the secrets that could destroy them both.
She gave him her innocence. He's taking everything else.

In my previous life, I was the government-appointed hero of the apocalypse, dying on the frozen plains after the spotlight dimmed, feeding their glorious honor with my very life.
In this life, I tore up the script and rejected that performance they called "saving the world." When the so-called "hero" stands on the command deck once again, I am deep in the dark underground, clutching a scoreboard with my frostbitten hands—
After all, heroes are offerings reserved for history books; I, however, only want to ensure that this group of abandoned souls can survive through tonight.

After dying in a meaningless accident, 28-year-old Korean ex-soldier and amateur chef Seo Jun-Ho is transmigrated into a brutal, merged world where Earth has been fused with an ancient tower system. Humanity is forced to climb endless mysterious Towers that appeared during the Great Collapse.
The world runs on "Essence", a system that rewards strength, crafting, taming, and conquest. Most people struggle just to survive the first 10 floors. Seo Jun-Ho discovers he has a unique "Primordial Palate" trait that lets him cook monsters and magical ingredients into dishes that grant permanent stat boosts, skills, and evolution paths. Combined with his military background and a rare Beast Sovereign class, he begins building something far greater than just personal power.
As floors grow deadlier and ancient secrets awaken, Seo Jun-Ho will cook, tame, conquer, and rise until even the gods of the system tremble before the Beast Sovereign.

To avenge my father, I married Philadelphia mafia don Salvatore and poisoned him with my own hands on our wedding night. I thought my revenge was complete, until I met his son Matteo at the funeral—a cold, handsome,dangerous man.

Matteo suspected from the start that I'd killed his father. According to plan, I was supposed to get close to him, seduce him, then kill the last Rossi heir when he trusted me most.

"You're trembling." He cornered me against the wall, his long fingers caressing my cheek. "From fear... or something else?"

"I..." Under his burning gaze, I couldn't find words.

"Don't be nervous, stepmother." He leaned close to my ear, his voice low and magnetic. "I just want to see how honest you are."

When the assassin falls for her target, when stepmother becomes obsessed with stepson, can this dangerous game have a happy ending?

Three years ago, I married Rex Cavano—New York's most dangerous mafia don—for this face. Not for love. Because I looked like his stepsister Isabella, the woman his family tore from him and sent to Rome.

I thought time would make him forget her. Until three months ago, when she came home a widow, and I finally understood: a substitute is always just a substitute. When the original returns, the fake gets thrown away.

So I made a decision.

I tricked him into signing divorce papers and accepted a job in a war zone in Colombia.

I'm leaving. Taking our child with me—a secret he'll never know—disappearing from his world forever.

Chloe Ashford destroyed me once.

She pretended to be my best friend, eagerly setting me up with her stepbrother Vincent—when really, I was just a cover for their twisted relationship.

She fattened me up, used me, and when she got bored, tossed me aside. A broken nose during gym class, nearly drowning by the pool, framed and cyberbullied until the whole internet turned against me. I dropped out. Had a complete mental breakdown. And then I jumped.

But when I opened my eyes again, that line was playing on repeat—"Let me introduce you to my stepbrother."

Somehow, I was back. That same party night.

My husband pushed me down the stairs when I was three months pregnant.

I thought it was his bipolar disorder acting up again. The doctors said he couldn't control himself. So I forgave him—just like I'd forgiven the cigarette burns, the broken ribs, and all those nights he choked me unconscious.

Then I lost our baby.

And overheard him on the phone: "The bitch deserved it. If she hadn't stopped me three years ago, Elena would be mine."

That's when I realized—he was never sick. He'd been torturing me on purpose for three years.

Punishing me because I "made him lose" the woman he loved.

So I signed the divorce papers and walked away without looking back.

Everyone said I killed my mother.

So Dad and Carter hated me from the start. They only had love for Vivian.

On my eighteenth birthday, Vivian drugged me and I was nearly raped. That's when Nolan Blake showed up—business tycoon, my savior. He claimed me as his in front of everyone and warned anyone who dared mess with me would pay the price.

