8803 Book(s) Related to ophelia the awakening of a myth

As the undisputed queen of the CS department, my world used to consist of nothing but the absolute rationality of zeros and ones.
Until Corbin Hawke, hockey captain with his star-athlete entitlement, bulldozed past my firewall with his Academy Award-worthy act and a "love algorithm" he supposedly pulled all-nighters to write.
I naively believed it was the upgrade I'd been waiting for.
Until this moment.
The shower ran in the bathroom, his carefree humming drifting out, while my iPad lit up beside me. Thirsty texts from some cheerleader flashed across the screen, followed by him running his mouth in the team group chat:
"Easy, fellas. Dumping this frigid nerd at the championship party tomorrow and collecting that five-hundred-dollar bet. That script I copied off Stack Overflow for 200 bucks? She ate that shit up."
Staring at those vile messages, whatever naive warmth I'd stupidly let myself feel got deleted from my system in one clean swipe, leaving nothing but cold, pure logic.
Pissing off a top-tier hacker would be the most catastrophic mistake he'd ever executed.

With a 28.6-second prediction ability, Kane Voss hides as an ordinary shop owner. His cold lawyer wife holds a buried family crime secret. Assets wars, deadly ambushes, and underworld battles break out. He unfolds his god of war aura, crushes all enemies, and tears down every hidden dark truth.

Three years ago, Marco Ferraro stepped over the corpses of the Vancetti family to claim his throne, delivering my sentence with cold indifference: "Don't take it personally, Noelle. It's just business."
Three years later, he is the untouchable new Godfather of New York, while I am nothing but a ghost in a threadbare coat.
His classless fiancée didn’t just buy my mother’s legacy—she took that rare pink diamond and dropped it, right in front of everyone, into a glass of whiskey thick with spit.
"Thirsty, fallen princess?"
She kicked the backs of my knees hard, forcing me onto the glass-strewn floor. Her sharp stiletto heel ground into my knuckles. "Drink it, or die."
Marco stood to the side, lighting a cigar, his eyes filled with nothing but boredom.
I tightened my grip on the shard of glass hidden in my palm, ready to drag us all down to hell.
But before I could strike, the deafening roar of rotor blades tore through the dome of the auction house. A pitch-black military helicopter hovered just outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the violent rotor wash instantly shattering every champagne tower in the room.
A voice that made the entire underworld tremble boomed through the speakers:
"Which one of you suicidal bastards touched my woman?"
A dozen crimson laser dots instantly painted a target on Marco’s forehead.
Rafael, "The Phantom," had arrived.
Tonight, no one makes it out of here alive—except me.

Three years ago, in that deadly barrier, I carved out half my progenitor heart and dragged Theron back from death's door. The wound on my back has never healed.
I thought it was a soul blood pact—bound in life and death. Then Samaela appeared, that fragile human with barely a century to live, and it all became a joke.
He believed her lies. Swallowed every word about how I'd murdered her parents in cold blood.
For that pathetic creature who couldn't even bear sunlight, my carefully groomed blood vassal sawed off my pureblooded wings, ripped out my progenitor fangs with his bare hands, and threw me into the Silver Cathedral.
Three years. Nailed to a cross with pure silver chains, I endured concentrated UV rays and holy water burning through me day and night.
Everyone waited for me to go mad, to beg, or turn to ash. I didn't.
Listening to their wedding bells toll outside, I simply watched—in the silence of my flesh charring and regenerating—as the silver light on my chains fractured inch by inch.
Then I tore out the silver spikes embedded in my rotting flesh, dragged my bleeding wreck of a body forward, and kicked open the doors to the Crimson Blood Moon Gala's hall.
Theron had forgotten one forbidden clause in the blood pact: The oathbreaker's life belongs not to the gods, but to me.

The day the butler of Sterling family came to claim me, the folks back in my dusty hometown lined the streets with tears in their eyes, waving goodbye like I was headed somewhere better.
The moment I stepped into that mansion, armed guards pinned me down in the first-floor medical suite, demanding I donate bone marrow to their precious adopted daughter, Celeste.
I responded by ripping out Celeste's dialysis machine.
My biological parents, Richard and Eleanor, went ballistic. They locked me in the attic storage room to "reflect on my behavior."
That night, while the house slept, I crept down to the basement and twisted open the main gas line valve.
I was halfway through rigging a candle delay fuse when the thermal imaging system caught me. Armed security tackled me before I could finish the job.
They'd had enough. They blindfolded me, tossed me onto a private jet like garbage, and flew me overnight to the most notorious hellhole in America—Deadwater, Texas.
The car had barely stopped in front of the bullet-riddled town sign when Richard leaned in with a cold warning:
"Listen to me. These people don't show mercy. An ungrateful brat like you? Three days, tops, before they pick your bones clean."
Eleanor stood beside him, dripping with fake concern:
"Willa, just agree to donate your marrow to Celeste, and you'll still be a Sterling. Stay here in this godforsaken wasteland, and you're dead."
I spat blood at her shoes. Eleanor's mask shattered. She ripped off my hood and shoved me hard into the dust.
I pushed myself up slightly, staring coldly at the yellow sand beneath my hands, and shook my head.
I squinted up at the familiar landscape—the rusted water tower, the butcher shop with skinned hogs hanging in the window, the faint smell of gunpowder in the air.
Funny. Nobody ever told me that the place I'd spent twenty years calling home was what rich people called "Deadwater."
Well. Since I'm here anyway.
Nobody's leaving this town alive today.

