Ariel Bruckman

I stood in the grand throne room, waiting to marry Crown Prince Gideon. As a "Dragonless" noblewoman, this marriage was my only security. But the doors opened, and Gideon walked in holding my cousin Clarisa's hand. In front of the entire court, he asked the King to elevate her, a "Dragon-born," and turned to offer me the humiliating position of his secondary consort. "I know this is unfair, but you will still be a member of the royal family," he said, expecting my tearful gratitude. I refused and walked out, but when I returned home, my nightmare only worsened. My grandmother, father, and aunt surrounded me, furiously cursing me for ruining their royal connections. "You ruined this marriage! Go apologize to the Crown Prince and accept his arrangement!" my father roared. For eighteen years, my family had treated my "commoner" mother like dirt, while secretly draining her massive merchant dowry to fund their lavish, aristocratic lifestyle. Now, they wanted to sell me off at a discount just to keep their status, completely disregarding my dignity. They really thought I was just a weak, obedient girl who would swallow this ultimate betrayal and let them hollow out our lives forever. They were dead wrong. I didn't shed a single tear. Instead, I took over my mother's estate, called in every single debt they owed us, and watched the debt collectors strip our manor bare. As my mother finally handed my father the divorce papers, I ordered a custom "Dragonslayer Gold" sword. It was time to pay a visit to Gideon's deadliest rival—the Iron-Blooded God of War.

To escape my toxic ex-fiancé and the father who froze my assets, I entered a contract marriage with Barrett, a cold but protective corporate consultant. I thought he was my safe harbor. I even confided my secret, ruthless strategy to take back control of my company from my ex. But at the most critical board meeting, a mysterious new chairman dialed in. The synthesized voice coming through the speakerphone systematically dismantled the board and took over the company, using the exact, word-for-word strategy I had only ever whispered to my husband in the dead of night. My ex-fiancé turned pale with panic. The board members were stunned into silence. And I sat there, my blood running completely cold. The man who had held my hand in the hospital, who had slept in my bed, and who had promised to protect me, had just committed the ultimate corporate espionage. Every tender touch, every late-night confession—was it all just a calculated move to steal my life's work? How could the only person who made me feel safe use my deepest vulnerabilities to orchestrate my ruin? I packed up my files, walked straight out of that boardroom, and prepared to disappear from his life forever. But when I fled to my best friend's apartment to hide, I looked out the window. The ruthless mastermind who had just stolen my empire was standing completely still in the freezing downpour, waiting for me to come down.

Jolie transmigrated into a high-tech universe ruled by beast-shifting Primals, only to wake up in the body of a "defective" female. With a Genetic Compatibility Index of zero, she was publicly discarded by her mandated military partner. Before she could even adapt, her stepmother drugged her with an illegal aphrodisiac and locked her in a pitch-black suite with that same ex-fiancé-now a feral, maddened beast. The family wanted her torn apart to permanently erase their embarrassment. But instead of dying, Jolie awakened a rare plant-manipulation power. She bound the raging General, drained his energy, robbed him blind, and fled to a remote farming planet. Just as she thought she was free, the Commonwealth system flashed a new mandate. They assigned her a new husband: Keanu Robertson, a psychotic assassin who had murdered his last three wives. The system wasn't giving her a partner; it was handing her a death warrant. Keanu despised females, especially a "useless" zero-GCI burden. He tracked her forged alias across the galaxy, descending upon her barren farm in the dead of night with pure murderous intent. How could a discarded, defective girl survive the most feared apex predator in the Shadow Sector? But as the legendary assassin stepped onto her property to finish the job, a mutated, neurotoxic vine whipped out and completely paralyzed him. Watching the massive killer crash face-first into the dirt, Jolie lowered her rifle and smiled. "Welcome home, husband."