After that, Vivian bullied me? He made her apologize. Dad humiliated me? He made him shut up. Carter mocked me? He destroyed all of Carter's business deals.

No one had ever protected me like that. I fell HARD.

Three months later, I walked down the aisle in white.

Nolan spoiled me rotten. I became the woman the whole world envied.

Until the day I was five months pregnant.

At a family party, the balcony railing gave way. I was falling, screaming—then Nolan caught me. His arm broke. I only had minor injuries.

Everyone said how LUCKY I was—a husband willing to break every bone for me.

Until I stood in the hospital corridor and overheard that conversation—

"Aurora is the only match for Vivian," Charles's voice came from the hospital room. "Vivian's kidney failure is getting worse. We can't wait anymore!"

"You think I don't KNOW that?" Nolan lowered his voice. "But she's already pregnant! Pregnant women can't donate organs!"

"That's why we staged the fall," Carter said coldly. "It was supposed to make her miscarry—"

"ENOUGH!" Nolan's roar cut him off. "I want to save Vivian MORE than ANY of you! She's the one I love. But you can't hurt Aurora like this. I have my own plan—after she gives birth, I'll make her donate 'willingly.'"

After hearing those words, I collapsed trembling in the hallway.

So that was why he married me. Not because he loved me, but to save Vivian. Everything he did for me—his tenderness, his protection—it was all for HER.

Just like Dad and Carter, he loved Vivian.

Not me.

I touched my slightly rounded belly as silent tears streamed down my face.

If no one wanted us, then we'd disappear.

"Honey, please open the door! Please!"

Kate Sterling pounded desperately on the basement door, with only 15 minutes left before the interview that could change her life. Yet here she was, locked inside by the very man she loved most.

It all started with a single prophecy from their new neighbor, Anna Cross: "If Kate goes to that interview, your marriage is over."

Anna's predictions had never been wrong. Last month, she predicted old Johnson would have a heart attack. Three days later, an ambulance pulled into his driveway. She predicted Mrs. Miller would discover her husband's affair. Now the Millers were filing for divorce.

Every prediction came true like clockwork nightmares.

Now Anna had set her sights on them.

When the truth finally surfaces, will it be escape... or death?

On the twenty-first night of insomnia, I ordered a beastman at 3 AM.

The ad was ridiculously over-the-top—gentle, considerate, perfect at housework, and could even cure anxiety and insomnia. The girls in the reviews said their lives transformed overnight, work stress just... gone.

I was dead tired, eyes barely staying open. Just glanced at the photo and hit purchase. Golden hair, amber eyes, two cute little fangs when he smiled—looked sweet.

Pink option looked prettier than blue. Done.

I didn't catch the tiny line of text flashing at the bottom: Grade A Product - Adults Only - Full Intimate Services

Three days later, the doorbell rang.

I opened the door to boxes way bigger than I'd expected.

Way bigger.

Three years ago, the night before my wedding, I was kidnapped and nearly killed.

When I woke up, Julian was crying over me. "The kidnappers hurt you so badly, Elsie. The doctors—they had to remove your uterus to save you. I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

My world shattered.

I cried for a week straight. Cried until I had no voice left, until my eyes couldn't open from the swelling. I'd lost everything—my chance at motherhood, my chance at being whole.

But Julian squeezed my hand. "I love you, Elsie. You're all I need."

He married me anyway. Against his family's wishes, he married this broken woman.

For three years, he was perfect. Gentle. Loving. I thought I was the luckiest woman alive.

Until today.

Today, I learned the truth—

There was no kidnapping. No random attack.

It was all planned. Orchestrated by Julian himself.

For one reason only—to give my uterus to Chloe, my sister who was born unable to have children.

In seven years of marriage, I miscarried five times. I nearly died on the operating table.

My husband, Lorenzo Castellano—the mafia king who controlled the entire East Coast—gripped my blood-stained hand and choked out: "It's okay. You're all I need."

