8705 Book(s) Related to desolate island i am the only man

In my past life, they drained my blood, kicked me off the rooftop, and said, "Waste doesn't deserve to live."

Reborn into the apocalypse, I opened my palm, and seven beams of primal energy pierced the sky. The woman who cried out "the best in the world" to me just ten minutes ago couldn't even produce a spark now. The brother who wore the boots I sewed and called me trash was being chased and bitten by mutants like a stray dog, his leg broken.

They came to me with memories of their past lives, demanding, "Why did you steal our special abilities?"

In front of thousands of people, I unleashed a net of lightning, scorching those who came to block my way. They knelt in the mud, their heads bleeding from kowtowing; Elena covered her mouth, which had been slapped clean, and David trembled on his single leg, leaning on a rusty steel pipe—yet they couldn't even climb over the iron thorns surrounding my tower.

Later, they rotted into a pile of mud in the arena and among the hordes of corpses, and I didn't even look back.

Until a horde of millions of zombies besieged the city, I went out alone with my sword and shattered the zombie king with a single strike.

The entire ruins knelt down.

They thought I had stolen the light.
No. I was just a fire that burned away what should have been garbage.

Woke up with the power to command endless zombies. I guarded the fortress for my sister, only to find her tortured, drained of blood, and used as live bait. A fake hologram fooled me for two years. Now I unleash my million undead army to burn all traitors to ashes.

Eight years ago, I was the heir to a powerful dynasty—the man set to inherit an empire.

On the way home from a business deal, our convoy was ambushed and I was taken. My fiancée arrived with the ransom, and the kidnappers gave her a choice: save one man. She saved my closest friend—and left me bleeding in the ruins.

They thought I was dead. They went on camera, announced my “tragic death,” took my company, split my legacy, and lived on my name for eight long years.

But I didn’t die. A gray-zone mercenary unit pulled me out of a pile of bodies. I changed my name and climbed from the bottom of their world—training, bleeding, killing, leading—until I became one of their commanders.

Today, my fiancée is marrying my best friend. The invitation arrived with my name on it. I board a first-class flight under a new identity and head straight for their wedding.

Halfway through the ceremony, the priest asks if anyone objects.

I stand up. “I object.”

I didn’t come back to give my blessing. I came back to collect.

My name is Michael Carson. On the surface, I'm a small-time analyst in Dallas, but nobody knows that I'm the sole heir to a multi-billion dollar financial empire.

The father's factory was on the verge of bankruptcy, but his wife transferred the money to her mother to open a beauty clinic, saying, "Your dad's lousy factory should have gone out of business long ago."

Her father suffered a heart attack and urgently needed surgery. She then said, "He's over sixty years old, is it worth it?"

I tolerated it. Until she discovered my true identity, she immediately turned on me, threatening divorce and taking half of my assets.

At that moment, I understood—some people don't deserve kindness.

I dialed the family number I hadn't contacted in five years.

They will never forget what happened next.

Three days after I lost our baby, my husband finally remembered to call.

I was packing when Adrian Whitmore's name appeared on my screen.

"Vanessa told me you caused another scene over the medical bills," he said, sounding irritated. "I've authorized the payment. Can we please move on?"

I stared at the tiny knitted sweater lying in my suitcase.

I'd bought it the day I learned I was pregnant.

He didn't know I'd already prepared our divorce papers.

For three years, I'd been Mrs. Whitmore, the wife of one of New York's wealthiest men. No one would believe that after three years as Mrs. Whitmore, I couldn't find four decent outfits in my own closet.

Every dollar I spent required approval, and even my clothes and jewelry were locked away. To access anything, I had to ask his assistant, Vanessa Reed.

Adrian believed my modest upbringing made me incapable of handling money responsibly.

Three days ago, seventeen weeks pregnant, I needed money for an emergency medical transfer.

Vanessa deliberately delayed the approval until it was too late.

I lost our baby.

Adrian never cared enough to notice what I'd been through. I had endured years of humiliation just because I loved him, still holding out hope for the happy marriage he'd once promised.

But now our baby was gone.

And I had no reason left to stay.

For four years, I tolerated Grayson’s blatant favoritism. He spoiled my roommate Mia with exquisite breakfasts every day, while leaving me with plain biscuits and bitter black coffee. I swallowed every unfair slight, hoping for true love. Yet he finally humiliated me thoroughly by choosing Mia over me for the elite corporate event, sneering that I was unworthy of high society. Hiding my identity as the university’s secret heiress, I stopped my father from ruining his career on impulse. I will let them attend the glamorous party—not out of mercy, but to deliver my quiet, devastating revenge. Now I only need time to decide my next move, and whether to accept my arranged engagement.

