Gavin

My husband was in the shower, the sound of water a familiar rhythm to our mornings. I was just placing a cup of coffee on his desk, a small ritual in our five years of what I thought was a perfect marriage. Then, an email notification flashed on his laptop: "You're invited to the Christening of Leo Thomas." Our last name. The sender: Hayden Cleveland, a social media influencer. An icy dread settled in. It was an invitation for his son, a son I didn't know existed. I went to the church, hidden in the shadows, and saw him holding a baby, a little boy with his dark hair and eyes. Hayden Cleveland, the mother, leaned on his shoulder, a picture of domestic bliss. They looked like a family. A perfect, happy family. My world crumbled. I remembered him refusing to have a baby with me, citing work pressure. All his business trips, the late nights-were they spent with them? The lie was so easy for him. How could I have been so blind? I called the Zurich Architectural Fellowship, a prestigious program I had deferred for him. "I' d like to accept the fellowship," I said, my voice eerily calm. "I can leave immediately."

My mate, Alpha Damien, was holding a sacred naming ceremony for his heir. The only problem? He was celebrating a pup he had with Lyra, a rogue he brought into our pack. And I, his true mate, four months pregnant with his actual heir, was the only one not invited. When I confronted her, she clawed her own arm, drew blood, and screamed that I had attacked her. Damien saw her performance and didn't even look at me. He snarled, using his Alpha's Command to force me to leave, the power of our bond twisted into a weapon against me. Later, she attacked me for real, making me fall. As blood bloomed on my dress, threatening our child's life, she tossed her own pup onto a rug and screamed that I had tried to kill him. Damien burst in, saw me bleeding on the floor, and didn't hesitate. He scooped Lyra's screaming pup into his arms and sprinted away to find a healer, leaving me and his true heir to die. But as I lay there, my mother's voice echoed in my mind through our own link. My family's escort was waiting for me just beyond the territory border. He was about to find out that the Omega he threw away was actually the princess of the most powerful pack in the world.

My world revolved around Jax Harding, my older brother's captivating rockstar friend. From sixteen, I adored him; at eighteen, I clung to his casual promise: "When you're 22, maybe I'll settle down." That offhand comment became my life's beacon, guiding every choice, meticulously planning my twenty-second birthday as our destiny. But on that pivotal day in a Lower East Side bar, clutching my gift, my dream exploded. I overheard Jax' s cold voice: "Can't believe Savvy's showing up. She' s still hung up on that stupid thing I said." Then the crushing plot: "We' re gonna tell Savvy I' m engaged to Chloe, maybe even hint she' s pregnant. That should scare her off." My gift, my future, slipped from my numb fingers. I fled into the cold New York rain, devastated by betrayal. Later, Jax introduced Chloe as his "fiancée" while his bandmates mocked my "adorable crush"-he did nothing. As an art installation fell, he saved Chloe, abandoning me to severe injury. In the hospital, he came for "damage control," then shockingly shoved me into a fountain, leaving me to bleed, calling me a "jealous psycho." How could the man I loved, who once saved me, become this cruel and publicly humiliate me? Why was my devotion seen as an annoyance to be brutally extinguished with lies and assault? Was I just a problem, my loyalty met with hatred? I would not be his victim. Injured and betrayed, I made an unshakeable vow: I was done. I blocked his number and everyone connected to him, severing ties. This was not an escape; this was my rebirth. Florence awaited, a new life on my terms, unburdened by broken promises.

For ten years, I secretly loved my guardian, Ethan Hayes. After my family fell apart, he took me in and raised me. He was my entire world. On my eighteenth birthday, I gathered all my courage to confess my love to him. But his reaction was a fury I had never seen before. He swept my birthday cake to the floor and roared, "Are you insane? I am your GUARDIAN!" He then mercilessly tore the painting I had spent a year on-my confession-to shreds. Just days later, he brought home his fiancée, Chloe. The man who had promised to wait for me to grow up, who called me his brightest star, had vanished. My decade of desperate, burning love had only managed to burn myself. The person who was supposed to protect me had become the one who hurt me the most. I looked down at the NYU acceptance letter in my hand. I had to leave. I had to pull him out of my heart, no matter how much it hurt. I picked up the phone and dialed my father's number. "Dad," I said, my voice hoarse, "I've decided. I want to come be with you in New York."

The doctors gave me three years to live. I used every last bit of my strength to marry Cedric Moon, the man I loved. On our wedding night, he abandoned me for another woman. He brought her into our home, forcing me to serve her. He made me apologize for crimes I didn't commit. His family despised me, but they adored her. Then came the staged kidnapping. To save her, Cedric traded me—his pregnant wife—to the man holding a knife. As the blade pressed against my throat, I heard my husband's voice yell at the police. "Shoot!"