I believed him.

Until our anniversary, when I smelled her perfume on his shirt and discovered the truth: his sister-in-law had given him a three-year-old son—those same deep brown eyes I'd bled five times trying to create.

The cruel irony? Just the day before, two pink lines had appeared on a pregnancy test.

That night, the explosion lit up the entire ocean, our private yacht burning like a funeral pyre.

The man who made all of New York's underworld tremble finally learned what it meant to lose.

He lost his wife.

And the child he would never know existed.

Ten years loving Liam Rockefeller cost me everything.

He said the football team jumped him—so I charged in and took the punches. He sobbed that his stepbrother would destroy him at Yale—so I ripped up my acceptance letter. He held me at midnight whispering "I'm so lucky to have you"—and I thought that meant forever.

Three months later, I heard him laughing in the locker room—laughing about me.

"Iris is like a fucking puppy, so easy to fool. Now that the Yale spot's open, Emily can go with me."

The bullying was staged. The tears were fake. Those intimate embraces—just tools to control me while he fucked his side piece.

He thought I'd still stand in front of him even with a broken nose. He thought I'd never wise up.

I wised up.

In his stepbrother Sebastian's bed.

Twenty years ago, four-year-old Alicia vanished from a park, falling from Connecticut's wealthiest heiress to an orphan overnight. Twenty years later, her birth parents find her working at a coffee shop, bringing her back to a life of luxury.

But behind the fairy tale reunion lurks deadly danger. A mysterious guardian angel named Gabriel begins sending her prophetic warnings about her family's impending doom. Yet Alicia, drunk on newfound happiness, dismisses these as mere hallucinations.

The price of her disbelief is devastating. Her father dies in a horse-riding accident at the country club. Months later, her mother perishes in a car crash on her way to a charity gala. Shattered by grief and guilt, Alicia leaps from a hospital rooftop in despair...

Only to wake up back on the day her parents found her.

This time, she vows to heed Gabriel's every prophecy and save her family. But as she follows the angel's guidance, she discovers that fate's wheels may not be so easily stopped...

The real test has only just begun.

Three years of chasing Chase Blackwood, and all I got was a front-row seat to him tonguing my "sister."

The old me would've cried. Begged. Made a scene.

The old me also ended up dead.

Funny how a second chance at life gives you clarity.

So here's what's different this time: I'm done being the pathetic ex. I'm done playing nice.

I'm throwing champagne in his face and climbing into bed with Asher Hayes—his best friend, his rival, his worst nightmare.

And Chase? He can rot.

Seven years ago, I crawled on my knees to save Alex Benedetti's ass, and got marked as the bitch who betrayed him.

Seven years later, he came back as New York's deadliest mob boss. Lucy Ferraro, some spoiled mafia princess, was warming his bed while I was on my hands and knees scrubbing his floors.

He let his fiancée treat me like garbage. When I started coughing up blood, the son of a bitch laughed and said I had it coming.

He didn't know the brain cancer was eating me alive.

The day I died, Alex was putting a ring on another woman's finger. He never found out that the girl who took bullets for him—the one he destroyed—was already rotting six feet under while he was saying "I do."

I was reborn on the day we had to choose our mates.

I could clearly hear my sister Sera's thoughts: "This time I won't choose wrong. Let Lyra suffer with that cold Alpha."

Then she couldn't wait to choose my past life's husband—the gentle Beta Damon.

While I had to marry the cold Alpha Kane.

Her inner celebration was deafening: "Perfect! Now my sister can suffer with that heartless guy while I finally get to live the pampered Luna life!"

I couldn't help but want to laugh. If only she knew the true face of my "gentle husband" from my past life.

Seven years ago, Ronan Blackwood—Alpha of the Beastman Clan—endured 999 lashes and defied the Council's exile to bond with me, a human.

He swore before the gods I'd be his only mate, forever.

But when his childhood sweetheart Camilla was diagnosed with terminal cancer, he dissolved our soul-bond at the Underground Court.