For five years, I poured my life, my talent, and my unpaid labor into building Ryan Blakely' s dream. I was his graphic designer, his strategist, his every support, believing our shared struggle would culminate in a shared future. Then, live on a pixelated stream, bathed in the glow of his multi-million dollar success, he smiled, that brilliant, camera-ready smile. "I'd like to announce my engagement to the brilliant and beautiful Stella Lawrence." The name hit me like a physical blow. But he wasn't done. He then publicly dismissed me as a "clout-chasing groupie," "good for the struggle, but not for the high life." My world went silent. After everything, he called me trash, then marked me one last time before discarding me with a morning-after pill. The next day, his new fiancée, Stella, called me a "charity case." When I dared speak back, Ryan stormed over, slapped me, and then abandoned me as thugs, hired by Stella, stabbed me in an alley. How could the man I loved, the man I gave everything to, not only humiliate and betray me, but physically harm me and leave me to die? Was our entire five years a lie, or was there something more sinister at play? Just as I lost all hope, a powerful hand shoved Ryan aside. My protector, Andrew Scott, stood over me, instantly revealing my true identity: Gabrielle Fuller, heiress to a tech empire. Now, it was time for Ryan to face the real world he had so carelessly discarded.

For eighteen months, Seraphina had been the secret, invisible wife of Julian Montgomery, New York's most ruthless billionaire. But her quiet devotion shattered the day a viral photo plastered the internet, showing Julian on an intimate date with his socialite ex-girlfriend. While the world celebrated the "perfect couple," Seraphina was trapped in a cubicle at his own company. Her jealous manager framed her for an invasive PR proposal right in front of Julian, pointing a finger directly at her. "It was Seraphina! She's always trying to pull some flashy stunt to get noticed!" Julian didn't say a single word to defend his wife. He just looked at her with cold disdain, silently allowing her to be publicly humiliated and punished with a night of grueling labor. And when a childhood friend simply gave her a ride home to comfort her, Julian saw them from his Maybach, his eyes turning to ice as he plotted to punish her for breaking his rules. Seraphina felt a suffocating, bitter despair. Why was he allowed to parade his ex around the city, while she was condemned as a manipulative schemer for just smiling at a friend? She had endured this freezing, loveless marriage just to be near the man who had once saved her life. Staring at the digital proof she had secretly recovered to destroy her lying manager, Seraphina finally wiped her tears. She was done being the pathetic, obedient ghost in his shadow; it was time to tear down his rules and take her life back.

Eleonore was the secret apprentice of a master jeweler and the hidden heir to the Pierce family legacy. She spent two years in brutal training, hiding her immense talent from the world. But just as she was ready to step out of the shadows, her grandfather's final masterpiece—the lost symbol of her family—surfaced at an auction. Before she could even place a bid, it was bought in a private sale by Keaton Kaufman, the ruthless CEO of the Carlyle Group and her mentor's greatest enemy. Eleonore desperately tried to buy it back, offering double the price through powerful connections. Keaton coldly refused all offers. Instead, he went on live television and announced that the priceless Pierce family artifact would be used as a mere corporate carrot. "This piece will be the grand prize for our internal design competition," Keaton declared to the cameras. Eleonore's fingernails dug into her palms until they bled. He didn't care about the craftsmanship or her family's history; he was just using her grandfather's legacy as a pawn to stress-test his own employees. The wall between her and her family's heirloom was made of billions of dollars, and she had no way to break it down from the outside. So, she made a reckless decision. She deleted her elite background, stripped away her protective armor, and created a fake resume as a desperate, entry-level nobody. She clicked send on her job application to the Carlyle Group. If she couldn't buy her family's legacy back, she was going to infiltrate his empire and win it back herself.

Blaire woke up in a Manhattan penthouse, her body covered in bruises and her innocence stolen. Before she could process the terror, her adoptive sister Danita burst in, acting heartbroken and accusing Blaire of shamelessly seducing the powerful Kamryn Lane. Kamryn threw a one-million-dollar check at Blaire's bleeding face, calling her a calculating gold digger. That night, Blaire overheard a conversation in the family study that shattered her entire reality. "Once she gives birth to the Lane family's seed, we'll stage an accident, drain her blood, and transplant her healthy heart into your chest." Her adoptive mother and Danita were celebrating the success of their trap. She wasn't an adopted daughter; she was a living organ bank and a disposable surrogate. Even her adoptive brother, Calhoun, knew everything, trapping her in the dark hallways with a sick, possessive obsession to ensure she never escaped. The horrific truth suffocated her. The family that had taken her in had raised her like livestock for slaughter. How could they smile at her every day while planning to carve out her heart? Terrified but burning with a desperate will to survive, Blaire swallowed a Plan B pill to ruin their surrogate plot and fled the estate. To get the money and power she needed to crush her adoptive family, she pulled out Kamryn Lane's business card. This time, she would make a deal with the devil.