I lay in the sterile silence of the hospital, mourning the baby I never got to hold. Everyone called it a tragic accident. A slip and fall. But I knew the truth of my husband's shove. Mark finally came to visit. He didn't bring flowers; he brought a briefcase. Inside were divorce papers and a non-disclosure agreement. He calmly informed me that his mistress-my friend-was pregnant. They were his "real family" now, and they couldn't have any "unpleasantness." He threatened to use fabricated psychiatric reports to paint me as an unstable danger to myself. "Sign the papers, Clara," he warned, his voice void of emotion. "Or you'll be moved from this comfortable room to a more... secure facility. A long-term one." I looked at the man I had loved and saw a monster. This wasn't a tragedy; it was a corporate takeover of my life. He had been meeting with lawyers while I was losing our child. I wasn't his grieving wife; I was a liability being managed, a loose end to be tied. I was utterly and completely trapped. Just as despair consumed me, my parents' old lawyer appeared like a ghost from the past. She pressed a heavy, ornate key into my palm. "Your parents left you an escape route," she whispered, her eyes filled with resolve. "For a day like this." The key led to a forgotten contract, a pact made by our grandfathers decades ago. An ironclad marriage agreement, binding me to the one man my husband feared more than death itself: the ruthless, reclusive billionaire Julian Thorne.

For ten years, my world had revolved around Mark. I went to his lavish engagement party to finally cauterize the wound, to watch him promise his life to another woman and force myself to move on. Then the music stopped. The massive crystal chandelier above us wasn't just glittering anymore; it was groaning, its supports severed, plummeting directly towards the center of the room. It was aimed at Mark and his fiancée. In that last, heart-stopping second, Mark's survival instincts kicked in. He shoved her, his future wife, hard. She stumbled sideways, out of the path of destruction. He didn't even look at me. He left me standing alone, rooted to the spot, staring up at my own glittering death. But I wasn't crushed. An arm like iron wrapped around my waist, yanking me back as the world exploded in a crash of metal and glass. My savior was a stranger, a man with eyes like a storm. He looked down at me in the wreckage and said, "That was an attempt on my life. You were just collateral damage." Before I could even process his words, my phone rang. It was my father, his voice choked with despair. Our family's small business, our entire livelihood, had just been financially ruined. My savior, the man who'd just saved my life, looked at my stricken face. "That was also me," he said, his voice devoid of emotion. "I control your family's debt. Marry me, and I will save them."

My father raised seven brilliant orphans to be my potential husbands. For years, I only had eyes for one of them, the cold and distant Damien Paul, believing his distance was a wall I just had to break through. That belief shattered last night when I found him in the garden, kissing his foster sister, Eve—the fragile girl my family took in at his request, the one I had treated like my own sister. But the true horror came when I overheard the other six Fellows talking in the library. They weren't competing for me. They were working together, orchestrating "accidents" and mocking my "stupid, blind" devotion to keep me away from Damien. Their loyalty wasn't to me, the heiress who held their futures in her hands. It was to Eve. I wasn't a woman to be won. I was a foolish burden to be managed. The seven men I grew up with, the men who owed my family everything, were a cult, and she was their queen. This morning, I walked into my father's study to make a decision that would burn their world to the ground. He smiled, asking if I'd finally won Damien over. "No, Dad," I said, my voice firm. "I'm marrying Hunter Beach."

I was the long-lost Donovan heiress, finally brought home after a childhood in foster care. My parents adored me, my husband cherished me, and the woman who tried to ruin my life, Kiera Reese, was locked away in a mental facility. I was safe. I was loved. On my birthday, I decided to surprise my husband, Ivan, at his office. But he wasn't there. I found him at a private art gallery across town. He was with Kiera. She wasn't in a facility. She was radiant, laughing as she stood beside my husband and their five-year-old son. I watched through the glass as Ivan kissed her, a familiar, loving gesture he’d used with me just that morning. I crept closer and overheard them. My birthday wish to go to the amusement park had been denied because he’d already promised the entire park to their son—whose birthday was the same day as mine. "She’s so grateful to have a family, she’d believe anything we tell her," Ivan said, his voice laced with a cruelty that stole my breath. "It's almost sad." My entire reality—my loving parents who funded this secret life, my devoted husband—was a five-year lie. I was just the fool they kept on stage. My phone buzzed. It was a text from Ivan, sent while he stood with his real family. "Just got out of the meeting. So exhausting. I miss you." The casual lie was the final blow. They thought I was a pathetic, grateful orphan they could control. They were about to find out just how wrong they were.