Then he handed me a glowing vial—the Seven-Day Oblivion.

"Sia, I need seven days to give Camilla a proper bonding ceremony before she dies. This potion will make you forget me temporarily. No pain, no memories. After the ceremony, you'll take the antidote and love me again. Then we'll re-bond."

He promised this separation was temporary. That I'd still be his only true mate.

What he didn't know: the potion was forbidden. There was no antidote.

I stared into those amber eyes that once bled for me—and swallowed it anyway.

In seven days, I'll forget him completely.

I ripped out half my heart for him.

Literally.

Six years ago, Draco—the Black Dragon Lord—was dying on the battlefield, enemy claws buried in his chest. So I tore myself open and shoved half my witch's heart into his body to save his life.

After that, I lived with constant pain, my magic drained to nothing. I fought his wars, nearly died a dozen times, all while waiting for him to keep his promise—that he'd make me his queen after the coronation.

But on coronation day, Draco brought back the half-elf Ivy and told me to give up my crown.

Why? Ivy stayed with him in the Abyss for three years. And now she was pregnant with his child.

It destroyed me. So I drank the Oblivion Potion—the one thing that could strip away every ounce of love I had for him.

And in three days, I'm leaving for the polar regions to marry into the Silver Wolf Clan.

The loan sharks who kidnapped us wanted payment for my twin sister's gambling debts—in blood.

When my FBI negotiator father showed up with his tactical team, he found Lily with a paper cut, crying her heart out. I was dying from a gunshot wound in a basement below.

I called him with my dying breath: "Dad, please send help. I'm bleeding out."

"Are you kidding me right now, Emily? Your sister just went through hell, and you're pulling this pathetic stunt for attention? How sick are you?"

He hung up. I died alone, dismissed as a liar.

Three days later, they found my body. And the truth that came with it burned their perfect world to ash.

My family used me as bait to destroy my sister's happiness.

The plan was simple: fake being poor, watch my sister's construction worker boyfriend run when times got tough, then reveal the truth and break her heart. I was supposed to be the convincing proof of our "poverty."

But I didn't know I was acting. For ten years, I lived their lie for real. Starved while they feasted in hiding. Worked myself to the bone while they watched me suffer.

Then I got my dream job and burst through the door to save everyone—only to find my sister's engagement party in progress.

But she'd dumped the construction worker for a tech mogul. "Maya's suffering was so authentic," she laughed to her guests. "It showed me exactly what I'd become if I stayed with Jake. Thank God I came to my senses."

My pain was her wake-up call.

I died on the night of my eighteenth graduation party, pushed off a rooftop by the two people I trusted most.

In my past life, I was the ultimate fool.

When my two childhood friends—both heirs to top elite families—decided to throw away their futures, I panicked.

They actually wanted to reject their admission offers from Harvard and Yale.

All to follow Lily, a charity case from the slums, to a literal no-name trade school called Sunny Valley Vocational Academy.

I begged them to stop.

I even used my family's connections to try and get Lily into a legitimate university.

But Lily wept in front of them, claiming my money insulted her dignity, and that I was just jealous of their "pure love."

Liam and Noah completely lost their minds.

That night, they cornered me on the roof.

"Vivian, you killed Lily. Go to hell!"

As it turned out, Lily went to that trash school alone and committed suicide.

They blamed me entirely for her death, nursing that grudge until they finally pushed me into the abyss.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the exact day we were supposed to lock in our college choices.

This time, count me out.

Three years barren, and Jessamine walked on thin ice in the elite household. Her mother-in-law spat venomous curses daily, calling her a "worthless waste of space" and threatening to force her son into divorce.

She could still remember when Damien had severed all ties with his family to marry her—kneeling outside their door in the pouring rain, begging his parents to accept her: "Jessamine is my one true love! I can't survive without her!" Back then, she was the only woman who existed in his eyes.

But now, for the sake of family inheritance, he had the audacity to demand her consent for his childhood sweetheart Celeste to bear their child. Jessamine endured the soul-crushing agony of watching her husband entwined with another woman, night after torturous night.