My mother was dying and desperately needed a half-million-dollar deposit for an experimental heart surgery by tomorrow. I swallowed my pride and begged my wealthy husband, Garrick, to save her life. Instead of helping, he laughed coldly and threw a thick stack of divorce papers right in my face. "A hen that can't lay eggs gets slaughtered," he sneered, ruthlessly poking my flat stomach. He revealed that his secretary, my supposed friend Lacey, was already pregnant with his heir. To him, our three years of marriage was just a business transaction, and now that my family was bankrupt, I was nothing but damaged goods. He flicked a humiliating five-thousand-dollar check at me as his final act of charity, then locked me out of our townhouse into the freezing, pouring rain. I had spent years enduring agonizing hormone treatments for a fertility issue that wasn't even my fault, only to be discarded like trash when I needed him the most. Was my dignity, my absolute devotion, and my mother's life really worth nothing to him? Driven by pure, reckless desperation, I threw myself directly into the path of a moving Rolls-Royce Phantom on Fifth Avenue. It belonged to Holden Tillman, the ruthless patriarch of the Tillman empire—and the uncle Garrick lived in absolute terror of. I thought I was walking into my death, but instead, I became his fiancée, ready to make Garrick and Lacey pay for every tear I shed.

I was ready to throw away my entire future for my boyfriend, Aaron. Believing he was the victim of a brutal hazing campaign at our prestigious law firm, I'd arranged for us to escape to a small town, sacrificing my own career. My bags were packed. But at our farewell party, I overheard him laughing with his friends. The hazing was a lie. He just couldn't handle the pressure and felt suffocated by my success. "Chelsea's too intense," he sneered. "Kassandra is different. She needs me. She makes me feel like a man." Kassandra, the sweet new intern he was leaving me for, joined in, calling me "intimidating." They were all laughing at my blind loyalty. My love was a burden. My competence was a threat. He hadn't just betrayed me; he had used my fierce loyalty as a weapon to orchestrate my downfall. But I didn't give them the satisfaction of a scene. I walked away, my heartbreak hardening into cold resolve. He thought he was getting a clean break. He had no idea he had just declared war on the wrong woman.

I turned down a full scholarship to Stanford to follow my boyfriend of ten years to Columbia. I thought my sacrifice was an act of love, until I heard him laughing with his best friend in the kitchen. He was speaking French, confident that his "simple" girlfriend couldn't understand a word. "Elle était juste une pratique," he sneered. "She was just practice. A training session. That' s all." My blood ran cold. He went on to explain that I was just a "safety net" to keep his bed warm while he pursued his real target, a famous model named Bella. He claimed I was pathetic, loyal, and would never leave him. The irony? I had spent years secretly mastering French to impress his grandmother. I understood every single insult. I didn't confront him. I didn't make a scene. I simply walked into the bedroom, withdrew my application from Columbia, and accepted the offer from Stanford. By the time he realized his "safety net" was gone, I was already across the country, and he was blocked on everything.

The cold silver wires felt like ice against my skin, a stark contrast to the familiar warmth of my lab. Three years of my life, three years of marriage, were supposed to lead to our shared triumph, not this. Not me strapped to a chair in our penthouse, the neural interface humming ominously as it pressed against my temple. This was Mark' s project, but it was my creation. The MindSync algorithm was my soul, coded into existence. I, Ava Green, a software engineer who believed in technology that could connect people, had designed it to personalize user experience on a level never seen before. I gave it to my husband, Mark, the brilliant tech CEO I loved, the man I thought loved me. He re-engineered MindSync to extract a user\'s deepest desires, their most private emotional data, turning human feeling into a commodity he could monetize for unparalleled market control. And I never knew. "Ava, Sophia\'s condition is agonizing," he said, his voice flat. "Only your personalized MindSync can truly help her. Your emotional core is the key." He didn\'t look at my tears. He watched the monitor, tracking the progress of the extraction. The machine whirred to life, and a piercing pain shot through my skull. It felt like my thoughts were being ripped out one by one, my memories shredded, my feelings siphoned away into the humming device. Tears streamed down my face. "Mark, why?" I begged, my voice cracking. He looked at me like I was a piece of hardware. When it was over, he detached the wires. I slumped in the chair, a hollowed-out shell. The vibrant world of emotions I once lived in was gone, replaced by a gray, empty void. He handled the glowing data chip with more care than he had ever shown me. I became a shadow, following him from a distance, a desperate attempt to stay connected to the last piece of myself. Without the MindSync core, my cognitive functions were degrading. My mind would fray, my thoughts would unravel, and soon I would be a vegetable. Mark never offered to help. "You\'re not human, how could you possibly understand her pain?" he said, his voice sharp. Three years of marriage, and in his eyes, I was just a tool. I managed to get inside the building, my movements stiff and uncoordinated. I found them in the lobby. Sophia, seeing me, feigned surprise and shrank into Mark\'s arms. "Can I have my MindSync back?" I asked, my voice thin. "That\'s just a shell now, it' s useless to you," he said dismissively. "It' s for the greater good." My last hope, my only chance. My decision was made. I would take back what was mine.