My husband, Bennett, and I were New York's golden couple. But our perfect marriage was a lie, childless because of a rare genetic condition he claimed would kill any woman who carried his baby. When his dying father demanded an heir, Bennett proposed a solution: a surrogate. The woman he chose, Aria, was a younger, more vibrant version of me. Suddenly, Bennett was always busy, supporting her through "difficult IVF cycles." He missed my birthday. He forgot our anniversary. I tried to believe him, until I overheard him at a party. He confessed to his friends that his love for me was a "deep connection," but with Aria, it was "fire" and "exhilarating." He was planning a secret wedding with her in Lake Como, at the same villa he'd promised me for our anniversary. He was giving her a wedding, a family, a life—all the things he denied me, using a lie about a deadly genetic condition as his excuse. The betrayal was so complete it felt like a physical shock. When he came home that night, lying about a business trip, I smiled and played the part of the loving wife. He didn't know I'd heard everything. He didn't know that while he was planning his new life, I was already planning my escape. And he certainly didn't know I had just made a call to a service that specialized in one thing: making people disappear.

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.

For ten years, my step-brother Mark was my anchor, my confidant, my entire world. Tonight, at a candlelit dinner, I was finally going to tell him I was in love with him. But just as I started to confess, he raised a glass to a beautiful stranger at the door. "Everyone," he announced with a joy that stabbed me in the heart, "meet my fiancée." The next morning, my step-father stripped me of the Aura project-my life's work-and gave it to her as a strategic gift for their new alliance. Mark, my supposed protector, told me not to be sentimental. It was "just business." Then I found the email, dated three weeks ago. It detailed their entire plan to sideline me, calling my passion "a variable to be managed." They saw me as a heartbroken girl, a sentimental fool they could easily discard. But that night, after I fled the restaurant, I ran into him. Julian Thorne. A ruthless corporate shark and my family's greatest enemy. He offered me a card. "Crying over them won't fix anything," he said. "But if you want to destroy them, I have a proposition." I made the call. "I'm in. What do I have to do?"

For three years, I was the Luna for the powerful Alpha Kaelen. He showered me with gifts but never with love. When he touched me, his eyes looked through me, searching for a ghost I couldn't see. When my human father was dying, I reached out to him through our sacred mind-link, begging for my Mate's comfort. He blocked me. I called for him ninety-nine times while my father died alone. Two days later, our Beta sent me a vision of Kaelen in Paris, holding my aunt, Lyra, with a tenderness he had never once shown me. When he returned, he lied effortlessly, blaming the distance for the broken link. I found the truth locked in his private study. It was a shrine to her. His diary revealed everything: our first meeting, the rogue attack where he saved me—all of it was a lie, staged so he could have a substitute for the woman he truly loved. I was just a vessel for her bloodline, and the pup I carried was conceived from that lie. So I tricked him into signing two scrolls. The first was a protocol to magically hide my pregnancy. The second was a blank rejection form, which I signed and filed with the Elders before walking onto a ship bound for a new continent, erasing myself from his world forever.

My husband, Craig, got the promotion. After three long years stuck in a small town, we were finally going home to corporate headquarters. But when I went to file our joint relocation paperwork, the HR administrator gave me a pitying look. Craig, she explained, had already filed a single-person relocation, listing a different spouse: his high-school sweetheart, Chanel Murphy. A single, numb phone call to the county clerk's office revealed the devastating truth. I had signed my own divorce papers two months ago, tricked by Craig, who claimed they were investment documents. He had remarried the very next day. He used my talent as a top software architect to secure his promotion, all while orchestrating this cruel deception. I had sacrificed my own career opportunities for our future, a future he was already building with someone else. The pain was suffocating, but then rage burned through my grief. I picked up my phone, my fingers steady. I called Elek Preston, the VP of Engineering, the man who had offered me a lead role on a high-stakes project. "Is the offer still open?" I asked, my voice clear and hard.

On my wedding day, my family fussed over my "delicate nerves" while my fiancé, Mark, told me my only job was to look beautiful. For years, they'd treated me like a fragile doll, a problem to be managed. An hour before I was meant to walk down the aisle, I overheard them on a forgotten baby monitor. They were discussing the sedative they planned to slip into my champagne. The goal wasn't just to calm my "hysterics." It was to get me through the ceremony before sending me to bed, "overcome with emotion." The moment I was gone, they planned to switch my wedding decor for a hidden "Happy Birthday" banner and turn my reception into a lavish party for my nephew. My entire life was just an inconvenient opening act for a celebration I wasn't invited to. They had always called me paranoid for feeling invisible. Now I knew the horrifying truth: they weren't just ignoring me, they were actively plotting to erase me from my own life. But my late grandmother had left me one last gift: an escape hatch. A business card for a man named Julian Thorne, with the words "Unconventional Solutions" printed beneath his name. I smashed a crystal vase, fled the five-star suite in my bare feet and a silk robe, and walked away from my life, leaving them to clean up the mess. My only destination was the address on that card.