In my previous life, I ran a barbecue restaurant to support my family for ten years, but my parents secretly sold the restaurant to a gang because of my younger brother's vanity in wanting him to study abroad.
An hour later, the apocalypse began, and my little shop became a god-level safe house—
Those with superpowers who enter the store have their abilities automatically copied to the store owner; the store is absolutely safe; the store owner decides who enters and who leaves.
My family ruined my amazing little shop, and they scolded me, saying, "Who told you to be unable to keep the shop?"
I was heartbroken and torn to pieces in the mouth of a zombie.
In this life, I was reborn back to an hour before the shop was taken away.
I must protect my shop!
As for those so-called family members—let them fend for themselves in the apocalypse!

I thought I'd signed up for an immersive dating show.

Turns out it was a 99.9% death rate, globally livestreamed horror game.

And me? Half-blind without my contacts, desperate to go viral, I somehow talk my way through a death game like it's a romance.

I mistook blood for ketchup, human eyeballs for sashimi, a murderous child ghost for a kid who just needed some love.

Worst part? I fell for the guy running the place, the one who could kill you without blinking, and tried to get his number within the hour.

My teammate hissed at me, shaking. "You wanna die, fine, just don't take us with you!"

I just waved him off. It's a dating show. Relax.

On the eve of the apocalypse, I awakened a survival system: send me $5,000, and the sender can unlock a safehouse and awaken a life-saving ability.
The first person I told was Chloe, my girlfriend of three years. In return, she humiliated me in public and cheated on me without a shred of remorse.
That was the moment I finally gave up. The "nice guy" she had drained dry was dead for good.
One month later, the zombie horde arrived right on schedule. For old times' sake, I saved her one last time. And she repaid me by shoving me straight into the jaws of the mutated dead so she could save herself.
What she didn't know... was that I wasn't the only one who had awakened powers.

The day I died in a foreign country, my boyfriend was in the spotlight with another woman.

He's the man I built from nothing. Five years ago, I saved a broke orphan fresh out of college from the gutter. He said he wanted to be famous, wanted to make it to the top of the hockey world. In exchange, he became my boyfriend for five years.

I gave him the best coaching staff money could buy. Bought an entire hockey franchise and made him the centerpiece. Called in every favor I had to make him MVP.

But while he enjoyed everything I gave him, he refused to make our relationship public. Said it would "hurt his brand." He could make headlines with reporters and models, but nobody could know I existed.

He even said on national TV: "Those owners who just throw money around are pretty boring. Hockey is about skill, not money."

So why did he lose his mind when he found out I was dead?

I pursued Kaelzen, Alpha of the Frostfang Tribe, for four years and was about to marry him, only to expose his deception shortly before the wedding. A serious head injury erased all my memories of him. My family arranged a new marriage with the Duskthorn Tribe heir, and I agreed, planning to leave once the Ash Gate opens in seven days. Unaware of my memory loss, Kaelzen still treats me arrogantly, yet he is just a stranger to me now.

In my previous life, on the very day of our marking ceremony, my Alpha fiancé met his fated mate at the banquet.
He didn’t break off our engagement. Instead, he chose silence and completed the ceremony with me. He chose to trap me with a twenty-year mate bond.
For twenty years, I fought wars for the Pack, bore him an heir, and ruled the main hall alone as Luna.
Meanwhile, in another Pack’s territory, he spent his entire life with that woman.
Before I died, he told me he was sorry.
But he also blamed me—saying that if I hadn’t insisted on taking the Luna seat, he could have left more completely.
Only then did I realize something cruel. Not only was I never the one he loved, I was also the obstacle to his freedom.
When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day of the marking ceremony.
This time, the mate bond had not yet formed, and the mate mark had not yet been sealed.
Whether he would abandon me for his fated mate no longer mattered.
Because this time—
I would never step aside for any Alpha again.

To fulfill a dying comrade's final request, I spent twelve years living in the shadows to protect his daughter. I took bullets for her, laundered her black-market assets, and eventually handed over my entire stake in the security empire. In her eyes, I am her father’s murderer; in mine, she is a mission—the only flicker of light left in my life. Until that fateful banquet, when she personally shoved me into the sights of mercenaries. Watching my blood bloom across her dress, she hooked her arm around my nemesis and ordered coldly, "Clean it up." In that moment, twelve years of devotion collapsed, and a heart that beat only for her finally learned to freeze. This time, I’ve decided to personally destroy the monster I raised.

I once loved Ryan deeply and helped him become the Alpha, only to be rewarded with chains in a dungeon and the mocking laughter of him and his mistress.

