Bing Xialuo

My eyes snapped open. The dorm room ceiling, with its familiar water stain shaped like a crooked smile, loomed above. Across the room, Brianna Jones hummed softly, applying makeup. She wore a cheap copy of my cashmere sweater. My heart hammered against my ribs. This wasn' t right. This was weeks ago. The memories crashed down: the Paris program acceptance, the "going away" party, the sickening taste, then absolute darkness. Brianna had poisoned me. I saw her smirk, remembered collapsing. Yet here she was, her reflection smiling sweetly in her compact mirror, her voice falsely cheerful. "Morning, sleepyhead," she chirped. This was the ambitious girl from a small town. My roommate. The one who wanted my life. I stared at her, the image of her malicious triumph at my party seared into my brain. The subtle digs, the way she' d implied I was the copycat, her constant imitation of my style, my social media. She' d meticulously cataloged me, then painstakingly isolated me, even turning away Liam, the hockey captain I genuinely liked. All my kindness burned away in the hospital bed I now only remembered. "You okay, Ava?" she asked, a tilt to her head. "You look like you've seen a ghost." My parents always told me I was too trusting, too eager to see the good in people. They were right. This inexplicable situation felt like a cruel joke, yet it was real. The date on my phone confirmed it. Several weeks before the party. Before she tried to kill me. I had a second chance. And this time, I wouldn' t be naive. I wouldn' t be kind to the snake in my room. This time, Ava Miller wouldn't be a doormat. This time, I would fight.

My husband drugged me. Then he planted my masked shadow guard in my bed and arrived with witnesses. "Name Kayden my secondary consort, or every noble in Althea will hear how their precious First Princess spent the night beneath another man." In my first life, I surrendered. For three years, Jaheem Bradley's family forged my seals, stole my royal vineyards and dragon crystal mines, and used my gold to indulge his mistress. When rebel dragons attacked, my husband locked the fortress gates behind me and left me to be torn apart in the Dragon Graveyard. Even my childhood maid sold my life for thirty gold coins. Only Kael stayed. The disfigured shadow guard took ten thousand dragonfire arrows for me. After my death, he finally revealed his true identity-Callen Hart, the undefeated War Lord of the North-and burned House Bradley to the ground in vengeance. When I opened my eyes again, I was back in that poisoned bed. But I was no longer the foolish princess who had begged for her husband's love. I answered Jaheem's scheme with golden dragonfire. I shattered our marriage contract, reclaimed everything his family had stolen, and sent the traitor to the black dungeons. Then Callen's iron mask fell. "Do not look at me, Your Highness. My face will disgust you." I pressed my palm against the cursed black scales covering his cheek. "Whether you are Lord Callen or Kael, my shadow guard, you belong to me." They called him a cursed monster. My blood called him my fated mate. Now the Regent is sending an army to murder my younger brother and seize his throne. My enemies still believe I am the blind princess they once deceived. They stole my fortune, my kingdom, and my life once. This time, I will take back everything-and anyone who reaches for what is mine will burn.

For three years, I played the perfect, obedient wife to the Carlyle-Spencer family, enduring my mother-in-law's icy commands to clean up my husband's messes. But when I went to a high-end bar to bring him home, I found him intimately laughing with Britany, the sister of his deceased first love. She was even wearing a replica of her sister's famous diamond necklace, a blatant provocation aimed right at me. Instead of feeling guilty, my husband looked at me with pure disgust. "Who the hell told you to come here? Don't make a scene." He whispered those venomous words before turning his back on me to escort her home, leaving me to be publicly mocked as the discarded wife. When I calmly handed him a divorce agreement, he laughed in my face. He set an impossible condition, demanding I get both our traditional grandfathers to sign off on it, thinking I was just a desperate woman playing a game. His mother even locked us in the master suite, demanding I provide the family with an heir to fix the scandal. They all thought I was a nobody clinging to their wealth, a fragile doll they could manipulate, trap, and humiliate at will. They didn't know my grandfather had hidden a secret clause in our prenup. Because of Julian's emotional infidelity, I had the right to unilaterally dissolve the marriage and take back my massive dowry with interest. I calmly packed up my hidden Stanford robotics PhD research and prepared to leave this gilded cage, ready to watch his arrogant world crumble.