I was floating at my engagement party, about to marry the two handsome heirs to the city's biggest construction empire. Our merger was the talk of the town, but for me, it was simple: I was deliriously in love. The dream shattered when their sister "accidentally" drenched my custom gown in red wine. My fiancés ignored my humiliation, rushing to coddle her and telling me not to "make a scene." Minutes later, from behind a half-open door, I overheard the truth. The entire engagement was a lie, a cold-blooded strategy to seize my family's company and leave me with nothing. They called me a "pathetic, drowned rat." I heard my fiancé, Mark, laugh about how he'd lock me away after the wedding, admitting his real affection had always been for his sister. Every shared promise, every tender touch, was just a move in their game. My heart didn't just break; it turned to ice. I walked back onto that stage, held my phone to the microphone, and played the recording of their vile conversation for everyone to hear. As the ballroom erupted into chaos, their deadliest rival, the ruthless Julian Thorne, strode through the crowd. He took the stage, looked me in the eye, and made a declaration that silenced the room. "They offered you a shared title for your inheritance," he said, his voice a low rumble. "I'm offering you a singular marriage for your nerve." He leaned closer, his voice dropping to an intense whisper meant for the whole world to hear. "Marry me, Clara, and we will grind them into dust together."

I was four months pregnant, a photographer excited for our future, attending a sophisticated baby brunch. Then I saw him, my husband Michael, with another woman, and a newborn introduced as "his son." My world shattered as a torrent of betrayal washed over me, magnified by Michael's dismissive claim I was "just being emotional." His mistress, Serena, taunted me, revealing Michael had discussed my pregnancy complications with her, then slapped me, causing a terrifying cramp. Michael sided with her, publicly shaming me, demanding I leave "their" party, as a society blog already paraded them as a "picture-perfect family." He fully expected me to return, to accept his double life, telling his friends I was "dramatic" but would "always come back." The audacity, the calculated cruelty of his deception, and Serena's chilling malice, fueled a cold, hard rage I barely recognized. How could I have been so blind, so trusting of the man who gaslighted me for months while building a second family? But on the plush carpet of that lawyer's office, as he turned his back on me, a new, unbreakable resolve solidified. They thought I was broken, disposable, easily manipulated – a "reasonable" wife who would accept a sham separation. They had no idea my calm acceptance was not surrender; it was strategy, a quiet promise to dismantle everything he held dear. I would not be handled; I would not understand; I would end this, and make sure their perfect family charade crumbled into dust.

For ten years, my billionaire husband Jaydan paid for my brother’s life-saving medical treatments. I was a paramedic, and he called me his angel for saving his life long ago. But when I rescued a dying child from a fire instead of his socialite best friend, Ariana, the angel fell. He cut off my brother’s funding, threatening to let him die. He forced me to hold a press conference and publicly shame myself for doing my job, all to soothe Ariana’s ego.

For seven years, I was the rejected mate of Alpha Kaelan Blackwood. But he never wanted me; he only ever wanted Livia, the woman he'd grown up with. When Livia framed me for stealing a priceless necklace, Kaelan didn't even hesitate. "You disgusting Omega," he spat. "You are not even worthy of licking the dirt from her shoes." Then he had his guards cuff me in silver and drag me to the cells, all while Livia wept crocodile tears in his arms. As they hauled me away, I saw him flinch, a flicker of pain from our severed bond crossing his face. But he did nothing. In that moment, seven years of foolish hope finally died. The next day, after my mother bailed me out, a rival Alpha found me at the airport. He offered me a position as his Chief Strategic Advisor, with one goal: to destroy Kaelan’s empire. I accepted without a second thought.

For five years, I was the Alpha's mate, but my husband, Mark, saved all his affection for another woman. At a grand pack gala, our fragile charade came crashing down when a massive crystal chandelier tore from the ceiling, plummeting towards the three of us. In that horrifying second, Mark made his choice. He violently shoved me aside-not to safety, but directly into the path of splintering debris. He used his own body as a shield, but only for Isabella, his mistress. I woke up in the infirmary, my body shattered and my connection to my wolf spirit crippled for life. When he finally visited, it wasn't with remorse. He stood over my bed and performed the ultimate betrayal: the rite of severance, brutally tearing our sacred bond in two. The spiritual agony was so profound it stopped my heart. As the monitor flatlined, the pack doctor burst in, his eyes wide with horror as he looked from my lifeless body to Mark's cold face. "What did you do?" he screamed. "By the Moon Goddess, she's carrying your heir."

I spent my entire life loving Mark, the man who became my guardian after my parents died. For his return from a three-month trip, I cooked the perfect dinner, certain he would finally see me as a woman. Instead, he invited me to a celebratory dinner the next night, where he introduced me to his stunning fiancée. The celebration was for their engagement. "Isabelle, this is Clara," he said, his voice glowing with a love he had never shown me. "The one who's been like a little sister to me all these years." They spent the evening discussing their wedding plans, their shared joy a surreal torture. My years of devotion felt like a joke. He was so lost in his happiness that he never noticed my silence, the way my hope curdled into a thick, choking humiliation. I was invisible. But back in the apartment he paid for, an acceptance letter was waiting for me: a full scholarship to a design institute in Paris. When he found me packing the next day, demanding to know what was going on, I placed my key on the table. And I walked out of his life forever.