Even more devastating—after Celeste delivered a daughter, Damien had the shameless nerve to declare: "The family still needs a male heir."

In that shattering moment, Jessamine finally saw the brutal truth.

On our seventh anniversary, Jeffrey brought his mistress home for dinner.

Calla wore my dead mother's necklace and called me a "boring housewife" while I cooked for them. Jeffrey laughed, saying I was lucky he kept me around since I'd never contributed anything to our marriage.

What he didn't know? I'd given up my six-figure tech career to nurse him back from his car accident. Sacrificed everything while he treated me like his personal servant.

For seven years, I endured his cheating and cruelty, thinking love meant sacrifice.

I was wrong.

When I left him the divorce papers, Jeffrey screamed that I'd come crawling back within a week.

But when I never came back, he was the one who lost his mind.

Due to an arranged marriage between our families, I married Damien Blackwood, heir to a business empire.

During five years of marriage, I tried hard to play the perfect wife, bore him a daughter Lily, thinking I had finally won his love.

Until his first love Serena returned from abroad, I watched him rekindle his passion for another woman, watched them rekindle their old flame.

A car accident changed everything.

I was taken to court, sentenced to three years in prison, becoming a "murderer" despised by everyone.

And he personally sent me to prison.

I married Massimo Salvatore, the mafia don, thirty-two times. And divorced him thirty-two times.

Every single time for the same reason—his precious Claudia came back from her overseas treatment facility.

"She took a bullet to the head for me. Any stress could kill her." That was his only explanation.

The first divorce, I trashed the entire living room. He slapped me across the face: "Cut the DRAMA. We'll get back together once she's stable."

The third time, I followed them to the club and caught them kissing. I confronted him—got locked in the basement for seven days.

Sign the papers, take off the ring, pack my bags. Like a nightmare on repeat.

Until the thirty-third time.

A rival family grabbed both me and Claudia. With a gun to his head, he could only save one of us. I looked at him, voice breaking: "Massimo, just this once, pick me."

He walked toward her.

Four hours later, his men found me in some abandoned warehouse. Three broken ribs, blood everywhere. Our baby—gone.

Massimo camped out by Claudia's hospital bed, wouldn't leave her side. Didn't visit me once. Not even when I got discharged.

That's when I was done.

Everyone in the Blood Moon Pack knew that our Alpha, Ethan Black, was devoted to his Luna, Elena Mourn.

Until he met his fated mate, Celine.

He wanted to sever our bond to be with her, but I refused. We became the pack's toxic couple—he resented me for not letting go, and I despised him for his betrayal.

To get rid of me without looking like the villain, this asshole staged a pity party—claiming a dark witch cursed him in battle, trapping his memories at eighteen, and now his wolf only responded to Celine as his "true mate."

"Elena, I'm stuck at eighteen... I still love you, but our bond is gone." His voice broke. "I'm so sorry for hurting you all these years. Maybe we're both better off apart."

Watching his fake performance, I said yes.

He thought he'd won, never knowing I went along because three years ago, I took a hunter's wolfsbane bullet meant for him. The poison had been killing me ever since. One week—that's all I had left.

Before I died, I wanted one last look at his eighteen-year-old self, even knowing it was all fake.

My fiancé has tried to kill me seventeen times.

Everyone says I'm cursed by the Moon Goddess. Five years, seventeen mating ceremonies—all ending in blood.

An eagle's talons through my spine. Poisoned wine that stopped my heart. Ritual flames that charred my skin. Each time, I survived. Each time, Kael Silverblade held my hand and swore it was fate's cruelty, not his.

I believed him.

Until the seventeenth time.

Blood moon. Three assassins. Nine bone blades cutting precise lines across my body—missing every vital organ, maximizing the pain. I writhed on the sacred stones, screaming until my voice broke.

Three days later, still wrapped in bandages, I heard him talking to his lieutenant outside the healing den.