I was freezing to death in an abandoned cabin, desperately waiting for my fiancé to save me. Instead, my phone flickered with a video from my adopted sister. She was smiling as she confessed that she and my fiancé had orchestrated my kidnapping, and my parents' fatal plane crash, just to steal my family's trust fund. When I called him with my dying breath, he mocked me for faking a PR stunt and hung up. I died in the sub-zero blizzard, consumed by absolute despair. But as a ghost, I watched my greatest business rival, the ruthless billionaire Collins, kick down the doors of my mansion. He didn't just mourn me. He shot my fiancé, trapped my sister, and set the entire place on fire, choosing to burn alive in the inferno just to avenge me. I couldn't understand why the man I had publicly despised for a decade loved me so fiercely, while the people I gave everything to wanted me dead. Opening my eyes again, I was back backstage on the night I won my Oscar, four years ago. My fiancé smiled, holding out his arms to hug me. I pushed him away in disgust, marched straight into the crowded theater, and kissed my billionaire rival on live television. "Let's get married tomorrow." This time, I would use him to burn them all to the ground.

Corey Hendrix was the family's dirty secret, a forgotten stepdaughter deliberately hidden away in rural Montana for twenty years. But today, her stepfather Isham summoned her to his study and slid a marriage contract across the desk. He was forcing her to marry Lucas Fitzgerald—a powerful billionaire rumored to be paralyzed from the waist down—simply so her favored stepsister Brandi wouldn't have to waste her life on a "cripple." "If you refuse, you'll be on the street before dinner. Let's see how long you last." Isham threatened her with cold disdain, treating her like a worthless commodity to be traded for a corporate alliance. Her stepsister Brandi kicked her door open just to mock her, calling her a pathetic country bumpkin. They even used Corey's tragically deceased mother as emotional blackmail, entirely confident in their control, secretly hiding the fact that Isham had embezzled the five-million-dollar trust fund her mother left behind. The entire Copeland family looked down on her, convinced she was just a timid, helpless outcast who had no choice but to accept this deeply unfair fate. They had no idea that the moment Corey walked out of that study, her submissive mask dissolved. Locking her bedroom door, she pulled out an encrypted, military-grade laptop and logged in under her real title: Commander "Argent" of the BTO special ops. This forced marriage wasn't a cage, but her perfect cover to infiltrate New York's elite and finally avenge her mother's murder.

I threw myself in front of the ruthless Alpha King's convoy, risking death to demand justice against my fated mate who had forsaken our sacred bond. But when the King brought me to Ryker's doorstep, I found him holding the local Alpha's beautiful daughter. To protect his future, Ryker pointed at my undeniable mate mark and lied to the entire pack. "It was a lie. A paid act to comfort my dying mother." Instantly, the pack turned on me, branding me a vicious gold-digger who exploited a dead woman's memory. When I slapped him for blaspheming the Goddess, he snapped my arm in half in front of everyone. Later, his new mate's father threw a half-million-dollar check at my hospital bed, ordering me to take the blood money and vanish. I was just an Omega. In their eyes, my sacred bond and my shattered heart were worthless, easily crushed under the weight of their ambition. How could the man who promised me forever turn into a monster who wanted me dead? But my honor was not for sale. Backed by the Alpha King, I stripped Ryker of his wealth, and when they sent rogues to kidnap me that night, I threw myself from a moving van into the dark woods, ready to start my revenge.

I spent five years acting as the perfect, invisible caretaker for my wealthy family, meticulously managing their health and social standing while they treated me like a ghost. Then, my nightmare became reality when my brother Alon shoved me out of bed, forcing me to apologize to our adopted sister, Fallon, for a jealousy I never felt. My parents and brother stood over me, their eyes filled with unfiltered disgust, demanding I play the servant to a girl who was actively plotting my social destruction. They froze my accounts, stripped me of my dignity, and mocked my existence, fully expecting me to crawl back to them in tears like I did in my other, broken life. I stared at their entitled faces, feeling a cold, sharp clarity wash over me; they were so obsessed with status that they didn't realize they had just handed the keys to their own ruin to a complete amateur. Why was I still playing the martyr for people who would watch me burn without blinking? I stood up, walked away from their chaos, and cut the final tie, leaving them to face the ruthless social elite with a liability they couldn't control.