We were ambushed by rogue wolves and chased all the way to the cliff's edge.
Caleb—my mate, Alpha of Ravenrock Pack—was covered in blood, barely strong enough to carry one person across the chasm.
Forced by the alliance marriage between our packs, he ultimately chose me.
Laura was left behind. The feral rogues tore her apart, piece by piece. They didn't even leave a body.
Three days later, Caleb acted as if nothing had happened and completed our mating ceremony on schedule.
After the wedding, he stripped me of every dignity of my position as Luna. He treated me like a prisoner, a punching bag for his rage, making me pay for Laura's brutal death.
When I learned that my entire pack had been slaughtered, I was locked in a freezing dungeon, wanting nothing more than release.
I used the last of my strength to rip apart our mate bond. But Caleb, driven completely mad, tore me to pieces with his own hands.
When I opened my eyes again, I found myself back on the day of the rogue attack.
This time, I chose to step back and give the one he truly loved a chance to survive.

In my previous life, the Vance Corporation stuffed me into an iron barrel and sank me alive to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

The agonizing pain of suffocation still lingered in my bones, yet I suddenly jolted awake in my own bedroom.

The digital clock on the nightstand flashed red: 11:55 PM.

Exactly five minutes remained before the Corporation's elite cleaners would break down the door to silence me.

What is five minutes enough for?

Enough to hide my feverish younger brother in the closet and kill any thought my parents had of calling the police;

Enough to use waste motor oil, broken glass, and a modified industrial nail gun to transform this apartment into a meat grinder tailor-made for assassins.

When the lock clicked softly from a master key and a red laser sight pierced the darkened living room... these battle-hardened professional cleaners thought tonight would be an easy hunt.

But little did they know, the one who had crawled back from the abyssal hell was a grim reaper who had mastered every art of slaughter.

Tonight is just collecting the interest. Before dawn breaks, I will turn the entire Vance Corporation to ashes.

When he was alive, Owen loved me so much he’d give his life for me. Yet, as for his death, I was as cold as a mere bystander.
At the funeral, his family slapped me, clawed at my throat, called me a man-eating black widow. Every last one of them turned on me, eyes red, demanding the same thing: Who killed Owen?
I didn't say a word.
My ten-year-old son went into cardiac arrest right there and was rushed to the ER — and still I said nothing.
Not until that voice cut through the crowd.
"I killed Owen."
I slowly raised my eyes.
After staying silent for so long… maybe it was finally time to tell the truth.

I am Mandy Langley, 42 years old, CEO of Sterling International. In Manhattan's cutthroat business world, I'd earned the name "Ice Queen."
Five years divorced, my ex-husband's parting words still stung—he'd called me cold as stone, said I was nothing but a dictator even in bed.
He had no idea my frost was a facade, hiding an emptiness and a craving no one could touch.
I controlled billions in assets, yet I lay awake every night, consumed by a single thought: I wanted a man to make me let go, to force me to surrender completely.
That man walked into my office three years ago, and I'd been drowning ever since.
Allen Thorne, my chief assistant, 28 years old—too young, shamefully young, and yet I couldn't resist him.
A year ago, I discovered the truth: he was the CEO of Vortex Capital, my rival, planted here to destroy me.
I should've fired him on the spot. Instead, I kept him close, pretending it was to watch him, when really, I just couldn't let him go.
Dangerous, magnetic, ruthlessly in control—he was everything I shouldn't want. I never exposed him. I fell harder instead.
I buried this forbidden desire, but every day he was there, right in front of me, taunting me.
What was I supposed to do? Cut him loose—or let him claim me?

In my past life, just one day before the national evaluation camp that would make or break his career, my hockey-prodigy best friend faked an illness. He was ready to throw away his entire future just to go party in Chicago with a cheerleader.

Thinking I was doing him a favor, I stepped in. I tipped off his coach, saved his career.