Fate gave me a second chance—I woke up reborn on the morning of the mate selection ceremony. There he was, still ordering me around in front of everyone, expecting me to play the obedient servant.

Everyone tried to convince me that Ryan, the man who killed me, is the "right choice."

Yet I chose Connor—the man feared by the entire clan, the one who will bring ruin to the clan for the sake of his one true love.

This time, I refuse to be the stepping stone on Ryan's climb to power.

I'm going to make everyone see who truly holds the reins.

Forty-eight hours before my wedding, I was kidnapped and gang-raped, surviving by only a thread in the depths of despair.   When my mafia boss fiancé and my police detective best friend stood guard by my hospital bed with bloodshot eyes, I heard him suddenly switch to Navajo and ask her, "The death row inmates from the dark web—were they dealt with cleanly?"   My best friend chuckled, replying in the same language. "Don't worry. The guys who put their hands on Maya have been wiped out. Dead men tell no tales."   "Sacrificing Maya alone gave you the perfect excuse to wipe out the rival family and swallow the southern smuggling network, while earning me a high-level promotion. It was a damn good deal."   Amidst tearing, agonizing pain, it felt as if I had been plunged into an ice cliff.   They thought I could never understand this obscure tribal language, so they brazenly feasted on the spoils of victory built upon my very flesh and blood. But what they didn't know was that, to surprise my fiancé during our wedding vows... I had been secretly studying Navajo for an entire year.

At our wedding, my fiancé slapped me in front of both our families—all because of his bridesmaid.
That same day, I took off my engagement ring and called off the wedding.
Everyone thought I was just acting out in the heat of the moment.
After all, Charles Harrow and I had grown up together. I'd been in love with him since I was little, following him around for twelve whole years.
But this time, I meant it.
Later, when he finally found me, he stared at me in disbelief and asked,
"Why? Over one slap?"
I answered calmly, "Yes. Over one slap."

I am the sole heir to the Hartwell fortune.
But this birthday dinner — the one meant to sign the family trust into my hands on my twenty-second year — was being ruined by the housekeeper's daughter.
Brianna had done it on purpose. She'd stolen the archival couture gown my late mother left behind, then thrown herself into the champagne tower and pinned it on me.
"Oh God, Audrey, why did you push me?" She was already crying, her voice pitched for the crowd. "I know you hate seeing me in this dress, but your father was the one who insisted I wear it. Please don't make me leave."
In my last life, I'd stood there sobbing, waving my hands, trying to explain.
For that, I'd been stripped of my inheritance on the spot, committed to a psychiatric ward, and in the end, every fingernail torn out one by one, I'd died in agony.
But I'd been reborn.
Now I looked down at Brianna crumpled among the shattered crystal, playing the victim, and I didn't waste a word.
I crossed the floor, stood over her, drew my arm back, and slapped her across the face as hard as I could.
"Shut your mouth."

To save enough for a summer trip with my boyfriend, Tripp, and his friends, I worked late every night after school as a food runner at the upscale French restaurant in town.

Tripp told me his family didn't have much money. He wore old thrift-store T-shirts and always ordered the cheapest lunch in the cafeteria.

I felt bad for him. During the year we were together, I quietly paid for most of our dates.

Until one night, when I carried a bottle of wine to a private dining room and heard voices coming from inside.

"Tripp, how long are you going to keep pretending you're broke?" It was Chase, Tripp's best friend.

Then I heard Bitsy's sugary-sweet voice. She and Tripp had grown up together. "Thanks for the limited-edition bag, Tripp. Eighty grand, and it's absolutely gorgeous. I love it!"

I froze. An eighty-thousand-dollar bag? He wouldn't even spend twelve dollars on a burger.

Then Tripp spoke in a lazy drawl. "Girls like Nora are low-maintenance. She's easy to fool. Buy her an iced latte, and she'll act like it means the world to her. She barely costs me anything."

He had never really cared about me.

My mate, Rhys, brought his dead brother's pregnant widow into our house.
He swore up and down I'd never have to lift a finger for her.
The next morning he stood by the door with a packed bag and a grin.
"Babe. Big news. The pack called me up. Border post out east, two years. I ship out tonight."
He looked at me like he was waiting for me to promise I'd take good care of his brother's widow.
So I pulled my own bag out of the closet, right there in front of him and the woman in the back room.
"Funny. The alliance called me up too. Medic rotation. Two years."
"We can leave together. Lock up on the way out. Colette can rest easy with the whole house to herself."