I caught the white roses at my best friend’s wedding. Everyone expected Nero, the Mafia Underboss I’d loved for eight years, to drop to one knee and propose. Instead, he ripped the bouquet from my hands and gave it to his secretary. “Next time, Siena,” he said, his voice flat and devoid of emotion. “Let Valentina have her moment in the spotlight.” In front of every Capo and soldier in the city, he stripped me of my dignity just to please a girl who played at being a mobster’s muse. To him, I was merely an entry in a ledger—forever pending, never prioritized. I quietly sold our penthouse, packed my bags, and walked away. In seven days, I would no longer be his shadow. I planned to marry his rival Don.

My father was the King of Wall Street until he was branded a fraud, turning the Maxwell name into a lead weight dragging me to the bottom of the Hudson. I walked into the Brennan Media Tower with blood-red lipstick and a desperate proposal, offering myself as a "paper wife" to Garland Brennan, the coldest billionaire in Manhattan. Garland didn’t even look at me as a human being; he tore my term sheet in half and called me "radioactive" before having security toss me out like trash. I returned to my rotting apartment in Bushwick only to find my roommate’s cousin, a debt collector named Jax, waiting to break my bones. He pinned me against the wall, his hand heavy on my throat as he sneered about selling me to a club to pay off my father's debts. With my ribs aching and my back against the radiator, I had to leak corporate secrets on Twitter just to summon Garland’s private mercenaries to stop a predator. The humiliation didn't stop there. At the Met Gala, the elite mocked my dress made of construction tarp, and my father’s creditors began harassing my senile grandmother in her nursing home. I was a cornered animal, and Garland Brennan was the only hunter offering a cage instead of a grave. I realized then that in this zip code, you are either the predator or the prey, and I was tired of being hunted. Garland offered me a marriage contract that demanded total submission—no equity, no voting rights, just an employee with a wedding ring. I signed the four-hundred-page document with a steady hand, but not before hiding a legal poison pill in the fine print. He thinks he bought a silent asset, but I just secured a front-row seat to his downfall.

The sharp pain in my son Timmy's leg was the start of it all. A snakebite. I rushed him to Mercy General, where my older son David worked as an ER doctor. He would save his little brother. But the moment I burst into the emergency room, collapsing with Timmy limp in my arms, a blonde nurse named Ashley Jones, David' s girlfriend, turned on me. She met my desperate plea for help with a cold refusal, demanding I fill out forms. When I begged her to get David, her eyes hardened. She shoved me, snarling, "Get in line like everyone else." She scoffed at my claims of being David' s mother, dismissing Timmy as a "little brat," even threatening to let him die. She stole my phone, smashing it when she saw the silver sparrow charm-identical to hers-on my keychain, screaming about David being a "cheating bastard." Ashley even called her brother Kevin, a brute, to deal with me. Other nurses and patients stared but did nothing as Ashley, ignoring Timmy' s fading breath, reveled in my anguish. She kicked my spilled purse, scattering my ID, and mocked my desperate pleas for help. She demanded I kowtow, to bow my head, begging for her mercy, while filming my humiliation on her phone. As Timmy' s lips turned blue, I swallowed my pride, head pressed against the cold floor, whispering, "I'm sorry. Please… help my son." But even that wasn't enough for the monster. She demanded I slap myself, ten times. It was then, as I raised my hand, that I saw Timmy. Still. Silent. He was gone. My son was dead. And in that moment, all my humiliation, all my fear, was burned away, replaced by a volcanic, white-hot rage.

The sterile white walls of the restoration studio, once my sanctuary, felt like a cage closing in. My former mentor, Mark, stood in the doorway, his face a mask of disappointment, while my ambitious intern, Chloe, watched with a smirk of triumph. I was quitting, giving up the career I had painstakingly built, a decade\'s worth of meticulous work and groundbreaking techniques, all because of a fabricated scandal that destroyed my reputation overnight. They blamed me, the "disgraced restorer," for vandalizing a priceless Degas sculpture, a heinous act I didn' t commit but one Chloe expertly pinned on me, while her "artistic intuition" - my stolen methods - catapulted her to fame. The public humiliation was immediate, a cup of coffee thrown at me on the sidewalk, my name dragged through the mud, while Chloe and Mark reveled in their newfound prestige. I couldn' t comprehend how quickly my life unraveled, why Mark, the man I loved and trusted, so easily believed her lies, or how Chloe consistently knew my most private thoughts and theories. But as I packed my grandfather's tools, leaving behind the life they had ruined, a cold, hard resolve replaced the shame; I wouldn\'t be a victim any longer, and I would uncover the truth behind Chloe\'s "gift" and the full extent of their betrayal.