Years later, he became a multimillion-dollar superstar. His way of thanking me? Framing me with doctored charity records and sending me to federal prison. He even smiled as he delivered the final, crushing blow:

"I planned that crash on the icy road, Kassia. Your parents' lives were just the price you had to pay for sticking your nose where it didn't belong."

Now, my eyes snap open to the deafening cheers of our high school hockey arena.

Sitting right next to me, that same cheerleader is eagerly plotting how to corner him after the game.

Growing up, my parents and brother favored only me, treating my sister Della like a burden. They locked her in the basement and fled overnight with me to Aldermere.
Twenty years later, for the sake of my upcoming wedding, they brought me back to that old house to erase the last traces of her existence.
But none of us expected that Della wasn't dead. Decades had passed, yet she still looked exactly as she did back then. She even followed us to our new home—and right now, she’s sitting quietly on our living room sofa, slowly turning her head to smile at us...

We’ve been married for almost a month, yet my Alpha keeps hiding in the study to avoid me.
He would rather give me a cheap vial of synthetic bonding pheromones than bare his fangs at me.
I thought I was just the unwanted substitute for my runaway sister, that he felt absolutely nothing for me.
I slammed the door and left, heading to the Moon Well to confide. But the moment my blood dripped in, the Alpha's voice echoed:
"I finally married her... but I was born with a curse. How do I mark her without hurting her the moment I bite down..."

The night I was reborn, my adoptive brother—Viktor Konstantin, the Don of the Chicago Outfit—was poisoned during a negotiation.

In my past life, I loved him desperately. So when the aphrodisiac took hold and he gasped for me to call Liliya, I made a selfish choice. I stayed. I gave myself to him.

She arrived too late. When she saw us together, she ran. Her plane crashed over the Atlantic that same night.

Viktor married me without a word of blame. Until a turf war when our enemies captured me—seven months pregnant, chained up, beaten bloody. I called him, begging for help through my tears.

His answer shattered me: "You want to live? After killing Liliya? You and that bastard don't deserve to breathe. Go to hell, Eve."

I died in that cell. Our daughter died with me.

Now I'm staring into those same drugged eyes again.

This time, I'm making the call.

The bite mark on the silver chain can never be copied, and it’s the only proof separating truth from fraud. My roommate leaked my secret to her boyfriend, who wore a counterfeit chain to play my long-lost savior. They nearly drained all my money before an anonymous text alerted me to their scheme. I exposed their fraud in public, and finally reunited with the real boy who hid beside me all along.

After being reborn, my cousin and I swapped mates.
Last life, she married Kaelen Thornfield — the coldest Alpha in the West. Fifty years together and he never marked her. Not once. His childhood "friend," an Omega with a PhD in crying on command, made sure of that. My cousin faded into nothing. Unmarked. Unloved. Invisible.
Me? I married a man who couldn't stand the sound of my voice. Eleven months. Done.
This time, I took the western contract. Drove three days across the country in a beat-up truck, blew a radiator in the middle of nowhere, and rolled into his pack's territory covered in engine grease and smelling like a gas station.
His little Omega took one look at me and wrinkled her nose.
She has no idea what's coming.
I don't do tears. I don't do subtle. And when some girl sobbed at my mating ceremony about how jealous she was of me — I grabbed my Alpha by the collar and sank my teeth into his neck.
In front of the entire pack.
Without asking.

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 knelt outside my family's estate for three days and nights, swearing to love me for a lifetime—he wouldn't spare me a single second more.

With my last breath, I dialed the funeral home. "I'm calling... for myself."

Flames consumed my body. My soul drifted toward the engagement banquet that should have been mine. When the killer's phone lit up, the name on the screen was Sophia...

When he destroyed my entire family, he never once thought of me.

So now, let me watch with my own eyes as this wedding becomes their funeral.

I died once.

Spent seventy years as a housewife the first time around. Biggest regret? Never felt my heart race.

Met her in this life, and that's when I learned what being alive actually meant. In this world where assassins pay in gold coins and seek sanctuary at Continental hotels, we became a duo called "Swans," hunting down the man who destroyed her family. Every single day, dancing on a razor's edge.

Two years ago, the explosion killed Raven Hayes right in front of me.

To survive, I married a naive tech heir, slipped into silk dresses and started doing the charity gala circuit, tried to convince myself this was the peace I wanted.

Until that enemy became a High Table member and announced a hundred-million-dollar bounty on me to the world.

I used to be scared. Used to run. Used to ask why it had to be me.

But sitting at my vanity, staring at this stranger's face in the mirror, all done up like some socialite, I suddenly realized none of it mattered anymore.

I'm going to die eventually anyway. Might as well die looking like myself.