At sixteen, I took a fatal blow for him. As my wolf soul shattered, he swore with blood-red eyes: "When I become Alpha, I will make you my Luna."
But two years later, when he led the pack to migrate to new territory, he told the butler before departure: "Her broken wolf soul will only drag the group down."
With my bundle, I slipped out. Fate played a cruel joke: I boarded the wrong carriage, replacing a weeping bride, and was delivered to the wedding chamber of Alaric Argent, Alpha of the Sterling Pack.
The tall, steady figure before me sparked an odd sense of calm. The fog of memory wouldn’t let me be sure. Was this mistaken arrival a new beginning… or the continuation of an old shadow?

I only gave him one night. One night to prove I wasn't just the human maid cleaning his mansion floors.
And by dawn, the Alpha shattered me. He rejected me, humiliated me, and chose another to wear the crown at his side.
He never knew that night left me with more than scars. It left me with a son.
Two years later, I'm not the weak girl who cried when he cast me aside. And I'm back not for him, but for my child.
Kael thinks he can ignore the past. He thinks he can demand my forgiveness. But I don't care about his crown, or his throne, or the Luna who clings to him like she's untouchable.
All I care about is protecting my son.
And if the Alpha thinks he can claim us now... he'll learn that nothing is fiercer than a mother who refuses to be erased.

t the most expensive medical charity gala in Manhattan, Avery Hale came in through the service corridor because she hated cameras. She wore a black dress without a label, carried her own coat, and kept her name off every donor wall.

That was the point. For seven years, Avery had hidden the money she made from film scores and documentary royalties inside an anonymous foundation that paid for surgeries, trials, and second chances for children whose families had run out of all three. She had built Second Dawn quietly because quiet was the one thing her old family had never been able to take from her.

Then the Mercers saw her.

The parents who had adopted her and discarded her. The golden son they had asked her to fund, praise, and disappear for. The family that once called her selfish for wanting college now called her a fraud for standing in a room she had paid to build.

They thought Avery had slipped into the gala to beg. They thought the powerful man watching from the edge of the ballroom was only another rich stranger. They thought public shame would make her small again.

They were wrong about every part of her.

I was reborn on the exact day I was supposed to sign the marriage contract with the Alpha Kael.

I didn't hesitate. I crossed out my name and wrote my stepsister's instead. Let her have the bastard. I took my mother's estate back and headed straight to the underground shifter bar.

"Bring me the hottest wolf warriors you've got. All of them," I told the bartender, slapping a wad of cash down.

I was done being the obedient Luna.

Twelve months of internship, top of my class in every evaluation. I showed up at Vanguard Systems to finalize my hire, and Ryan Caldwell blocked the door.
"The Aegis research position and security clearance nomination went to Madison. Five hundred thousand. Sign the NDA and walk away."
Madison Cole stood beside him. She knew her scores didn't come close to mine, yet a federal project access badge already hung around her neck.
"You understand what happens when you issue that credential improperly?"
Ryan laughed.
"My family owns this company. I decide who stays."
I didn't argue. I pulled out my phone and dialed the Federal Contract Oversight Office tip line.
The operator ran through standard intake questions until I gave her the security contact code my father left behind:
"Sentinel 257."

Chloe faked a billionaire family name, Ethan betrayed the girl who saved his broken knee, and both stole Aria’s award-winning business model to climb Ivy League’s social ladder. They paraded on stage with her crystal trophy, calling her a poor, delusional stalker in front of thousands. What they didn’t know: the “poor girl” is the sole heir to Sterling’s trillion-dollar empire. One phone call brought lawyers, police, and a terrified university president to their knees. Every lie, every theft, every cruel word comes crashing down—hard.

I'm the rightful fucking heir to the Sterling family fortune. My old man made me lay low, keep my head down, live like some regular broke college kid.
But there's this cunt in my dance crew. Walking around flashing her fake designer shit like she's hot shit, acting like she owns the fucking place.
And now she's got her eyes on my boyfriend.
To get close to him? She's telling everyone she's the Sterling family heiress.
Oh really? You're the Sterling heir?
Then who the fuck am I?

"Daddy... so cold... and it hurts..." When my precious daughter Mia whispered these words in her weak voice, my heart felt like it was being torn apart.
The life-saving medicine was just ten meters away, but that damned anti-magic barrier had become an insurmountable chasm between life and death.
What made me even more furious was that the vampire guarding the gate not only extorted my life savings, but also demanded I kneel like a dog and lick his boots before he would open the door.
He didn't know that if the door stayed closed, it wouldn't just be my daughter who died—his son and mother would perish too!

Five years ago, Elena overheard the ambiguous whispers between her husband Arthur and his first love. In that split second, all her love for him crumbled to dust. She left the country with her pregnant belly, vowing never to have any connection with this man again.​
Five years later, Elena returns to her home country with her twins Liam and Luna—now a world-renowned top doctor. Unexpectedly, she finds herself entangled with Arthur once more. His eyes reddening with emotion, he grabs her abruptly and pleads, "Elena, I was truly wrong. This time, I will never let you get hurt again."