For years, I was Mrs. Matthew Scott, a Dallas socialite living in a penthouse overlooking the city, my life a polished, perfect façade. Then a phone call from the ranch shattered everything, telling me my indomitable grandmother, Maria, had been assaulted and was clinging to life. My husband, Matthew, the man I married, coldly refused to help, instead freezing every penny I had, stealing my grandmother' s priceless family heirlooms, and giving them to his executive assistant, Sabrina, whose own grandfather was Maria' s attacker. He set me up for public humiliation, making me believe an old friend would offer me a lifeline, only for Matthew and Sabrina to burst in, expose me, and announce their engagement right there. I was left broke, shamed, and utterly desperate, facing a hospital ultimatum to pull the plug on my grandmother within 24 hours. But just when I thought I had nothing left, I received a call informing me that the vast West Texas ranch, the very land Matthew built his empire on, was never sold to him at all; it was mine. Now, with a childhood friend and Matthew's biggest rival by my side, that land, and a furious, broken woman, are about to become his absolute undoing.

The oppressive silence of my home was a constant reminder of my twelve lost children. My husband, Michael, the man I loved, transformed into a monster, ripping each newborn from my arms with cold, absurd justifications. Every desperate plea for help I made-to family, friends, even strangers-was met with the same chilling betrayal. Michael merely showed them a mysterious photograph, and instantly, their sympathy vanished, replaced by a cruel consensus that I was the one who was mad, leaving me utterly abandoned in a ceaseless loop of pregnancy and loss. What dark secret did this single image hold that could turn every loving face against me, convincing them my babies' deaths were a delusion and not a horrifying reality? I was trapped, heartbroken, and consumed by the desperate need to understand why everyone believed his monstrous lies over my truth. Just as I plummeted into a final, desperate act to escape this unending torment, the 'nightmare' shattered, awakening me not to death, but to a shocking truth: my decade of anguish was a high-tech medical simulation, and the reality that awaited was stranger, and more hopeful, than anything I could have imagined.

Not only did her sister stole her man, but she also took away her money, her assets—everything. Left empty-handed, she lived her life in hiding, escaping her debts. Just when she thought all hope was lost, he suddenly came into her life like a knight in shining armor. He loved her, cared for her, and gave her everything she needed. She had everything she could have and more. However, when she got pregnant, things went downhill. He started cheating and mistreating her. "I have never loved you and I never will!" he spat. With pure disdain in his eyes, he told her that she was merely a substitute. With fate reversed once again, she taught herself to rely only on herself. She built herself up from the ground and promised never to let anyone hurt her—never again.

I thought having one reckless night of revenge sex with a gorgeous stranger seemed like the perfect way for me to break out of my "good girl" mold. I was wrong. ​I ran before he could even know my name, promising myself it would stay a secret. A mistake buried so deep that neither my overprotective brother nor my boyfriend would ever find out. Then I walked onto campus for my first day of college... and came face to face with the last person I ever wanted to see. The stranger wasn't a stranger after all. He was the star captain of the hockey team and My brother's best friend. In other words...I was fucked. Literally.

"What do you think people would say if they found out you don't have a dick?" Christian asked, his voice low and dripping with seduction. His hand pressed firmly against my crotch, fingers exploring the flat, unfamiliar emptiness there. A devilish smirk curved his lips. "Or if they discovered these voluptuous breasts you've been hiding so well?" A strangled moan slipped from my throat as his hand slid under my shirt, his fingers brushing over my hardened nipples, teasing them with slow, deliberate strokes. "Which do you think they'd call you?" he murmured, eyes gleaming. "A boy with tits... or a dickless little fraud?" I stared into his hungry blue eyes, words failing me. "The term you're looking for is 'girl,'" came Xavier's smooth voice from the bathroom doorway. He stepped inside, closing the door behind him with a soft click, his gaze raking over me with open interest. "So tell me, little girl... what the hell is someone like you doing in an all-boys dorm?" Christian's smirk widened. "She wants to be devoured by boys like us." His fingers gave my nipple one last firm pinch before he leaned in closer, breath hot against my ear. "And I'll be more than happy to give her a taste."