For seven years, I used my inheritance to sponsor my college crush. I took Keegan Valdez, a brilliant but disgraced student working as a bartender, and turned him into a Silicon Valley billionaire. We lived together, and I was the fool who believed our transactional relationship was love. Then his childhood sweetheart, Cora, came back. The humiliation was public and swift. At a charity auction, he outbid me for a two-million-dollar necklace, fastening it around her neck for everyone to see. That same night, he rescued me after I was drugged and nearly assaulted, only to abandon me in a hotel room because Cora called with a fake emergency about a stuck shower door. But the final nail in the coffin came after a car hit me. As I lay bleeding in the ER, the nurse called him for consent for my emergency surgery. I heard his voice on the phone, cold and irritated. "I'm comforting my girlfriend," he said. "Whatever happens to her is not my concern." The line went dead. The man I had built from nothing had just left me to die. With a trembling hand, I signed the consent form myself. Then I made another call. "Edwin," I whispered to the man who had proposed to me a year ago. "About that wedding... are you still interested?"

My five-year marriage to Dallas Fischer, a tech billionaire, was a blur of high-society parties and fake smiles, until the fifth year ended with the death of our first child. The official story was a miscarriage, a tragedy, but then I overheard Dallas confessing to his mistress, Alanna, that he had paid a doctor to induce an abortion and dispose of our son's ashes. He revealed his plan to humiliate me by leaking an intimate video on our anniversary, claiming I was responsible for his ex-fiancée Hannah's suicide five years ago. He had orchestrated our entire relationship as an elaborate revenge plot. My world shattered. The man I loved, the life we built, was a lie. He hated me, had murdered our child, and was now going to destroy me. But I wouldn't let him. The game had just begun.

For three years, my fiancé Jaxon kept me in a top Swiss clinic, helping me recover from the PTSD that shattered my life. When I was finally accepted into Juilliard, I booked a one-way ticket to New York, ready to surprise him and start our future. But as I was signing my discharge papers, the receptionist handed me an official certificate of recovery. It was dated a full year ago. She explained that my "medication" for the last twelve months had been nothing but vitamin supplements. I had been perfectly healthy, a prisoner held captive by forged medical reports and lies. I flew home and went straight to his private club, only to overhear him laughing with his friends. He was married. He had been for the entire three years I was locked away. "I've been handling Alina," he said, his voice laced with amusement. "A few tweaked reports, the right 'medication' to keep her foggy. It bought me the time I needed to secure my marriage to Krystal." The man who swore to protect me, the man I worshipped, had orchestrated my imprisonment. My love story was just a footnote in his. Later that night, his mother slid a check across the table. "Take this and disappear," she ordered. Three years ago, I had thrown a similar check in her face, declaring my love wasn't for sale. This time, I picked it up. "Alright," I said, my voice hollow. "I'll leave. After my father's death anniversary, Jaxon Francis will never find me again."

The church doors opened, and my wedding day shattered. My groom, Colby, turned from me at the altar, his eyes fixed on his pregnant sister-in-law, Camryn. He led her down the aisle as if she were the bride, leaving me a statue in white lace. He begged me to stay, promising his love, claiming duty to his dead brother. Foolishly, I believed him, only to find Camryn' s suitcases already in our new home.

My wedding to Ethan Reed was just weeks away. After seven years, I was certain of our perfect future. Then, Ethan claimed "selective amnesia" from a head injury, forgetting only me. I tried to make him remember, until I overheard his video call. "Total genius move," he boasted to friends. His amnesia was a fake "hall pass" to pursue influencer Chloe Vance before our wedding. Heartbroken, I feigned belief. I endured his open flirting with Chloe and their taunting selfies. He mocked my distress, prioritizing Chloe's fake emergency. After an accident he caused, he abandoned me, injured, choosing to send Chloe to the hospital first. He even tried to cut me off financially. How could my fiancé be this cruel, calculating monster? His betrayal poisoned every memory. I felt like a fool for trusting such boundless cruelty. His audacity left me reeling. But I wouldn’t be his victim. Instead of breaking, a cold plan formed. I would shed my identity, become Olivia Carter. I would disappear, leaving him, my past, and his engagement ring behind forever, claiming my freedom.