Betrayal has never struck so hard until that day I caught my fiancée and best friend cheating on me.

My world came crashing down beneath my feet, and I felt hopeless.

However, luck was on my side and I ended up having a one-night stand with a mysterious man.

Two months later, he showed up at my house with our marriage agreement and he turned out to be my ex-fiancée’s father.

Heartbroken and enraged with revenge, I acknowledged the marriage, desiring to make my ex-fiancée and my best friend pay for what they did to me.

Luckily, my ex-fiancée and best friend lives in the same house with us and revenge took a tremendous turn.

Ten years into my marriage, I'd traded my paintbrush for a spatula and turned into Mrs. Holloway.

Ever since my sister Brooke moved in, my husband Bennett and my daughter Lucy had picked up a habit. Anytime Brooke and I disagreed, they put it to a vote.

On my birthday I wanted steak. Two hands went up for the salad bar Brooke liked. When I hadn't slept in weeks and wanted to see a therapist, they sided with Brooke, who said I just had too much time on my hands.

We'd decided long ago that for our tenth anniversary, we'd go back to Jenny Lake, where Bennett had proposed. Then Brooke mentioned she wanted to surf in Maui. Another vote. Two to one, again.

Bennett finished booking the tickets before it even occurred to him to look at me.

"There were only three business-class seats left, so we grabbed them. Just book yourself an economy seat, okay?"

I nodded and bought a one-way ticket to Wyoming.

This time, I wasn't going with them.

At the engagement party, Adrian walked in with pregnant Celeste: "Sorry, the engagement is off."

"Why?" I stared at him intently.

"The baby is Adrian's," Celeste sobbed, "I can't let my child grow up without a father..."

"You're just an orphan with no money or connections," Adrian looked at me coldly, "You're not good enough for me."

Just when I was completely humiliated, butler Steven found me. "Miss Hayes, we've been searching for you for twenty-three years. You're the long-lost heiress of Hayes Corporation."

A week later at the family reunion banquet, Adrian knelt before me: "Iris, please give me another chance!"

"You can stay by my side," I looked down at him condescendingly, "but not as my boyfriend—as my servant."

But when Celeste accidentally miscarried, the truth shocked everyone...

For my fiancée’s career, I was willing to be the ghost designer behind her for five years.

Until the day of the key bid, she stole the blueprint I had spent two sleepless years perfecting and signed it with the name of her useless first love.

The drawings are gone You can draw them again He needs this project to survive Be sensible she said, impatient when I confronted her

I did not argue My heart went cold I calmly left my engagement ring and my resignation letter and went to Europe

In just three months, without me, she became disgraced and buried in debt While I won Europe’s highest architectural gold award

I watched the once proud her soak in icy water for five hours just to earn a trace of my sympathy

I handed her a basic junior interview form with indifference Want to start over Report to the front desk Start with errands and work your way up

On Valentine's Day, the Rogue King came to slaughter my mate, the Alpha of the Silvercrest pack, Adrian Barrett. But he wasn't home. He was busy celebrating with his childhood love, Celeste, leaving our five-year-old daughter at the assassin's mercy. To save her, I swallowed deadly wolfsbane.

"Daddy, please come home! Mommy is coughing blood!" Sophie sobbed into the phone.
"Stop lying just to ruin my night," Adrian snapped.
Before the line went dead, another little girl's voice chimed in. "Daddy Adrian, which dress should my mommy wear?"
"The red one, sweetheart," he cooed softly, and hung up.
I bled to death on our bed while he played perfect father to another woman's child.

But death wasn't the end. My spirit rose from my cooling corpse, forced to watch as my little girl learned a cruel truth: her father would always choose someone else.

Dante Ashford is my stepbrother, and the one person I should never have fallen in love with.

When I was ten, my parents died saving his family. The Ashfords took me in. He was good to me back then. Somewhere along the way, I fell for him.

When I was eighteen, he nearly died in an ambush. I donated blood, then a kidney to save him. I was unconscious for three days. When I woke up, Vivian Ross sat by his bed—and he believed she was his savior.

After that, he pushed me away. Vivian became his fiancée.

In my past life, Vivian's crimes brought disaster to our family. Dante got on his knees and begged me to take her punishment. I refused. She died anyway. Then he pretended to love me, planned our wedding—and on that day, his assistant announced to everyone: "This wedding was a lesson to show Miss Elena Hayes what it feels like to be abandoned by the whole world."

I jumped from the church balcony.

When I opened my eyes, I was back at that moment—him on his knees, begging.

