PTSD

I've been married to my husband Jake for three years. In that time, I've been pregnant twice.

But each time, I lost the baby.

What took my children wasn't a medical condition, but a painting.

A black bird, painted by Jake's ten-year-old blind brother, Billy.

My in-laws claimed he had the gift—a psychic born with sight beyond sight. And the black bird was an omen. It marked my baby as cursed, a...

The day I get diagnosed with stage four lung cancer, I can finally stop selling plasma.

For five years, I thought I was paying for the fire that killed my parents and son, left my brother disabled. Selling plasma, joining drug trials, doing the worst jobs imaginable, all to pay back a debt that wasn't even real.

The doctor says I have a few weeks left. I clutch the diagnosis report and head home...

In the Hall of Divine Selection, my younger sister stepped on me and declared that she was the only one worthy of becoming the Dragon Queen. Then she threw Kaelorn at me—a broken, half-blind dragon she had tortured until even his tail was severed—like he was nothing more than a worthless mate for a worthless bride.
In my last life, I was stripped to the bone and imprisoned by the Dragon God, while...

The first thing I do with my second chance is sell off my perfect fiancé for ten million dollars.

The first time around, I became someone else for Julian Whitmore.

He likes nude-toned dresses. Hates when I wear anything with color. He won't let me have more than one glass of champagne in public. Won't let me laugh too loud. Won't let me initiate anything in bed.

His voice is always so calm, lik...

Last lifetime, my mate, Kael, had faked his own death just to openly sleep with his sister-in-law without judgment.

I screamed until my throat bled, pointing at the man pretending to be his dead twin brother.

For telling the truth, he dragged me to the sacred altar and burned my mark off my skin, while our four-year-old son was thrown into a pitch-black cell for crying out for her father.

We we...

After my divorce, I fled to the unfamiliar streets of Seattle with my daughter. As a Black single mother, the crushing weight of surviving in a strange city nearly broke me.
That is, until David came along. A detective with the Major Crimes Unit, he became our safe haven, wrapping my daughter and me in his fierce, unwavering protection.
I thought I had finally made it through the darkness. I tho...

I was a broke scholarship student. Chloe was an old-money heiress and the untouchable cheer captain.

She paraded me through her elite world and even generously shoved me at her ultimate crush—Aston, the ruthless son of the school board director.

But when Aston and I actually got together, the princess bared her fangs.

She staged a severe fall to drain my meager savings, then framed me for...

The child I brought into this world through sheer determination now calls my husband's mistress "mother"; the youth who slew my father for my sake and was imprisoned, now confines me beyond the threshold, forcing me to hear his carnal symphony with his stepmother. Only then did I comprehend: the sixteen-year-old boy who committed patricide for me had long perished within the prison walls.

Three years ago, I saved the life of Alessandro Gambino, New York's most powerful mafia boss.

He fell in love with me, a bartender.

His family was dead set against us, but his love won out. We got married.

After we married, he disappeared every month for "punishment day," claiming his family beat him with sixty-six lashes for breaking their rules by staying with me. Watching him suffer tore me ...

I knelt on the ground as my husband forcefully pried my fingers from his clothing, coldly uttering the words: "Get rid of this child."

This was my third child, a flesh and blood connection to him, yet for the sake of the white moonlight in a wheelchair, he plunged me into the depths of hell.

My in-laws remained indifferent, my husband betrayed me, and even my own parents cried out, “This chi...

In my past life, my Mafia Don husband left me and our unborn baby to burn just to save my half-sister.

Reborn, I watched him crush my fingers in a door to protect her once again.

"Hurt her, and we get a divorce," he sneered.

He thought the threat would break me. He didn't know his signature was already on the divorce papers hidden in my bag.

On the day of their lavish wedding, I took the h...

After my eighth trip to the psychiatric ward, I finally became the perfect, obedient wife my husband always wanted—even when I caught his childhood friend giving him a handjob in our living room.

"Ever heard of knocking?" Eric snapped, his eyes dark with irritation. "If those hands are useless, might as well chop them off." Without a word, I grabbed a kitchen knife and raised it toward my wrist. ...

"Riccardo, please! I beg you!"
My water broke ten minutes ago. Warm liquid streamed down my legs and slowly froze into ice on the ground beneath me.
He stood on the other side of the bulletproof glass. In his eyes, there was not a trace left of the man I had once loved with all my heart.
In the Bellanona Mafia family, bloodline surpasses everything, and the hierarchy of age is an unyielding iron r...

At the Ultimate Construct Tournament, my roommate beat me to the stage, unveiling the very runic matrix I had just designed in my mind.

When I confronted her about the blatant plagiarism, she burst into tears on the spot.

"You say I stole from you, but do you have even a single sketch to prove it?"

My boyfriend, Richard, sitting right there on the judges' panel, publicly condemned me.

...

I almost died on the operating table trying to give Alexander Volkov a child, unaware he already had a pair of illegitimate twins with his childhood sweetheart.
My heart stopped when I saw the DNA results. Alec, the man who made the New York underworld tremble, the man who flew back on a private jet just to hold my hand, was a flawless liar.
I turned my face away, tears soaking the hospital pillow...

The night my sister, Quinn, got her registered nurse license was supposed to be Jude's big moment—down on one knee, proposing.
Instead, Garrett showed up. The same animal who assaulted Quinn in the redwood forest six years ago and drove our mother to her death in the ocean.
Her future mother-in-law took back the ring on the spot, and her fiancé trailed after her like a kicked puppy.
The entire tow...

For the sake of the so-called family heir, my husband Killian is prepared to kill my child!
That day, Killian locked me in an underground cold storage at ten degrees below zero, all because there is an ironclad rule in the Vittorio family.
The first-born son shall inherit the family’s Mafia empire.
My eldest brother’s wife Ira and I got pregnant at the same time.
To ensure his elder brother’s chil...

I ripped out half my heart for him.

Literally.

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

After that, I lived with constant pain, my magic drained to nothing. I fought his wars, nearly died a dozen times, all while waiting for him to keep his prom...

After three years of agonizing IVF, I was forced into three abortions. The reason? My mafia in-laws’ pet bird stared at my belly and shrieked, "End it."
Even when I was carrying healthy twins, my own parents held me down and forced abortion pills down my throat. My husband—the man I once took a bullet for—watched coldly. "Listen to the bird. Abort."
Lying in a pool of blood, I finally discovered t...

After my miscarriage, my psychiatrist husband offered to erase the painful memories to help me forget them.

During the three months I was dumped in a rehab facility, he took our daughter and his cousin on a European vacation.

Now that they're back, he assumes I’ll go right back to being that meticulous, perfect wife.

But I didn't.

He deliberately provokes me, thinking my coldness is...