The Healer told me I was finally pregnant. After two years of doubt, I was carrying the heir to the Blackstone Pack. This pup was supposed to be the key to our future, solidifying my place as the Alpha's Luna. But just as the joy set in, a Mind-Link from my best friend shattered my world. It was an image of my mate, Damien, pressing another woman against a wall, his mouth devouring hers. When I confronted him, he dismissed it as "blowing off steam," blaming the pressure of needing an heir. But the real blow came when I overheard his mother praising his mistress, Seraphina. She was six months pregnant with what they called a "true Blackstone heir." While I, his fated mate, was just an "empty shell." Fifteen years of love and loyalty, all for nothing. The business empire I built for our pack was just a tool. Our pup, the miracle I was cherishing, was worthless to them. I was just a political necessity with a weak bloodline, waiting to be replaced. That night, at the Full Moon Celebration, I was supposed to announce my pregnancy and beg for their acceptance. Instead, I walked onto the stage, looked Damien in the eye, and spoke the ancient words of severance. Then, I opened a private channel to the one man who could help me burn it all to the ground. "Kaelan," I sent. "I agree to your plan."

On our third mating anniversary, I prepared a feast. For three years, my Alpha husband, Mark, had treated me like I was made of glass, using my "fragile" constitution as an excuse for his coldness. Still, I hoped tonight he would finally see me. But he came home smelling of another she-wolf, took one look at the anniversary dinner I'd poured my soul into, lied about an urgent pack meeting, and walked out. Days later, he demanded I attend the annual Gala to present a "united front." On the way, he took a call from her, his voice dripping with a tenderness he never gave me. "Don't worry, Sarah, I'm on my way," he said. "Your ovulation cycle is paramount. I love you." The three words he'd never said to me. He slammed on the brakes, shifted into his massive wolf form, and abandoned me on a dark, rain-swept road to run to her. I stumbled out into the storm, my heart finally shattered. I wasn't his mate. I was a placeholder, a prop to be discarded when his true love called. Just as I wished the rain would wash me away, headlights cut through the darkness. A car screeched to a halt inches from me. Out stepped an Alpha whose raw power made my husband seem like a child. His piercing silver eyes locked on mine as a possessive growl rumbled deep in his chest. He looked at me as if he'd found the center of his universe and uttered a single, life-altering word. "Mine."

I was Elara Vance, a Juilliard violinist living my dream, with a scholarship and the loving support of my charming boyfriend, Julian Thorne. When he urgently needed my O-negative blood after a supposed sailing accident, I rushed to give it, only to find him perfectly healthy days later, laughing with friends, my half-empty blood bag casually discarded. My "loving Julian" was a monster, boasting about his "masterpieces of revenge" – a cold, cruel game he orchestrated for his jealous friend Seraphina. He'd sabotaged my career, fed me sugar pills after a staged pool accident, framed me for shoplifting, and even publicly humiliated me while declaring his love for another woman. Then, I overheard his final plan: to set fire to my guesthouse during our "romantic getaway", trapping me in his apartment like a prisoner. His every affectionate word, every grand gesture, was a lie designed to break me, turning my love into a searing humiliation and soul-deep betrayal. But I wouldn't be his victim. I fabricated my own fiery demise and escaped to London, reinventing myself as "Nightingale," a celebrated violinist. When Julian, consumed by a disturbing obsession, dragged me back to New York, announcing our forced marriage, I knew the lavish wedding would be the perfect stage for my ultimate counterattack.

My husband took me to a secluded villa for the weekend to honor the fifth anniversary of his sister's death. But I found her alive, laughing on the patio with him and my parents. They were bouncing a little boy on their laps-a boy with my husband's hair and his "dead" sister's eyes. I heard Mark call me his "dutiful, grieving wife," laughing about how easy I was to fool. My own mother looked at Annelise with a love she had never once shown me. My entire five-year marriage was a performance designed to keep me occupied while they lived their real lives in secret. He didn't just confess; he told me I was nothing but a "convenient solution." Then he revealed their final plan: they had already arranged to have me involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital, using my fabricated "grief" as the reason. I ran. After setting a fire as a diversion, I hid in a ditch by the main road, my life in ashes. With nowhere else to turn, I made a desperate call to the one person I knew my husband feared: his biggest rival.

My wedding to Ethan, the man I’d loved for five years, was weeks away. Everything was set for our future, a beautifully planned life together. Then the call came: Ethan’s high school sweetheart, Chloe, was found with severe amnesia, still believing she was his girlfriend. Ethan postponed our wedding, asked me to pretend to be his brother Liam’s girlfriend, insisting it was "for Chloe’s sake." I endured quiet agony watching him relive their past, his every loving gesture now for her. Chloe’s Instagram became a public shrine to their "rekindled" love, #TrueLove emblazoned everywhere. I even found a groundbreaking clinic for Chloe, hoping for an end, but Ethan brushed it off. Then, I overheard him: I was just a "placeholder," a "good sport" who would wait, because I had "nowhere else to go." Five years of my life, my love, my loyalty, reduced to a disposable convenience. The cold, calculated betrayal punched the air from my lungs. He thought I was trapped, that he could use me at will, then return to me, expecting gratitude. Numb, I stumbled. And then, I met Liam, Ethan’s quiet brother. "I need to get married, Liam. To someone. Soon." The words escaped me. Liam, who had watched silently, responded: "What if I said I'd marry you, Ava? For real." A dangerous, desperate plan ignited within me, fueled by pain and a fierce desire for reckoning. "Alright, Liam," I declared, a new resolve hardening my voice. "But I have conditions: Ethan must be your Best Man, and he must give me away at the altar." The charade was about to begin, but now, it was on my terms. And Ethan had no idea the bride was truly me.