Ethan built me a "Relationship Assessment System." A hundred points a month. Below eighty, we break up. Above a hundred, he marries me.
I believed it. For five whole years.
For that one point, I changed my accent, threw out my work clothes, shut down the little restaurant my mother left me, and molded myself into whatever shape he wanted. But every time I scored ninety-nine, he said: "You're still a little short. Try harder."
The night of the charity gala, the head chef walked out. I called in suppliers, rewrote the menu, and saved the entire fundraiser. When the applause came, Madeleine stood there in champagne couture and accepted every word of praise as the project lead.
My proposal. My work. Brushed aside with one breezy line — "Claire helped me run some errands too."
That night, Ethan opened his tablet and gave me points.
Ninety-nine.
Still ninety-nine.
It wasn't until late at night, when I hacked into the backend, that I saw the directive set to "Auto-Execute":
Ensure the overall score cannot exceed 100.
Created: five years ago. The first day we became a couple.
There had never been a "just work harder and you'll pass." Only a fraud with its ending written in stone.
The next morning, he deducted twenty-two points. The reason: I hadn't handed over my mother's little restaurant as a stepping stone for his hotel project.
This time, I won't agree.

When I was reborn, and my Alpha husband's ward clamped a muzzle around my neck as a joke...
I didn't shift into my wolf and tear her arm off like in my past life.
I ripped off the bloody muzzle and gave Roman a smile.
"If you think this is a joke, keep indulging her."
And I walked away without looking back.
Because my death in my previous life was too miserable.
After our fallout, Roman used his Alpha authority to freeze my accounts overnight.
Exiled, I was diagnosed with terminal silver poisoning.
Dying in agony, I swallowed my pride and crawled back to the Pack gates.
But he let Chloe force me to my knees and refused to open the doors.
In the end, my wolf spirit shattered, and I froze to death.
I only understand after dying: love and dignity are worthless.
Survival and money are all that matter.

I helped Cassian conquer the seven floating cities and claim the Dragon Throne.
On the day he became king, he cast me aside for a lowborn dragon girl.
I exposed her as an Abyss spy, and she killed herself before the court.
Cassian thanked me in public, but he never forgave me for taking her away.
Years later, he accused me of serving the Abyss, slaughtered my entire fire-wing clan, and burned me alive.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back at his coronation.
This time, I'm not saving his throne. I'm burning it down.

When my roommate Sutton woke up from a wet dream, she was literally glowing. She claimed it was the most mind-blowing romantic experience of her life—the man’s silhouette, his scent, his body heat felt impossibly real.
Even crazier? When she checked her phone, there was a strange new number saved in her contacts. It belonged to the man from her dream.
While the rest of us shrieked about destiny, our moody roommate Jessamine just stared at the screen and dropped a chilling warning: "Things that come looking for you in dreams should stay buried."
We all wrote her off as a jealous freak.
That is, until I started noticing Sutton’s face growing more haggard by the day—and the fact that her "perfect boyfriend" refused to speak a single word to her.

Sophia and I fought over who would wear that emerald ring to change our fate.
In my first life, I claimed the emerald ring, thinking I would become a billionaire heiress.
That was until late at night, when I accidentally opened that underground iron door and he strangled me to death with a piano wire: "Your pathetic wailing isn't her at all."
Given a second chance, I backed away and let Sophia take it.
A few days later, she died in the ice cellar with her tongue severed. Right before she died, she let out a blood-curdling whimper: "A true devil is hiding behind that door!"
Waking up for the third time, we trembled in sheer terror as the ring was offered to us once again.
Just who exactly is the daughter he is looking for?

I was here because of missed periods and abnormal bleeding—a suspected threatened miscarriage.

When asked about our relationship, my boyfriend didn't even look at me.

"We're just classmates," he told the nurse.

He thought he was cutting ties with a worthless nobody so he could chase after a billionaire's daughter.

What he didn't know was... I was the heiress he was desperately looking for.

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 just me playing hard to get.

He has no idea that the brainwashing procedure didn't just wash away my pain—it completely severed my love for him.

My billionaire husband handed me a pill and a separation agreement.
"Take this temporary amnesia drug. You'll forget me for a few weeks while I marry Chloe to fulfill her dying wish. Don't worry, I'll give you the antidote later."
He expected me to scream, cry, and beg him to stay. Instead, I swallowed the pill dry and calmly packed my bags.
Day 3: I tossed my heirloom Cartier engagement ring to his mistress without batting an eye.
Day 12: I accidentally witnessed his wedding rehearsal, critiqued his recycled vows with a straight face, and left him standing there, terrified by my absolute indifference.
He thought I was just acting tough. He didn't know I was the neuroscientist who created that drug. There is no antidote. In 21 days, all my love for him will be permanently and irreversibly erased.
But how hard will a man break when he realizes his wife is already on a one-way flight to Switzerland, and she doesn't even remember his name?

