First Love

Luca Vandenberg has everything: the captain's C on his chest, millions in endorsements, and a closet so airtight he can't breathe. When a rival team frames him in a sex scandal, his career hinges on one desperate gamble a fake best friend. Someone to hold in public. Someone to gaze at softly. Someone the world will believe he's loved for years.

Enter Cassian Morais. Photographer. Struggling art...

Scarlette Cross, once a wolfless Omega in the Full Moon pack faced rejection and expulsion from Rick, her mate-and the pack’s Beta. Branded a stigma to her pack, she completely disappeared from everyone she knew only to come back ten years later more powerful than ever. She was no longer the wolfless Omega everyone once knew. Scarlette, now known as Lani, has become a skilled warrior, feared magic...

At 2:47 AM, half-asleep, I made the biggest mistake of my life—I posted my forty-seventh secret love letter to the anonymous school forum instead of deleting it.
Even crazier? Star pitcher Caleb Sullivan found me in the cafeteria the next day, got down on one knee in front of everyone, and asked me to be his girlfriend. I thought I was living in a dream.
Until Mom told me she was getting married.
...

I inherited a family heirloom watch. It heats up when I'm in danger, shoves me out of the way when I'm attacked, and in the middle of the night it folds my clothes and makes me a cup of tea at exactly the right temperature. I know there's a guardian spirit living inside it, but I've never asked who he is, what his name is, or why he's here. I got used to his presence—so used to it that I started ...

I and my twin elf sister married at the same day.
She was to marry the the Light Falcon Lord of the Holy Light Kingdom, and I the vicious Lord of the Black Scale Wyrms.
All elves envied her fortunate match.
But on our wedding night, the Falcon Lord left to fight a battle, and sacrificed himself for the realms.
The Serpent Lord later ascended to godhood, his glory outshining the Holy Light Kingdom....

The System begged me to be an angst heroine. Nothing gets to me, it said.

It offered a hundred million dollars. I asked for one thing: every bit of physical pain goes to the sweet first love my husband can't get over.

So the tearjerker went a little differently.

When he forced me to give her my blood, she screamed and fainted. I finished and went out for pizza.

When she dragged me into the poo...

After Frederick—my guardian, eleven years older—saw the confession I'd posted meant only for him, he announced his engagement the next day.
Out of spite, I faked a hickey and stumbled home past midnight to find him waiting on the couch.
The second his eyes hit my neck, his face went dark:
"Dating someone?"
"Yeah."
"Are you sleeping with him?"
I twisted my dress between shaking fingers. "You don't ...

"What gives a scarred freak like you the right to stand next to him?"
Four years ago, a brutal attack left a hideous burn scar across the left side of my face. Ever since, I've hidden behind a black mask, fading into the darkest corners of St. Oak High. I thought if I just stayed perfectly invisible, I could survive high school in peace.
Then Michael came back.
He's the President of Model UN, an I...

I’m a top cardiac surgeon and the hidden heir of a giant group. My wife divorced me for believing slander. When she learns my true identity and begs for reconciliation, I turn her down coldly. She loses everything and chases me relentlessly, but our love can never go back.

The day I found out Quinn Prescott had pulled strings to give away my Ivy League recommendation to some transfer student, I packed up everything he'd ever given me and dumped it on his doorstep.
The next day, I found that same box in the dumpster outside my building.
Quinn's face was twisted with irritation.
"Drop it. So what if we don't go to the same college? You can get a full ride anywhere on ...

I was only a week away from giving birth when my Alpha mate dragged me from our home—no, ripped me from safety—and forced me to care for her.
His precious Luna-to-be. The one who had just lost her baby.
“She’s in pain because of you,” he growled, his Alpha aura crashing down on me like a tidal wave. “You’ll atone for what you’ve done.”
Lucia, with her tear-soaked eyes and sugar-sweet lies, claimed...

The day I gave birth, I wasn't handed my crying baby, but a tight swaddle of blood-stained cash.
To secure his seat as the new Don, my husband had traded our newborn to Agatha—my own flesh-and-blood aunt, and the young wife of his paralyzed father.
Reduced to nothing more than a convenient incubator, I spent the next four years as a prisoner in my own home.
Ronald issued a ruthless order to his ...

He was supposed to be my way out, but he was the one who pushed me into the pit all along.
I used to think Carter was the one good thing in this hellhole of a high school. He'd stand up for me when the whole class mocked my stutter. He'd hand me a clean jacket when my locker got stuffed with dead rats.
For him, I gave up my Ivy League dreams, willingly settling for some mediocre state university....

I longed for family affection and true love all my life. I tried my best to get along with my stepbrother Karen, and wholeheartedly loved his friend Nolan. However, my sincerity was trampled into the mud. They conspired to hurt me, spread indecent content to ruin my life, and even broke the last relic left by my grandmother. I suffered countless humiliations and injuries, then chose to leave witho...

I spent three years chasing the most popular guy on campus, only to be humiliated in front of the entire school.
My foster family treats me like a live-in maid. My biological father wants to drag me back into the gutter. And the loan sharks have made it clear that in three days, I'll be the one paying for my father's debt.
Everyone is waiting to see me fall apart.
What no one knows is that I alrea...

The night I almost drank myself to death at a client dinner, my husband Alexander bought his first love a luxury yacht.

Maya posted it on Instagram that same night: "Best birthday gift EVER! You know who you are 💕🛥️~"

In the photo, she was in a bikini, champagne in hand, glowing with joy.

Then came the credit card alert—our joint account had been maxed out.

Before I could even confront him, ...

My mother rips my long-hidden Orion star chart to pieces and hurls the scraps straight into my face like garbage.
For seventeen years, I’ve been the praised straight-A good girl, my shirt collars always buttoned all the way up. I’ve lived solely for one goal: an acceptance letter from Yale, my ticket out of this suffocating cage.
But the second she locks my bedroom door from the outside, it hits m...

"Starting price for my wife—one dollar!" James announced, pointing at the dog cage where I lay curled up like a dying animal.

The crowd at the wedding erupted in laughter. "Five dollars!" "Ten!" They threw bids like trash, mocking the woman who used to be Mrs. Windsor. Lillian, wearing my stolen necklace, poked me through the bars with a metal rod. "Look at you, Aurora. You're nothing but filth."...

The moment I saw my name on that wedding invitation, I was already dead.

On Highway 23, a steel rebar had pierced straight through my chest. I was two months pregnant.

I called my fiancé Michael seventeen times. The first sixteen, he hung up without a word. On the seventeenth, his voice dripped with impatience: "Marrying Sophia is just for show. Stop making a scene."

The man who once kn...