Dumping My Toxic Ex to Marry Six Apex Alphas

I knelt on the cold stone of the Dragon God Altar, waiting to marry Lord Harper Carney. It was my only chance to escape the gilded cage of my family. But when Harper finally arrived, he wasn't alone. His arm was wrapped tightly around my cousin, Hettie. Right in front of the entire court, he coldly announced that our marriage was a mistake. Hettie leaned into his embrace, wearing a triumphant smile while playing the innocent victim. The assembled nobles openly jeered at me. They mocked my greatest failing—that I was a worthless "Dragonless" born without the inner fire. My own father was furious, not at them, but at me. He demanded I go to Hettie's estate and beg for her forgiveness. When I refused, he threatened to cut off all my funds and revoke my only job at the Royal Scribes' Office. I was publicly abandoned, stripped of my dignity, and left with absolutely nothing. I didn't cry, and I didn't scream. Why should I be the one to apologize when they were the ones who betrayed me? For years, I had endured their abuse, treated like a pawn to be sacrificed at will. But looking at their smug faces, my despair turned into cold resolve. I took off my betrothal coronet and dropped it at Harper's feet, publicly nullifying the contract myself. I thought I would have to face the ruin alone, until a mysterious, powerful man with burning golden eyes stepped out of the shadows. "Marry me," he said. "I will be your shield, and we will crush them together."

Rain lashed against the twisted metal as Hallie lay pinned in the wreckage of her car, her chest crushed and fading fast. The paramedic found her phone and desperately dialed her husband, Aidan. "Your wife has been in a severe car crash! We're losing her!" the paramedic shouted over the storm. A harsh, mocking laugh came through the speaker. "Tell her this is a pathetic way to stop the divorce," Aidan sneered. "I do not have time for her crazy games." The line went dead, and Hallie's heart flatlined. Separated from her body, Hallie's ghost was forced to witness the horrific aftermath of her own death. Her mother refused to claim her corpse because there was no insurance payout, telling the hospital to throw her in a ditch. Pulled back to her penthouse, she found Aidan gently holding her sister, Cecile. Cecile sobbed about Hallie's "fake crash" in Aidan's arms, but the moment he looked away, a wicked smirk of victory spread across her face. Cecile was the predator, and Aidan was her willing protector. He even ordered Hallie's brilliant, life's-work sketchbook to be thrown into an industrial shredder, giving all her corporate resources to fund Cecile's debut. Hovering in the cold air, Hallie watched her three years of devotion turn to ash. She was treated like garbage, a mere stepping stone for her sister's rise. But just as her soul turned to ice, Aidan's face suddenly grew paranoid. "Check her medical records," Aidan ordered his assistant coldly. "Find out who is helping her fake this injury." Hallie's invisible spirit shivered with a dark, vengeful anticipation. What would her arrogant husband do when his relentless digging finally uncovered her cold, dead body?

My adopted daughter, Lily, was my whole world. We were playing hide-and-seek in our penthouse when I heard a shriek, cut short, followed by a sickening thud. I raced to the balcony, only to find my husband' s stepsister, Haylee Walls, standing there, and the railing empty. On the pavement five floors below, Lily lay still in a pink dress, surrounded by a rapidly spreading pool of red. My husband, Brighton Castro, rushed out, pulling me into an embrace that felt like a cage. Then, a sharp prick in my neck, and darkness. When I woke, my eyes were sewn shut. I was in a cold, damp, derelict building. Brighton' s mocking chuckle echoed, followed by Haylee' s soft voice. "She can't hurt you anymore," Brighton said. He accused me of insulting Haylee, of throwing her childhood blindness in her face. "So now," he continued, his voice devoid of warmth, "you can experience it for yourself. Feel what it's like to be blind." His friends laughed as I stumbled, blood trickling from my eyelids. I didn't understand. My daughter was dead, and my husband, the man who promised to protect us, had done this to me. Why? What kind of monster was he? But their mockery fueled something else. I stood straight, my hand finding the diamond earring I wore. I pressed it. "I need a new husband," I said, my voice steady and clear. "Send a helicopter for me in an hour."

Chandler stood outside her fiancé's study with a rare vintage pen, ready to celebrate the proposal she had waited ten years for. But through the cracked door, she heard Cristobal laughing with her stepsister, Stella. He casually admitted he was only marrying Chandler for her mother's trust fund and the Hudson name, promising Stella that she would be his true love and the mother of his children. When the truth was exposed, Chandler's own family didn't stand by her. Her father and uncle demanded she apologize to Cristobal and accept the sham marriage. They desperately needed her to unlock her billion-dollar trust fund to finance their own ambitions. Stella even threw herself into a pool at a high-society party, framing Chandler as a vicious, jealous attacker in front of New York's elite. A decade of unyielding devotion was nothing but a calculated business transaction. Her entire family saw her as nothing more than a profitable commodity, expecting her to swallow her pride, endure the betrayal, and fund the very people who were destroying her life. But Chandler wasn't going to be their stepping stone. She threw the six-figure gift into the trash, walked away from the Turner family, and sent a message to Azariah Guerrero—the most dangerous, untouchable man in the city. "I need a husband. In exchange, my mother's entire trust fund is yours."

To get the $500,000 needed to save my dying grandmother, I agreed to take my best friend's place in an arranged marriage to Julian Montgomery, a man rumored to be a disfigured, impotent monster. But on my first night at the estate, the "monster" walked into my room. He was flawlessly handsome, but his eyes were filled with pure disgust as he threw a pregnancy test at my feet. It was a test I had taken out of fear after a recent parking lot attack, and it was negative. But Julian didn't care. He accused me of being a shameless gold-digger trying to pass off another man's bastard as a Montgomery. He declared I would be a wife in name only, a ghost in his house. Following his lead, his aunt and the head maid made my life a living hell, "forgetting" my dinners and cutting off my hot water. I endured the daily humiliations silently because my grandmother's life depended on that money. But my patience snapped when he cornered me in the hallway, threatening to expose my "secret" to his grandmother unless I traded my body for his silence. He thought I was just a greedy fake who would do anything for wealth. "I am not for sale." Looking straight into his mocking eyes, I raised my hand and slapped the untouchable billionaire right across his perfectly carved face.

I was the biological daughter of the Blackwood Pack's Alpha, but because I was wolfless, I was treated worse than a stray. Then my adopted sister, Caroline, set her own cottage on fire and vanished, leaving behind a fake suicide note claiming my jealousy drove her to death. Without a shred of investigation, my parents and brother dragged me away. They stripped me, threw me into the freezing ancestral hall, and ordered me to kneel in penance. Even my betrothed, Vaughn, grabbed my jaw and told me he'd tear me apart with his own hands. Shivering on the icy stone floor, my body finally gave out and I froze to death. But as my spirit drifted into the manor, I saw a horrifying truth. Caroline was alive and perfectly fine, sitting comfortably in the parlor with my family. "Soon, my darling. Once she's gone, Vaughn will be all yours, officially." Hearing my mother's doting words, and my brother laughing about how they arranged my death, I finally understood. I had spent my whole life begging for their affection, only to realize my entire family had conspired to execute me just to clear the path for a fake daughter. The sheer scale of their betrayal turned my soul into a bottomless pit of hatred. With the last shred of my being, I screamed into the abyss for a second chance. Opening my eyes, I was back in the carriage on the very first day I was brought to the pack. This time, I wouldn't go to the manor.