On my birthday, my mother told me it was time to choose a fiancé from New York's most eligible bachelors. She urged me to pick Alexander Booth, the man I loved with a foolish passion in my previous life. But I remembered how that love story ended. On the eve of our wedding, Alexander faked his death in a private jet crash. I spent years as his grieving fiancée, only to find him alive and well on a beach, laughing with the poor student I had personally sponsored. They even had a child. When I confronted him, our friends-the men who had pretended to comfort me-held me down. They helped Alexander throw me into the ocean and watched from the pier as I drowned. As the water closed over my head, only one person showed any real emotion. My childhood rival, Darrian Golden, screamed my name as they held him back, his face twisted in grief. He was the only one who cried at my funeral. Opening my eyes again, I was back in our penthouse, just a week before the big decision. This time, when my mother asked me to choose Alexander, I gave her a different name. I chose the man who mourned me. I chose Darrian Golden.

For three years, I documented the slow death of my marriage in a black journal. It was my 100-point divorce plan: for every time my husband, Blake, chose his first love, Ariana, over me, I deducted points. When the score hit zero, I would leave. The final points vanished the night he left me bleeding out from a car crash. I was eight weeks pregnant with the child we had prayed for. In the ER, the nurses frantically called him-the star surgeon of the very hospital I was dying in. "Dr. Santos, we have a Jane Doe, O-negative, bleeding out. She's pregnant, and we're about to lose them both. We need you to authorize an emergency blood transfer." His voice came over the speaker, cold and impatient. "I can't. My priority is Miss Whitfield. Do what you can for the patient, but I can't divert anything right now." He hung up. He condemned his own child to death to ensure his ex-girlfriend had resources on standby after a minor procedure.

On the fourth anniversary of my son's death, I went to the Pack Archives to perform a soul-soothing ritual for his spirit. But the records showed a truth I couldn't comprehend. My mate, Alpha Damien, had another child—a secret son with the she-wolf he'd sworn was just a crazed stalker. He lied through our sacred mind-link, claiming a pack emergency, but I found them at a secret manor, laughing. He, his mistress, and their boy—a perfect, happy family. Hiding in my own garage, I overheard the conversation that shattered my world. My son didn't just slip and fall into the river. He ran in terror, scared by the sound of their wild, careless mating nearby. Their affair killed my baby. As this horror crashed down on me, our mate bond, meant for love, became a tool of torture. It forced me to feel every second of his pleasure as he took her again, right there in the car, just feet from where I hid. He and his mother then framed me for abuse, had my son’s ashes dug up and flushed down a sewer, and beat me with a silver whip before leaving me for dead with a pack of feral Rogues. But I survived. And I made a choice. I wouldn’t seek revenge. I would seek oblivion. I found a pack that practiced forbidden magic, a ritual that could wipe my mind clean. I would erase him, our son, and every memory of my old life. I would be reborn.

Tonight was supposed to be the most important night of my life, the official announcement of my engagement to Mark Landon. But as we stood on the dais to make our toast, another woman-Isabel-let out a theatrical cry and crumpled to the floor. Before I could process what was happening, Mark shoved me. He pushed me aside to get to her, his arm connecting with my shoulder with brutal, dismissive force. The shove sent me stumbling backward off the platform. I landed hard on the polished marble floor, a collective gasp echoing through the stunned ballroom as my world shattered. He didn't even glance at me. He helped a perfectly fine Isabel to her feet, tucked her protectively against his side, and then glared down at me, his face a thunderous mask of fury. "Look what your jealousy has caused!" he snarled, his voice echoing in the silence. "This engagement is over! I will not be bound to a woman so consumed by petty envy!" The words were a physical blow. The pain in my soul was so intense it stole my breath, a searing agony as the bond I thought we shared was violently ripped away. The room spun as the pain dropped me to my knees. Kicked out a service exit, I collapsed in a filthy back alley, my body finally succumbing to a strange illness that had been draining me for weeks. Just as darkness closed in, a sleek black car screeched to a halt. A man emerged, impossibly tall and radiating an aura of power that made Mark seem like a spoiled child. He knelt, his stormy eyes locking onto the silver locket our family doctor had pressed into my hand moments before. His voice was a low, resonant rumble that vibrated through the very ground. "I have found her." He paused, his gaze sweeping over my face, his expression a chilling mixture of triumph and ice. "My true fated mate... and the daughter of the woman who destroyed my family."