Here is the translation, adapted into the explosive, high-stakes style of a bestselling American domestic thriller. The pacing is sharp, and the emotional transition from shock to cold vengeance is deeply amplified:

For five years, I honestly believed I was the happiest woman alive.

Until today. The day I came home early and stood frozen just outside the balcony, listening to his phone call.

"What? Shuying, you're pregnant?" Tingshen's voice was laced with a raw, unbridled euphoria I had never once heard before. "I knew getting rid of Jiang Wan's baby back then was the right move."

My knuckles turned stark white as I death-gripped the ultrasound report in my hand.

Qin Shuying. My absolute worst rival. They had been sleeping together.

"Tingshen, are you sure she won't find out?" Shuying's sickeningly sweet voice drifted through the phone's speaker, piercing my eardrums. "If Jiang Wan ever realizes you were the one who killed her baby, she's going to raise hell."

"Relax." Tingshen laughed, his tone dripping with the kind of casual contempt reserved for swatting a fly. "She's so clueless. She honestly believes it was her own failing body. The stupid bitch even cried and apologized to me. She'd never in a million years suspect I drugged her."

My nails drove so brutally into my palms that they broke the skin.

"Besides, I finally got my hands on her core design drafts. Consider them a welcome gift for our baby. As for her shares in the company..." He paused, savoring his own smugness. "She's about to sign them all over to me anyway. So what if her old man built an empire? It's all dropping right into my lap."

The world tilted violently on its axis.

I was carrying his child again.

Just five minutes ago, before I overheard this monstrous phone call, I had been acting like a giddy fool, planning the perfect way to surprise him with the news.

My trembling hand drifted down to my lower stomach. My chest cracked open, a visceral, violent tearing of my own heart. The baby I had desperately longed for and mourned... chemically aborted by their own father, all to keep his mistress happy.

My sweet babies, I thought, the devastating sorrow rapidly freezing into sheer, icy rage. Mommy is going to make them pay for every drop of blood.

The club is dragging everyone out to a tomb Blair Whitmore's family dug up in Egypt, and nobody asked if this was a good idea.

She even brings some so-called expert along. Everyone crowds around the dark opening, practically shaking with excitement.

I'm the only one who tries to stop it.

"There's a mechanism in there. It's dangerous. We shouldn't go in. We need to report it to the antiquities authority first."

They just laugh at me.

"God, Blair, you're unbelievable. Untouched site like this and you just land it."

"Right, and some people never say two words all semester and now they want in on the action."

My palms are sweating. They don't know I come from a family of manuscript conservators. I grew up surrounded by dead languages and schematics for ancient mechanisms. What nobody else can read, I read clearly.

The stele at the entrance is carved with Egyptian hieroglyphs, and the warning is not subtle:

Whoever enters here will lose their soul to the void, and their bones will turn to dust.

The day I closed another major deal, my fiancé, the CEO, smiles and tells me the credit and the bonus are going to the new intern.

I watch him lean in close to her, laughing, and something in me just stops caring enough to fight for it.

I sign the transfer request and ship myself off to the most useless department in the company.

What I don't expect is that a few days later, the same man who never looked twice at anyone beneath him is going to be on his knees begging me to come back.

An hour ago, at the company’s press conference, I had just helped my husband Carlisle quell the ninety-ninth scandal of his affair.
Now, he has my assistant Russell pinned against my office desk, kissing him, his hand slipping under Russell’s miniskirt and groping wildly.
In that moment, I’ve already planned the publicity spin for the hundredth time.
But I’m not sure if my dear husband Carlisle and his lover will make it that far.
Because the revenge banquet I’ve been preparing for three years is about to begin.

As the only daughter of a mafia family, I learned early that trust doesn't come cheap. When my father got sick, he gave me an ultimatum: if I want to take over the family, I have to get married first.

Everyone assumed I'd pick my childhood friend, Vincent Moretti—son of my father's right-hand man. Hell, even I thought so. Until my last life, when he left me to burn.

Father died in an ambush. I was trapped in a metal cage at an abandoned dock warehouse while flames swallowed everything. I begged Vincent for help. He stood thirty feet away, the cage key right by his feet.

"Cat, as long as your father's alive, he'll never give me the family. This isn't personal. It's business."

Sophia was wrapped around him—my so-called best friend. She smiled at me and said she'd take good care of everything.

Before I lost consciousness, I saw a figure in black charging into the flames—Elijah, the bodyguard I'd called "trash" and "a dog."

Then I opened my eyes and woke up a month before my birthday party. This time, I'm giving that position to someone who actually deserves it.

But why is Vincent on his knees at my engagement party, crying and begging me to marry him?