"Lord Silverblade, she almost died this time. Maybe we should—"

"No." Kael's voice was ice. "Her brother saved my life. My grandfather swore a blood debt—a mating bond to repay it. But goddammit, I love Vira. I've always loved Vira. Not her."

Silence.

"Keep the accidents coming," he said. "As long as she won't let go, we keep going. She'll break eventually. She has to."

I pressed against the wall, tears streaming down my face.

Seventeen times. Not curses. Not fate.

Him.

The male I'd loved since I was sixteen.

But here's what Kael doesn't know—this time, he finally wins.

I won't survive the next full moon.

On my first day at St. Clair University, my roommate Lysandra laughed at me in French.

Wrapped in designer logos, she called me a nobody who did not even recognize luxury perfume.

She thought I could not understand her.

She was wrong. French was my first language.

I was also Iris Russell, the hidden heir to the Russell Group.

But I kept that to myself.

Then Lysandra set me up at a Michelin-starred restaurant. With the manager's help, she placed a fake $450,000 bill in front of me and demanded humiliating photos to erase the debt.

They expected me to break.

Instead, I opened my phone and started a livestream.

By the time Lysandra learned who I was, the whole internet had seen her trap.

At my seventh wedding, they replaced me.

The Oracle pointed at me and screamed one word: "CURSED."

Father's hand cracked across my face. Mother tore the wedding dress off my body and shoved my cousin Seraphine into it.

"She'll marry him instead," Father said. "You'll destroy us all."

What they didn't know? A thousand years ago, our family made a blood pact with the Shadow Lord himself: if the eldest Ashford daughter remained unmarried on her twenty-sixth birthday, she belonged to HIM.

Today was my twenty-sixth birthday.

I begged Julian to run. "Please. We have until sunset."

He laughed. "The Shadow Lord's a fairy tale, Anna. Seraphine's just going through the motions. You're being dramatic."

Then he told my parents everything.

They locked me in the tower.

But the Shadow High Priest's warning was clear—at sunset, the Shadow Lord would come. And when he did, I'd drink the Potion of Forgetting and lose everything.

My memories. My name. My soul.

The clock struck five.

He was coming.

"Sign the Brooklyn house over to Isla. I'll cover your tuition next semester."

Gabriel didn't look up. Just sat there in his leather chair like he was doing me a favor.

My mother grabbed my sleeve. "She has depression, Rachel. She just needs a studio. Why are you making this so hard?"

I looked at her, then at him. That house was the only thing my father left me when he died. The only thing. And my stepbrother was sitting in his leather chair, offering me a trade like it was nothing.

"That house is the only thing my father left me," I said. "You know that."

Gabriel finally looked up. "I know. Sign anyway."

My mother tightened her grip on my sleeve. I shook her off.

"Give me the pen."

I signed. Grabbed my suitcase — packed for three days — and walked out.

I had nowhere to go. I didn't care.

Due to his grandmother's dying wish, Leonard, the hospital's most eligible cardiac surgeon, was forced to marry the nurse who secretly loved him—me. Through six years of hidden marriage, we pretended to be mere colleagues at the hospital while he remained utterly cold toward me and our daughter Vera. When his first love returned, I watched him reignite his passion for another woman and my heart died completely. I signed the divorce papers and vanished from his world with Vera. This time, he lost us forever.

My entire family betrayed me.

My husband Keith threatened divorce to force me into donating bone marrow to save my sister Berenice's life.

My parents slapped me across the face, screaming I owed her everything.

Thirty days in an underground lab, Keith wined and dined Berenice while I got steel needles driven through my spine daily.

When I begged Keith for help through the agony, he texted back: "Stop playing victim. Disgusting."

I died alone on day thirty. Keith arrived with divorce papers, ready for one final insult, but received a decomposing corpse crawling with maggots.

But when the truth came out, why did my loving family completely lose their minds?

I was dying, but honestly? Death felt like mercy.

As a vampire, I should have been immortal. But at six years old, I'd made a deal with a demon, gambling my fate on "true love"—if three times I failed to win the heart of the one I loved, the demon would claim my soul.