Eighteen days after giving up on Brendan Maynard, Jayde Rosario cut off her waist-length hair and called her father, announcing her decision to move to California and attend UC Berkeley. Her father, surprised, asked about the sudden change, reminding her how she' d always insisted on staying with Brendan. Jayde forced a laugh, revealing the painful truth: Brendan was getting married, and she, his stepsister, could no longer cling to him. That night, she tried to tell Brendan about her college acceptance, but his fiancée, Chloie Ellis, interrupted with a bubbly call, and Brendan' s tender words to Chloie twisted a knife in Jayde' s heart. She remembered how his tenderness used to be hers alone, how he had protected her, and how she had poured out her heart to him in a diary and a love letter, only for him to explode, tearing the letter and yelling, "I'm your brother!" He had stormed out, leaving her to painstakingly tape the shredded pieces back together. Her love, however, didn't die, not even when he brought Chloie home and told her to call her "sister-in-law." Now, she understood. She had to put that fire out herself. She had to dig Brendan out of her heart.

Unlike her twin brother, Jackson, Jessa struggled with her weight and very few friends. Jackson was an athlete and the epitome of popularity, while Jessa felt invisible. Noah was the quintessential "It" guy at school-charismatic, well-liked, and undeniably handsome. To make matters worse, he was Jackson's best friend and Jessa's biggest bully. During their senior year, Jessa decides it was time for her to gain some self-confidence, find her true beauty and not be the invisible twin. As Jessa transformed, she begins to catch the eye of everyone around her, especially Noah. Noah, initially blinded by his perception of Jessa as merely Jackson's sister, started to see her in a new light. How did she become the captivating woman invading his thoughts? When did she become the object of his fantasies? Join Jessa on her journey from being the class joke to a confident, desirable young woman, surprising even Noah as she reveals the incredible person she has always been inside.

The last thing I remembered was Chloe's voice, sharp and gleeful, slicing through the haze of my headache: "They never loved you, Ava. Not Liam, not Noah. It was always me." Her words were a hammer blow, each one a nail in the coffin of my life, a searing supernova of agony that exploded behind my eyes before everything faded to black. I gasped, sitting bolt upright in my childhood bed, my unlined hands proof of a terrifying truth: I was back, the calendar on my desk screaming September 5th, senior year, before the nightmare truly began. The reel of my first life rewound in fast-forward: Stanford, the calculated betrayals by Liam and Noah, Chloe's venomous strings, the engineered vasectomies, my promising career systematically destroyed, and the aneurysm that ended it all. This was impossible, a future I'd already lived, a death I'd already died, yet the worn duvet felt real, the scent of my mother's pancakes too vibrant—a second chance, if I dared to seize it, to change everything. My fingers flew across the keyboard, deleting Stanford from my early college applications and replacing it with MIT—my true dream, the one they had ruthlessly crushed. Just then, the doorbell rang, and through the frosted glass, I saw them: Liam Walker, Noah Chen, and Chloe Jenkins, the architects of my past ruin, their bright smiles and feigned innocence an instant surge of cold dread.

I used to think my life was a gilded cage, trapped by the family who adopted me, the Blakelys. They showered me with privilege, but it was just a facade. Then, everything changed. I' m on my knees, a throbbing pain in my cheek, accused by my adoptive mother, Elizabeth, of assaulting my "sister," Nicole. Nicole plays the perfect victim, her eyes brimming with fake tears as Elizabeth tells me, "You are not our daughter, Stella. Nicole is. You owe her everything." They stripped me of my identity, making me feel like a replacement, a charity case who had stolen another's life. In my last life, their words shattered me. I was a naive girl, easily manipulated, unknowingly prepped for sacrifice. I died at twenty-one, my "Golden Aura"-my very life force-drained to fuel their real daughter's ascent, sealing my real parents' gruesome fate. But the joke's on them. I'm back. Reborn at eighteen, with every chilling memory of my past life and the decade I spent as a wandering spirit. This time, I' ll play their twisted game, but with one crucial difference: I make the rules. And I will burn their world to the ground.

When Chloe came to Leighton High for the first time, in a small town, she didn't expect to come into a bully's radar. All her life, she had always stayed out of people's way, and was never really noticed. She had also always had to make an effort to make friends, but never enemies. Not that she didn't think she was way past getting one, but she didn't think it would be someone as Handsome as Zach was. The first time they met was a disaster, and she tried her best to stay away from him, the only problem was, he wasn't letting her, and soon, the hate he showed her, soon turned into something she had never experienced before. Would she be able to get rid of the unwanted feeling she was getting for him, or the unwanted attention he was showing her? Find out in the intriguing story.