This time, I said yes.

Dante, from now on, we're done.

The day before Thanksgiving, my husband, David, dragged his suitcase to the airport, claiming he was flying to Seattle to meet an important client.
My parents took my younger brother to Miami for a vacation and conveniently took my six-year-old daughter with them.
With the house empty, I picked up a last-minute catering shift that paid double the usual hourly rate. I needed the extra money to cover next month's rent and buy David a gift. So I temporarily filled in as a dinner server at a mansion in Beverly Hills.
After changing into a black-and-white uniform, I entered the employer's home through the service entrance.
The person in charge was the lady of the house—a young, beautiful blonde.
She had barely led me through the hallway toward the main room when I saw several workers hanging a massive engagement portrait on the central wall.
The man in the photograph, dressed in a perfectly tailored suit, was my husband of six years.
David.
I froze where I stood, my mind going completely blank.
"Move it a little to the left. Yes, that's it. Straighten it!" the blonde girl called out to the workers.
Then she turned toward me.
"What? Can't take your eyes off it? That's my fiancé."
She looked me up and down, her voice dripping with condescending, fake sympathy.
"Working on a major holiday? I guess you're not married yet."
I closed my eyes and took a slow, deep breath. "I am. But I'll be a widow very soon."

"What if she finds out the baby she suffered so much to conceive is actually ours? Will she lose her mind?"

My stepsister giggled, snuggling into my husband’s embrace.

I stood outside the cracked door, completely frozen.

My husband was holding her tight, enthusiastically picking out names for the baby growing in my belly.

My own mother scoffed from the side. "Relax. That idiot will never figure out she’s carrying your baby."

A bone-deep chill shot down my spine.

For years, I had endured endless blood tests and painful injections, leaving my stomach bruised with needle marks—all just to give him a child.

Instead, they had bribed the doctors. Using IVF, they secretly turned me into a surrogate for my husband and my stepsister.

My husband was certain I was too soft-hearted. He knew that even if the plot was exposed, I could never bring myself to destroy an innocent life.

He was absolutely right.

But I could destroy myself.

In the dead of night, I walked out to the edge of the bridge, climbed over the freezing metal railing, and plummeted into the icy, pitch-black water below.

Two years later. An elite gala.

Under the dazzling spotlight, I stood completely reborn.

My ex-husband dropped his wine glass, letting it shatter against the floor as he collapsed softly to his knees, desperately clutching the hem of my gown.

I coldly pulled my dress from his trembling grasp.

"Excuse me, sir," I said, staring down at him. "You have the wrong person."

I was reborn.
In my past life, for the sake of my childhood sweetheart Chiara, I rushed into a sea of fire to save her lover, but I was disfigured by strong acid. In return, I was rejected and abandoned by her, and ultimately died tragically on the street.
Reborn before the narcotics factory explosion, I coldly turned away from Chiara's pleas for help: "If it's true love, go in and die with her."
This time, I'm not a sycophant anymore; I'm going to make all those who betrayed me pay a bloody price.

It was Valentine's Day when my fiancé, Gavin Pierce, took me out to that survival course in the Catskills — him, me, and Riley Harper, the girl his family took in when she was fourteen, after her parents died.
I'd asked for a table at the Gramercy Tavern. He'd said he hated standing in line for a reservation, that he wanted to do something that actually got our blood moving.
So he booked the three of us into a couples' wilderness challenge — which should have told me something, right there, when the booking was for three.
The final round was a solo penalty draw. One of us would pull the short stick and spend ten minutes locked inside The Freezer.
Riley hooked her arm through Gavin's, half pouting, half flirting. "Gav, if I pull it, are you gonna come get me out?"
Gavin laughed. "Rules are rules, Ri."
She stuck her lip out in a sulk.
Beside her, I let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding.
Then Riley drew the black stick, and her tears came instantly, like a faucet turning on.
Less than a second later, Gavin spoke.
"It's too dark in here. Drew the wrong one, didn't I?"
He slid the safe stick out of my hand and swapped it with hers — smooth enough that it took me a beat to understand what I'd just seen.
"You're up, Caro."
Riley's tears dried up on the spot.
Gavin turned and murmured close to my ear, "Come on. Riley has a thing about tight spaces. You're tough. Ten minutes. You'll be fine."
This wasn't the first time Gavin had dropped me the moment it counted.
I looked down at the cold already seeping through the soles of my boots, and the phone sealed in my waterproof pouch lit up.
It was the man my father had been quietly pushing on me for months.
[Valentine's Day, Miss Langley. Have you made up your mind?]

