Scheming

The biggest mistake of my life was falling in love with my childhood best friend, Cole Blackwood.

I grew up with Cole. He was my childhood best friend. When my mom died in a car accident in high school, his mother Lillian, my mom's best friend, saw that my stepmother didn't like me and took me in. She arranged our engagement. Cole protected me from bullies in high school. I fell for him. We secre...

I thought my husband was cheating, so I followed him to catch him in the act, only to witness him kill someone on our wedding anniversary.

His hands were still covered in blood when he touched my red hair and asked me what was wrong.

Was he the legendary "Red Hair Reaper"?

When the police came knocking the next day, I told them everything.

But they would never know—even the murder I "witnessed...

Every time my husband wants to make me give in, he slaps divorce papers on the table. Every time my parents want me to cave, they threaten to disown me.

What they want is simple: give everything to my twin sister.

I used to fight back. I cried. I demanded to know why it always had to be me.

But when the doctor slides the test results across his desk and tells me in that pitying voice, "Stage fo...

Sebastian is dead.

And I'm the prime suspect.

I thought Lucy was the only one on my side, but there's always panic in her eyes. Black stockings showing up in my closet, red marks on my wrists I can't explain, texts sent from my phone that I never wrote...

The evidence keeps piling up, choking me.

My memory's slipping, the same broken nightmares on repeat. Strange perfume, cruel words, and the ...

I once believed that love could transcend life and death.

Until the terminal stage of Moon Eclipse Disease, when my husband personally gave the life-saving opportunity to my younger sister—that orphan girl I had rescued.

He said the pack needed a gentle Luna like her.

My son clung to her, calling her 'Mom.' My parents crowned her with what should have been mine.

Fine, so you all want me dead?
...

I died on the barren wasteland in a raging blizzard.
Before my death, many from the pack came to say goodbye.
Even Seraphina, my lifelong rival, came.
Only Kael, my Alpha mate of five years, was absent.
He was with that rogue Jennifer, watching the moon's reflection in Silver Moon Falls.
In my final moments, I received his mind-link.
"When the Moon Goddess guided me to find you as my fated mate, y...

I died on my 28th birthday.

My family was throwing a birthday party for my sister Stella—yes, we share the same birthday, but in this house, only hers was worth celebrating.

My corpse was slowly rotting in the storage room while laughter and birthday songs echoed from the living room. They thought I was just "throwing another tantrum," completely unaware of the torment I had endured before dying...

The moment Darren Gellar walked into the conference room, I felt the blood in my veins freeze.
The new chief, broad-shouldered beneath his badge and radiating cold restraint, was the very man who had been gasping beneath me last night.
My so-called “escort.”
Last night, in the dim hotel hallway, his body had been burning hot. His shirt collar was open, his eyes unfocused and thick with desire.
Now...

A year ago, Sophia was recalled from overseas medical school. Her father announced she must marry Ethan Sullivan, head of the Sullivan crime family, to save their bankruptcy.

Ethan Sullivan—uncrowned king of New York's underworld, cold-blooded killer. Complete opposite of her life-saving profession.

She fought desperately—humiliated him at their engagement, sabotaged business meetings, even esca...

That night, I was dragged into a parking lot and beaten until my hands could never hold a scalpel again.

I thought it was random. Until I heard my own brother and fiancé talking—

"Those thugs went too far, but the result works out, doesn't it? This time, the award will go to Charlotte."

Charlotte. The "poor orphan" my family adopted.

For twelve years, she stole my papers, my opportunities, my ...

I was reborn on the day we had to choose our mates.

I could clearly hear my sister Sera's thoughts: "This time I won't choose wrong. Let Lyra suffer with that cold Alpha."

Then she couldn't wait to choose my past life's husband—the gentle Beta Damon.

While I had to marry the cold Alpha Kane.

Her inner celebration was deafening: "Perfect! Now my sister can suffer with that heartless guy while I...

Ryan loves me deeply—at least that's what everyone says. Seven years together, we look like the perfect couple to outsiders. But only I know he's betrayed me three times.

The first time was three years ago. His brother died saving him, leaving behind his widow Sophia—Ryan's unforgettable first love. He married her behind my back. When I found out, I completely fell apart. I have dignity. I refuse...

A witch prophesied at my birth—I carried special blood, I could bear the strongest children.

Two Alphas I'd loved for ten years—the Wolf King's sons—swore they'd protect me forever.

Then she showed up. Maggie. My cousin. All wide-eyed innocence, claiming she had the same gift.

Suddenly, I was the jealous one. Every trap was mine, meant to hurt her. Every wound on me was fake. She cradled the si...

"Mom, I only want to go to Paris with you, not Dad."

When my ten-year-old daughter said this with tears in her eyes, I thought she was expressing her love for me.

I was wrong.

In our Paris hotel, I accidentally overheard the phone call that changed everything—

"Don't worry, Lily will find a way to extend the trip. I promised to buy her that concert-grade piano."

"Having sex in your marital be...

Three months ago, I was kidnapped. When Alexander rescued me, I woke up in a hospital bed with my clothes disheveled and bruises covering my body. What happened during those hours? I don't remember any of it.

A week ago, I found out I was pregnant. He held me as I shook and told me that it wasn't my fault. That he failed to protect me. Even if the baby wasn't his, he'd raise it. He'd still give m...

This was the most miserable Christmas I had ever experienced.
On Christmas Eve night, my husband brought his mistress home and demanded that I, his pregnant wife, leave with nothing.
On this day, I lost my husband and also lost the child in my womb...

I severed our Mate Bond with my own hands.

In that moment, I lay unconscious, bleeding under the silvery moonlight, while he knelt some distance away, clutching his chest as if he had been hollowed out.

Once, he shielded me from nine silver stakes, only to crown another woman; he placed my protective pendant around her neck, then cast me into a water prison. He professed, “I love only you,” yet ...

My daughter has passed away, and my ex-husband abandoned us.

In my darkest hour, my first love, Lysander, reappeared; he covered the medical expenses, married me, and provided me with a home.

For five years, I believed I was the luckiest woman in the world.

Until that fateful day, four months into my pregnancy, when I overheard his conversation with a friend—

“To save Celeste, I thought... who...

Due to an arranged marriage between our families, I married Damien Blackwood, heir to a business empire.

During five years of marriage, I tried hard to play the perfect wife, bore him a daughter Lily, thinking I had finally won his love.

Until his first love Serena returned from abroad, I watched him rekindle his passion for another woman, watched them rekindle their old flame.

A car accident c...

While I bled to death locked in a storage room, my fiancé Adrian was holding my sister's hand, comforting her.

He hung up on my final call for help, leaving only a voicemail: "If anything happens to Lena, the engagement is off."

My sister once said her birthday wish had always been for me to disappear.

That night, her wish came true early.

But my soul never left.

I watched everyone gather aro...