My eyes snapped open. The dorm room ceiling, with its familiar water stain shaped like a crooked smile, loomed above. Across the room, Brianna Jones hummed softly, applying makeup. She wore a cheap copy of my cashmere sweater. My heart hammered against my ribs. This wasn' t right. This was weeks ago. The memories crashed down: the Paris program acceptance, the "going away" party, the sickening taste, then absolute darkness. Brianna had poisoned me. I saw her smirk, remembered collapsing. Yet here she was, her reflection smiling sweetly in her compact mirror, her voice falsely cheerful. "Morning, sleepyhead," she chirped. This was the ambitious girl from a small town. My roommate. The one who wanted my life. I stared at her, the image of her malicious triumph at my party seared into my brain. The subtle digs, the way she' d implied I was the copycat, her constant imitation of my style, my social media. She' d meticulously cataloged me, then painstakingly isolated me, even turning away Liam, the hockey captain I genuinely liked. All my kindness burned away in the hospital bed I now only remembered. "You okay, Ava?" she asked, a tilt to her head. "You look like you've seen a ghost." My parents always told me I was too trusting, too eager to see the good in people. They were right. This inexplicable situation felt like a cruel joke, yet it was real. The date on my phone confirmed it. Several weeks before the party. Before she tried to kill me. I had a second chance. And this time, I wouldn' t be naive. I wouldn' t be kind to the snake in my room. This time, Ava Miller wouldn't be a doormat. This time, I would fight.

It is not to be understood that all statements here made are either ascertained facts or universally admitted conjectures. The introduction is intended merely to put those who are not scholars, and probably have not books of reference at hand, in a position to approach the translation at as little disadvantage as may be. Accordingly, we give the account that commends itself to us, without discussion or reference to authorities. Those who would like a more complete idea of Lucian should read Croiset's Essai sur la vie et les oeuvres de Lucien, on which the first two sections of this introduction are very largely based. The only objections to the book (if they are objections) are that it is in French, and of 400 octavo pages. It is eminently readable. With the exception of a very small number of statements, of which the truth is by no means certain, all that we know of Lucian is derived from his own writings. And any reader who prefers to have his facts at first rather than at second hand can consequently get them by reading certain of his pieces, and making the natural deductions from them. Those that contain biographical matter are, in the order corresponding to the periods of his life on which they throw light, The Vision, Demosthenes, Nigrinus, The Portrait-study and Defence (in which Lucian is Lycinus), The Way to write History, The double ndictment (in which he is The Syrian), The Fisher (Parrhesiades), Swans and Amber, Alexander, Hermotimus_ (Lycinus), Menippus and Icaromenippus (in which Menippus represents him), A literary Prometheus, Herodotus, Zeuxis, Harmonides, The Scythian, The Death of Peregrine, The Book-fancier, Demonax, The Rhetorician's Vade mecum, Dionysus, Heracles, A Slip of the Tongue, Apology for 'The dependent Scholar.'_ Of these The Vision is a direct piece of autobiography; there is intentional but veiled autobiography in several of the other pieces; in others again conclusions can be drawn from comparison of his statements with facts known from external sources. Lucian lived from about 125 to about 200 A.D., under the Roman Emperors Antoninus Pius, M. Aurelius and Lucius Verus, Commodus, and perhaps Pertinax. He was a Syrian, born at Samosata on the Euphrates, of parents to whom it was of importance that he should earn his living without spending much time or money on education. His maternal uncle being a statuary, he was apprenticed to him, having shown an aptitude for modelling in the wax that he surreptitiously scraped from his school writing-tablets. The apprenticeship lasted one day. It is clear that he was impulsive all through life; and when his uncle corrected him with a stick for breaking a piece of marble, he ran off home, disposed already to think he had had enough of statuary. His mother took his part, and he made up his mind by the aid of a vision that came to him the same night.

Kaida thought forever was the deal with her boyfriend, Liam, the captain of the Runners Hockey Team, until he broke up with her and reunited with his childhood lover, who had returned after several years of being away. Heartbroken and angry, Kaida decided to make her ex-boyfriend jealous by kissing her best friend's older brother, Maverick. Unfortunately, she reignited the flame he'd been trying to quench for years. Now, there was no turning back and no quenching the obsessive flame burning inside Maverick for her. After some time, Liam realized he truly loved Kaida and wanted her back, but Maverick wasn't letting her go. Kaida was his now, and he would go to the end of the earth for her sake. What began as revenge against her ex turned into something twisted and dark: something beyond words and certainly beyond obsession.