I accompanied my husband, Kieran, down to the Antarctic station’s underground quarantine zone to rescue an ice-bacteria sample at negative forty degrees. Halfway there, he asked me to fetch some data. I was gone for exactly three minutes. When I came back, he had vanished.
The institute staff told me I had gone insane, wandering the halls searching for a husband who had been dead for three years.
They called Kieran’s mentor, Dr. Reiner. Through the phone, the old man wept, swearing that Kieran had fallen into the deepest ice rift in Antarctica three years ago. Not even his bones were recovered.
Branded a lunatic, I was thrown into a sealed bio-containment pod twenty miles away. I became a human guinea pig. Under endless rounds of experimental drugs, my organs failed one by one until I died on that cold metal table.
Then, I blinked. Kieran was standing right in front of me, rushing me to the lab...

I'm a figure skating prodigy from one of the wealthiest families in the country. I'm also an idiot.

I believed that if I was kind enough, people would be kind in return. So I sponsored Haley Dunning, a scholarship skater on our team, and treated her like my own little sister.

The day before the NCAA qualifier, she came up to me with a sports drink, said she wanted to help keep my energy up.

I drank it. Went down on the ice with a broken leg. Drug test came back positive for banned stimulants.

Overnight, I went from the queen of the rink to the face of a scandal no one could stop talking about.

Expelled from school. Torn apart on social media. Calloway Corporation's stock in freefall.

Haley stood in front of the cameras, tears in her eyes: "Piper just wanted to win so badly. I never thought she'd go this far..."

I fell into a depression. Couldn't sleep without medication.

Then one day, she showed up at my hospital room with my boyfriend, bearing "comfort": a cup of water and a few pills: "Piper, take your meds, okay? This is all my fault for being so stupid..."

Three minutes later, I'm coughing up blood, convulsing on the floor.

Right before I died, I caught the look on her face. That sweet, innocent face. A slow, vicious smile spreading across it.

She knocked over the pill bottle and started screaming: "I grabbed the wrong ones! I mixed up her antidepressants with some old person's heart meds! I'm so stupid!"

My boyfriend pulled her into his arms. Didn't even glance at me dying on the floor: "She meant well. Piper just had bad luck."

I was poisoned to death in that hospital room.

Then I opened my eyes, and it was the day before the qualifier.

Thirty-two times.
That was how many times Tristan had "tested" me during our three years together.
When I met Tristan Bennett, we were both hiding our true identities. He never mentioned he was the Bennett family heir, and I never brought up the surname Torrente. We were just ordinary college sweethearts in Ashborne City. He said he loved me, and I believed him.
The seventeenth time: driving across town late at night to deliver documents for him, I was run off the road and crashed into a guardrail, earning nine stitches in my forehead. His first words at the hospital were, "Can't you even drive properly? You delayed my business."
The twenty-sixth time: he owed money at an underground casino. He sent me to negotiate. A gun was drawn, and a bullet grazed my arm, soaking my sleeve in blood. The scar is still there. He never asked if I was in pain; he only cared if his debt was cleared.
The thirtieth time: he asked for my entire life savings for an "emergency." He turned around and used that money to buy someone else a new car.
I thought if I endured it all, we would eventually have a future.
Until he announced he was opening a casino and demanded ten million dollars. "The ultimate test," he called it. If I passed, he’d marry me.
I refused.
He immediately bought Aurelia Gallom a twenty-million-dollar mansion. Waving the property deed in my face, he said, "Vesna, I was just testing you. It's a shame you failed. We're done."
I didn't cry, and I didn't beg. The moment I walked away, I had never felt so free. He didn't know I was a Torrente, or that my father, Dario, owned the criminal underworld of this city. And he certainly never imagined that I would later marry Silvio Marchesi—the most powerful Mafia Boss in Ashborne City—and become the Donna of the Marchesi syndicate.

My neighbor Beck Morrow was the best high school point guard this state had seen in years.
The night before the state championship—three college scouts in the stands—he decided to stay home with his girlfriend instead. She wasn't feeling well.
I called his coach.
He played. He got the scholarship. He built a company worth eight figures before he turned thirty, and I spent five years writing every algorithm that company ran on.
He repaid me by throwing a ball at my head during a training session. Then his lawyers sent a letter explaining that I had no legal claim to any intellectual property developed under my employment contract, effective immediately, and that my position was being terminated.
Then I woke up. It was the first week of senior year again.

I once thought my fate was sealed—Alpha Damien’s mate, the future Luna, the pride of the pack.
But a carefully orchestrated betrayal shattered my world.
The mate I loved chose another. The pack I devoted myself to cast me aside. The future I believed in was nothing more than a gilded cage.
When the truth was revealed, I did not cry. I did not beg. I stayed silent—then I vanished.
But my disappearance was not an escape. It was my rebirth.
The world thought I was dead. They had no idea I was only growing stronger, colder, unstoppable.
Now, I have returned.
Not as his Luna.
But as his destruction.