My fiancé, tech CEO Cohen Burgess, took me to the city's most exclusive restaurant for our three-year anniversary. Then his high school sweetheart, Kiera, reappeared, claiming amnesia. To help her "recover," Cohen started a viral "100 Dates Challenge" with her, turning their reunion into a national spectacle. I became the villain in their love story. When I objected, Cohen locked me in a wine cellar, knowing my severe claustrophobia. He let Kiera wear my deceased mother's priceless dress, and when she deliberately tore it, he tossed his credit card at me and told me to buy a new one. I finally decided to leave, only to overhear his true plan: he would marry me for my family's status, but keep Kiera as his mistress. I was never his love; I was a beautiful, high-class tool for his ambition. The final act came when Kiera set my room on fire and framed me. Cohen screamed I was a psycho and left me to burn. As the roof collapsed, a stranger kicked down the door. He carried me from the inferno and said, "I'm Case Browning. Your husband."

My husband, Connor, and I built an empire from nothing. Our ten-year marriage was supposed to be a testament to our shared dreams. But then a woman named Gemma Chan entered our lives, a ghost from Connor’s past claiming a “life debt” he felt honor-bound to pay. It all came to a head in a terrifying kidnapping, where Connor was forced to choose between me, his wife, and Gemma, the daughter of the man who’d saved his life. He chose her. I watched him walk away with her, leaving me tied up with our captors. His promise to "come back for me" was a cruel lie. Later, in the hospital, I overheard him confessing his love for Gemma, sealing my fate. The ultimate betrayal came when I discovered I was pregnant, only to lose our baby after witnessing their intimate embrace. The pain was unbearable, a searing agony that ripped through me. I had loved him with every fiber of my being, and he had left me to die, then tortured me with his indifference. But I wouldn't be a victim. I burned down our home, a symbol of our shattered life, and sold my shares in our company to his fiercest rival, Elliott George. I was done. I was free.

For twelve years, my life wasn't my own. It belonged to Dawson Parks. I was sold to his family at sixteen to pay for my mother's cancer treatments, becoming the tech heir's companion, his secretary, and eventually, his lover. Then his childhood sweetheart, Kenzie, came back to town. He told me he was going to marry her and offered me a severance package-a few million dollars for twelve years of my life.

Tonight was my engagement party, the beginning of the perfect life my fiancé, Mark, had promised me. The ballroom glittered, filled with white roses and the smiling faces of our friends and family. But just before my grand entrance, I overheard him talking to his sister, Isabella. "She's so ridiculously naive," he laughed. "Swallowed every lie. This sham of an engagement secured it all. Her family's company is ours now." I threw the door open, only to find them locked in a passionate, desperate kiss. He just smirked at me, his eyes cold. "The act is over," he said. "Did you really think I could ever love someone as pathetic as you?" When I ran to my father for help, he called me hysterical and sided with Mark, the man who had just destroyed my life. A text message confirmed the nightmare: Mark had frozen all my accounts. He'd taken everything. My only hope was a desperate one: Julian Thorne. A ruthless corporate predator and Mark's biggest rival. I went to him to beg for help. He looked at me with cold, calculating eyes and revealed a shocking secret. My family's company had already belonged to him for weeks. Then he made his offer. He would give me my revenge. In return, I had to sign a marriage contract and become his wife.

The Montauk Highway rain slammed against our windshield, just like my stomach cramped with familiar, sharp pain. Marcus drove, his knuckles white, until his phone flashed 'Izzy.' My husband, always her loyal puppy, was gone in a flash. "Ellie, call an Uber. Izzy needs me," he' d declared, abandoning me sick and alone on that dark road. It was the ninth time Marcus chose his ex-girlfriend over me, his wife. The 'ninth goodbye' in a cruel bet Izzy orchestrated years ago: "Nine times, Ellie. Nine. Then you walk away." Each incident a deeper cut: my anniversary dinner, my emergency surgery, my grandmother' s memorial. I was just his convenient rebound, his 'consolation prize,' a pawn in their twisted game. Days later, after an elevator accident left me shattered and hospitalized, Marcus cradled Izzy, his terror only for her. I finally saw it with chilling clarity: he never truly loved me. My marriage was a meticulously crafted lie, orchestrated by Izzy from college. My love for him, that foolish, stubborn hope, was finally drained, leaving only an aching void. But the game was over. I had already signed the divorce papers he carelessly overlooked, ready for my freedom. When Izzy later set a vicious trap to publicly shame me, accusing me of assault, a mysterious stranger stepped in, changing everything. This was the end of a nightmare, and the beginning of my true life.