Just when I thought death was certain, I got pregnant. Morag, the demon, showed rare mercy, promising to wait until I gave birth.

But at eight months, my husband sneered about removing the "bastard." My brother didn't even flinch as he sliced open my belly. My parents cursed that I deserved it—all to save my sister Lycia, who'd somehow "returned from the dead."

The day they cut my child out, not one tear. Not for me.

So why, after I died, were they all on their knees at my grave, sobbing?

The tour bus hung precariously over the cliff's edge, smoke billowing from its engine. Inside, two pregnant women were trapped.

"Captain Walker, both pregnant women are in critical condition. Who do we save first?"

I had been pierced by a steel rod through my abdomen, my water had broken, and I was screaming desperately at my husband:

"Ryan Walker! My water broke! The baby's dying!"

On the other side, his first love Stella clutched her chest, her face deathly pale:

"Ryan, I'm having a heart attack! Save me!"

The man in the firefighter uniform charged toward Stella's side without hesitation.

"Captain, your wife's position is easier to reach!" team member Mike shouted.

"SHUT UP! Follow orders!"

He rushed to Stella without looking back, leaving behind one sentence:

"She won't die. I'm her husband, I take full responsibility."

When my parents forced me to donate my organs to my sister, I didn't refuse or run away. I just quietly signed the surgical consent forms, willingly giving my kidney to Vivienne, their beloved daughter.

A few months ago, my sister was hospitalized with kidney failure. The doctor said she needed a transplant. My family's first thought was me—the backup daughter they'd kept around all these years.

When my husband Allen took my hand with tears in his eyes and said, "Only you can save her," I agreed without hesitation.

When the doctor explained the surgical risks and potential complications, I smiled and nodded my understanding.

My parents said I'd finally learned what sisterly love meant.

Even Allen, who'd always been cold to me, held my hand gently and said, "The surgery's safe. You're so healthy, nothing will go wrong. When you recover, I'll take you to Hawaii."

But they don't know that no matter how the surgery goes, I won't be around to celebrate.

Because I just got my own test results—I have terminal brain cancer. I'm going to die anyway.

"Just a poor warrior girl," they laughed. Until HE showed up.

Marcus dumped me six years ago for money and status. Now he's back with his snake princess girlfriend, ready to humiliate me again. They force me to kneel, break my legs, tear my clothes—all for a stupid wedding dress.

"Your boyfriend can't save you," Seraphina hisses. "Nobody cares about trash like you."

Then the wall EXPLODES.

A massive black wolf storms in, golden eyes blazing with fury. When he shifts back to human form, every face in the room goes white with terror.

Turns out my "nobody" boyfriend is the most feared Alpha on the continent. Oops.

I won the championship at the sailing regatta, only to watch my arch-rival smash my trophy into a thousand pieces.

"Sienna's nothing but a homewrecker! She doesn't deserve squat!"

Cindy—my defeated opponent—stood there in front of the entire school, accusing me of sleeping my way to the top. According to her, I'd seduced some sponsor to steal the win.

"Are you out of your damn mind? You lost. Deal with it!"

"Lost? Oh honey, that's rich coming from someone who cheated her way to the finish line!"

I almost laughed at her pathetic meltdown—until she whipped out a photo of me on a yacht.

"Take a good look, bitch! That's my father you were screwing!"

The woman in the picture? Definitely me.

The man beside me? She just called him "dad."

What. The. Fuck.

Since when do I have a goddamn half-sister?

I bought my five-year-old son a Captain America shield for his birthday.

But when I landed in New York, the hospital called.

"Your son died during the medical procedure your husband authorized."

Marcus had signed Axel up as a living donor. For his mistress's kid.

While our baby bled out on the operating table, Marcus was cutting birthday cake with his new family.

Even used Axel's favorite Superman pillow as decoration.

I stared at my child's mutilated corpse and made a promise.

You fed my baby to wolves for a whore's smile. Time to return the favor, Marcus.