I’m the only princess of the Iron Claw Pack. My Alpha father chose three pure-blooded wolves from the Johnson family to grow up at my side. The man I choose won’t just be my mate—he’ll become the Pack’s next Alpha.
In my last life, I chose the younger twin, David, because he was always gentle and considerate.
But less than a year after our bonding ceremony, he died.
Only when our mate bond stirred again did I learn the truth: David had faked his death—because the one he loved was Emma.
When Rogues attacked, David threw away his life to save me, only to beg that if there were a next life, I would never choose him again.
When I opened my eyes, I was back on the day I had to choose my mate. This time, I grabbed a file at random.
It was David’s twin brother, Nate—my sworn enemy.

On the night of my 28th birthday, my husband was stuck in the OR.
The man sitting across from me at dinner was his best friend, Ronan.
I got drunk. Half-asleep, I pulled a man who smelled exactly like Nate into my bed.
When morning broke, the truth did too—the man pinning me down was Ronan. He’d used my husband’s cologne.
"From the first time I saw you, I wanted to steal you from him."
Crying, I confessed everything to Nate over the phone. Dead silence for three seconds, then he hung up.
By the time I rushed home, Ronan was dragging two suspiciously heavy black suitcases out the door. And my husband... vanished off the face of the earth.

Betrayed to death by my own brother, I was reborn before the apocalypse descended.
He rushed to seize the god-tier [Copy] talent first, leaving the trash [Purification] talent for me.
He thought that with this talent, he'd have no worries and reign supreme in the apocalypse.
Meanwhile, I quietly closed the last door of my fortress.
He didn't know that his prized copying ability had a fatal flaw.

"You're mine, June."
"I'm not yours, Mr. Macaulay."
"Not yet," he says, his voice low with certainty. "But one day, you'll understand what you mean to me."
"I belong to myself," I reply, refusing to become another woman controlled by a powerful man.
June Fontaine spent three years loving a man who never truly chose her. She gave him everything, only to live in the shadow of his ex and a love that slowly destroyed her.
Until one unforgettable night changed everything.
Heartbroken after seeing her past move on without regret, June made a reckless decision and spent one night with a mysterious stranger. She left before morning, believing they would never meet again.
Two weeks later, she walked into her new workplace and froze.
The stranger from that night was her new boss.
Adrian Macaulay was a billionaire CEO, a man who always got what he wanted. And now, he wanted her.
But June refuses to be a secret hidden behind his success. She wants to be valued, not possessed. She wants a love where she is chosen, not controlled.
Adrian never expected one night to change his life forever. Now, he must prove that she is not just the woman from one unforgettable night.
She is the only woman he can never let go.

EJ Hollen and Zenia Blackman were friends before deciding on having things get more serious between them. All EJ wanted was to be loved for who he is but Zenia was bended on true love doesn't exist and was more keen on living in the moment. She was also harboring a dark secret from EJ and when he found out, all things fell apart, including their relationship.
Would they ever love each other again?

Emily Hollen and Sebastian were high school sweethearts but a lie created by a vicious ex-girlfriend drove a wedge between the couple causing an end to their relationship.
It's now years later and they're adults. Emily is a hotelier with a passion for traveling and establishing hotels around the world. Her next destination took her to a country she wasn't familiar with and it was governed by a monarchy. What a surprise it was for Emily when she learnt the soon-to-be-king was Sebastian and he was looking for a bride to rule at his side.

Sebastion Drakos has been a selfish man all his life. For so long he put his needs above all those who he protects as the Alpha of The Redwood Pack. All for the love of an unworthy woman. Now with her gone, it leaves Sebastion to raise the son she gave him. For Jace, he will do anything.

Irina Belova is a slave. Vicktor is her master and a monster. Irina's daughter is her master's pawn. He uses her child to keep her in line. Vicktor is sending her on a mission. Irina is to spy on Sebastion, then trap him. Vicktor wants the mighty Alpha for his collection.

Fate may have plans for these two. They have children that they will do anything for. Each has a past they want to atone for. Can they survive the storm that is coming? Will Sebastion find his redemption? Will Irina find her freedom? Or will the forces working against all supernatural creatures keep them from achieving what they both want?

Mature Content Warning
18+ Readers
Drama Series

The cover of this book was made by fellow writer KeyKirita
The title of this book was the help of fellow writer Marii Solaria
Both writers have helped me greatly

Gathering Shadows Novels:
Book 1: Her Returned Mate
Book 2: His Redemption

（There is a lot of sexual and stimulating content, minors are not allowed to read!!!）
She prepared for pregnancy and did her best to take care of her drunken husband.
Afterwards, her husband kicked her out, simply because his first love had returned.
After the divorce, she made it to the cover of Time magazine, reaching the peak of her life.
Her ex-husband pursued her all the way to the Civil Affairs Bureau, whispering tenderly, "Will you remarry me?"