I was blown up by my business partner and fiancée working together, only to wake up in an apocalyptic game where only one person can survive. They drew S-rank abilities and mocked my "worthless" wealth card. But they forgot—in a world with physical rules, money can buy sky cities, EMP bombs, and orbital weapons. Now they're kneeling in ruins begging me to open the door, while I stand atop Avalon City at 30,000 meters, finger hovering over the detonation button.

Three months after being reunited with the Harrington family, I won £5 million in the lottery.

Then, they kicked me out of the house.

My father, my mother, and that imposter brother—three swindlers—fabricated an apocalyptic lie and used a so-called "heirloom" to steal my lottery ticket.

They didn't know that the end times really were coming.

Unbeknownst to them, the true power of that wristband was—item duplication.

Little did they know, I was the one who had truly been reborn from the apocalypse.

In my past life, they used me as bait, letting me be torn to pieces by the infected.

In this life, 5 million pounds? Go ahead and squander it.

I want to watch them struggle in despair and die in fear.

And I will have unlimited resources at my disposal, on this wasteland—

I was three months pregnant when I found out my husband had been cheating with the cousin I had kindly taken in.

My son said he wanted her to be his mom, then shoved me down the stairs and caused me to miscarry.

The day I lost the baby, my husband sat beside my bed. His voice was gentle, soft enough to lull someone to sleep.

“Relax,” he said. “You’ll forget all this pain.”

I closed my eyes and let him plant layer after layer of hypnotic commands in my ear.

“When you wake up, you’ll be an obedient wife.”

Now I watch them living happily ever after as a family of three.

They think I’m nothing but an empty shell.

They have no idea that I’ve already posted this plea for help online:

[HELP] My cousin is wearing my sexy nightgown to seduce my husband, I caught them cheating, and my son calls her “Mom.” But I just feel numb. What am I supposed to do?

I bought a handsome, aloof incubus from a clearance sale online to be my live-in maid.
For a week, he was perfect. Then he started fainting, his skin burning with a fever no amount of rest could fix. Panicked that I’d somehow overworked my best employee, I called the 24/7 Aphrodisiac (companyI bought him from) helpline.

Ma’am, our incubus models have a demonic lineage and you have got a high-output model. They have near-infinite stamina. They don't get 'feverish' from vacuuming. But... why did you have him doing 'housework'?"
"Because the house was dirty?"
The agent suddenly chuckled. "Ah, I see. Everyone has their own fantasies and kinks. Roleplay is very popular. But tell me, according to the log, when was the last time Xanthos received physical intimacy?"
"Huh?"
"Physical intimacy," the agent repeated. "Love, spoiling, skin-to-skin contact. If a male incubus doesn't get intimacy, his internal energy stagnates. They fall sick. Male models are much higher maintenance than females; they need constant affection to stay healthy."
My blood ran cold. "Affection? I bought him to mop the floors!"
"Ma'am," the agent's voice dropped. "You are on Aphrodisiac. We are the world's leading provider of supernatural escorts. Did you... did you not read the site description?"

Turns out, I hadn’t bought a demonic domestic servant.
I’d accidentally purchased a high-maintenance supernatural escort.
And apparently, if I didn’t start showing my “maid” some affection soon, he would die and I would be jailed for abusing my maid.

Four years ago, I got mauled by a rogue wolf saving my Beta husband Derek. The attack left me unable to carry pups.

He held me that night, covered in my blood, and swore through tears that kids never mattered to him anyway.

Four years later, he's sleeping with Paige, a she-wolf I took in out of kindness six months back.

"Every family needs an heir. You can't give me one, so Paige offered. Just accept it and keep being my mate."

Paige, eyes brimming with tears, insisted she only wanted to repay my kindness. The baby would call me mother. She'd never try to take my place.

I almost laughed. Since when does anyone repay a favor by climbing into bed with the man who took her in?

I refused. He brought my parents and my brother into it to force my hand.

I didn't waste another word on him. I severed the bond and moved my whole family out to Moonhaven Pack on the coast.

Turns out nobody leaves a single she-wolf alone, no matter where she goes. Thugs kept showing up outside my door, stirring up trouble.

Right when things get unbearable, a big guy shows up out of nowhere and beats the group of them into running for their lives.

He's tall, scars all over his arms. He looks me over for a long moment, then says, "I need a wife to look after my two kids. Marry me. I'll protect your whole family."

My childhood fiancé chose my best friend in his family's sacred bridal draw, then told me I could still live with him—as his mistress.
He wanted her as his wife and me running his empire.
I refused.
If I couldn't be his wife, I'd be his worst nightmare.
In seven days, I'm marrying his ruthless uncle.
Let's see if he still wants me as his dirty secret when he has to bow his head and call me “Aunt Serena.”