When the world fell to monsters, Avery was just a girl with nothing but a name.

Now she's hunted by ancient Titans—creatures from myth that should never have been real—and saved by three deadly brothers bound in blood, magic, and secrets. Damien is cold and cruel, convinced she’s hiding something. Ezra is her reluctant protector, willing to defy his own blood for her. And Rowan… wears a muzzle for a reason.

They say she’s marked. Chosen. That the Titans want her for what she is, or what she’s becoming.

She says she just wants to go home.

But love in the ruins is dangerous, and Avery is about to learn:
you don’t survive the end of the world without breaking—or being claimed.

Five years. Five years I gave everything to Paxton Sterling—my heart, my body, my wolf's soul. I built his empire as Chief Strategy Officer while wearing his mark like a badge of honor.

Then she came back.

Layla—my pure-blooded half-sister with her perfect smile and poison tongue. Within days of her return from Europe, Paxton was ready to throw me away like yesterday's news.

"I want to sever our bond, Freya. Lyra is my true mate."

Wrong move, Alpha.

He thinks I'm just another submissive mate who'll quietly disappear. He's forgotten I'm a mixed-blood Alpha who's been playing nice for far too long. While he's busy playing house with my backstabbing sister, Lucas Morgan—the most dangerous Alpha in the territory—is making me an offer I can't refuse.

Paxton wants to discard me? Fine.

But he's about to learn that some women don't just walk away—they burn everything down on their way out.

I'm done being the good girl. Done being the perfect mate. Done hiding what I really am.

In a universe dominated by powerful alien empires, the Kingdom of Valthoriany is notorious for its cruelty and advanced technology. Every year, they hold the Selection Ritual, an event where beings from across the galaxy are forced to compete for the chance to survive as slaves to the Valthorian nobility.

Lira, a young human, is one of the last survivors of Earth, a planet devastated by interplanetary war. Captured by the Valthorians, she faces a terrifying fate: being chosen to serve the ruthless High Consul Xaroth and his enigmatic heir, Prince Rian.

Rian is as cruel as his father, but there’s something about him that intrigues Lira. Behind his cold eyes and impenetrable facade, she senses shadows of pain and conflict. When Rian selects her to be his personal slave, Lira is thrust into a dangerous game of power, desire, and domination. As she struggles against the undeniable attraction she feels for him, Lira uncovers secrets about the prince that could alter the fate of Valthoria.

Amid deadly dangers and political intrigue, Lira must decide whether she can trust Rian or if she should destroy the man who holds the power to either free her or condemn her. But in a world where the line between love and obsession is thin, Lira may end up losing more than her freedom—she may lose her heart.

As the substitute bride, I was viewed by my father as a pawn and by my stepmother as someone of no worth.
Abandoned by my father and sent to the countryside while still a child, I finally returned home, only to be swiftly discarded once more—this time, to a mental institution at my stepmother's behest.
It was not until three years later that I was released, my freedom bought solely for the purpose of taking my stepsister's place in marriage to the Sterling family.
"The Sterling family's wealth is beyond measure, and William Sterling is a rare and worthy gentleman. To marry into their house in your sister's stead is a blessing—don't forget your place!"
Yet all knew that William, crippled in a car accident, was no longer who he once was—moody, volatile, and, as rumors went, not long for this world
No one could have foreseen that after our wedding, William's legs would miraculously heal.
And only then did they begin to realize that this new young female was far from ordinary. As the truth was unearthed, they were left in astonishment.
This woman was a true queen.

For three years, Carol Bright was Edward Dawson's secretary and stepsister by day, and his secret lover by night. To him, she was just a game—disposable, forgettable, never meant to be loved.

When Edward announces his engagement to someone else, he expects drama. Instead, Carol disappears from his life without a word.

Now, she's no longer his. She's the heiress of the powerful Bright family—admired, untouchable, and far beyond his reach.

Then he sees her with another man. She slips behind closed doors. The lights go out—and she never returns.

That's when Edward realizes he's made the biggest mistake of his life.

The woman he once thought he owned is now the one he can never have again.

The day my son called another woman "Mom," I signed the divorce papers and left.

Five years later, now a top scientist, my ex-husband cornered me at a gala. I tried to push him away, but he gripped my waist tighter, his hot breath against my ear sending shivers down my spine.

"Stop pretending," he rasped. "Your body still remembers me."

I scoffed. "Ex-husband, have some dignity."

Just then, my phone rang with my son's desperate sobs. "Mommy! The bad woman hurt me... Please come save me! Daddy said you don't want us anymore..."