For six years, my mother Isolde believed I had committed an unforgivable sin. Under the guise of "reforming my character," she continuously injected me with neurotoxic antibiotics, confining me to a wheelchair to act as a crippled companion to my sister, Alondra.
My entire family silently condoned this punishment, favoring my sister who was merely faking her paralysis. I had long since surrendered all my dignity, numbly enduring every injustice.
On my nineteenth birthday, I humbly begged her to stop the injections for just one day. I didn't want to look pathetic in front of my childhood sweetheart, Joren.
Moments later, I uncovered the cruel truth on the balcony: my sister’s legs had healed long ago. Six years of agony had been nothing but a staged performance.
The long-accumulated drug toxicity suddenly erupted inside my body. I tumbled to the floor together with my wheelchair. Summoning the last ounce of my strength, I managed to reach a bottle of pills meant to alleviate the toxicity.
As my consciousness faded, a faint, hopeless wish lingered in my heart: I thought that if I just fell asleep, I might regain feeling in my legs when I woke up.
When I opened my eyes again, I realized with horror—I was already dead.

On our tenth anniversary, a doctor told me I had three months left.
I called Graham five times before he picked up. He was at a restaurant downtown, cutting the steak on his ex-girlfriend's plate, and he told me to stop acting like a paranoid wife.
So I never told him.
I folded the diagnosis into my coat pocket, went home, and rinsed the blood out of the sink before he walked in. Then I signed away the house, the cars, every share of the firm I helped him build. I left his ring on the coffee table, canceled the number I'd had for ten years, and checked into a hospice with nobody's name on my emergency contact line.
He thought I was throwing a tantrum. He thought I'd come crawling back the second the money ran out.
He didn't find the diagnosis until it was too late to matter.

Everyone in our hometown believed Mia and I would get married.
Our mothers had planned the wedding. Our neighbors were waiting for invitations. And for years, I stayed exactly where Mia expected me to—until she left our dinner to spend the night caring for another man.
She told me not to overthink it.
So I didn’t.
I canceled the wedding plans, moved out, and gave her the freedom she had always acted like she wanted.
That was when Mia finally panicked.
She thought I was punishing her. She never understood that I wasn’t trying to make her come back.
I was learning how to leave.

Everyone says I'm the woman Jasper loves most.

But only I know that in his heart, I've always come second to Sadie.

Seven years ago, I shoved him out from under a collapsing rig and shattered my right ankle. I never skated competitively again.

He held me and swore that the day he won the Grand Slam, he'd marry me in front of the whole world.

I believed him. So I learned to be his support crew. I sharpened his blades, hand-sewed his costumes, dragged my bad leg around everywhere he went. I turned myself into the shadow that followed him.

Then Sadie came along. Young, healthy, able to do things I could never do again.

Tonight, Jasper wins the Grand Slam. The cameras circle him, the whole arena chanting for him to propose.

But he looks down at Sadie in his arms and smiles.

"Out of everyone, she's the one I want to thank most for this medal. I wouldn't have made it here without her."

That's the moment I stop wanting to stay.

My brother Miles blames me for our parents' deaths.
So he chose to adopt the deaf Vivian instead of keeping me.
Later, I met Sullivan.
He gave me a grand confession. He chose me, resolutely.
He also said I hired someone to assault Vivian—that I didn't deserve sympathy.
Five years after being cast out of my family, a dismembered female body was found inside a carnival mascot costume.
Miles, now a police officer, led the investigation. Sullivan, now a forensic pathologist, performed the autopsy.
They saw the bloodstained hearing aid and immediately called Vivian.
"I'm fine. I just saw the news—some big case. Should we tell Sis to be careful too? What if something happens to her?"
They refused, almost in unison.
"The moment she killed our parents, she stopped being my sister."
"She was jealous of you. She did too many terrible things. If she's dead, she had it coming."
My soul hovered in the air, watching them. I laughed until I cried.
But when they found out the victim was me—
Why did they both go mad?

Every time my husband’s adopted sister, Avey, had a tennis match, he would force a dark green concoction down my throat. As soon as it kicked in, my entire body would turn weak and aching.
He claimed it was a folk remedy, and I believed him.
In half a year, I lost twenty pounds, half my hair fell out, and I lost our four-month-old baby.
Until the night I overheard them whispering behind a cracked door—they had sought out a witch and cast a dark curse.
My forced standstill was the price for her endless stamina. All her fatigue and sports injuries were being directly transferred to me.
Late that night, listening to them plot to drain the life out of me, I made a choice. On the very night Avey won her championship, I climbed into a deep hibernation pod. I traded thirty days of absolute physical stasis to ensure she could never stop.