Thanksgiving was supposed to be a day of gratitude and family. I' d worked double shifts, saved every penny to buy my mom, Maria, a warm winter coat. I even clung to a fragile hope that maybe, just maybe, today would be different, that she'd finally see my efforts. But my brother, Caleb, saw a massive banner for a 'Gratitude Exchange' TV show, offering a new PSX-Pro console. Maria didn't hesitate. She looked at me, then at the gaming system, and declared, "Why spend money when you have all that gratitude? It's not like it does anyone any good." My heart shattered as she forced me to sign a contract, agreeing to trade "my gratitude for her" for a video game. On live television, they hooked us up to a memory scanner. Maria and Caleb twisted my past, painting me as an ungrateful, destructive monster to the whole country. They exposed selective, ugly moments, cheering as the 'Approve Trade' vote soared, while I stood there, voiceless, watching my own mother publicly erase me. How could she? How could my own mother weaponize my memories against me, fabricating a monstrous version of her daughter for a new gaming console? Was my entire existence, my endless sacrifices, truly worth less than a toy? But then, it was my turn. As my memories flashed across the screen, the real story unfolded: my sacrifices, their manipulations, their true cruelty revealed to the world. And as the public' s outrage turned the vote decisively in my favor, I knew exactly what I had to do. This wasn't just about a console; it was about freedom.

Ava Thompson, a Manhattan heiress, was poised for a pragmatic marriage to Ethan Sterling, uniting two powerful dynasties. She'd always overlooked his indiscretions, prioritizing their monumental merger. But after discovering his mistress, Lindsey, was pregnant, Ethan' s true nature surfaced. In a private suite, he chillingly pressed a glass shard to Ava' s stomach, demanding she accept his illegitimate child as her own. Shaken, Ava endured further degradation: Lindsey flaunting herself in Ava' s penthouse, her childhood mementos "donated," and overhearing Ethan dismiss her as an "unexciting business arrangement." He then had Ava physically removed from her own home. The man she' d known forever reduced her to a transaction, violently threatening her, stripping her of dignity. The bruise on her temple was nothing compared to the cold, shattering truth: every ounce of love she felt for him was annihilated. No longer clinging to a broken past, Ava instantly pivoted. She called Noah Vanderbilt, her tech billionaire rival, for a ruthless new business proposal and a strategic, lightning-fast wedding. On the day of her ex-fiancé's dramatic plea, Ava walked down the aisle to a man who truly respected her, leaving Ethan with agonizing, self-inflicted loss.

For seven long years, I built my life in Las Vegas, brick by careful brick. I was Ava, Marcus Thorne' s shadow, his loyal dog-cold, calculating, and feared. But it was all a lie. My true name burned deep inside: avenger. My half-sister, Sarah, loved Marcus. His family-wicked and powerful-took her. A whispered ritual. A sacrifice. Sarah, my sole childhood kindness, was brutally stolen. I endured Marcus' s cruelties, cleaned his messes, and fought his women, all while he saw only Sarah' s ghost in my reflection. I even staged public meltdowns and self-harm, meticulously crafting a dangerously obsessed image, solidifying my crazed devotion. Why Sarah? Why my kind sister for their unspeakable rituals? The Thornes' dark whispers forged my grief into a precise, cold fire of revenge. Her profound injustice and their unshakeable power fueled my every move. I became pure darkness, plotting patient destruction. I would burn their entire world down, as they burned mine. Marcus Thorne, seeing his dead love in my eyes, would unwittingly light the match. He just didn' t know it yet. Seven years was a long wait. For Sarah, I had eternity. My trap is set, and they are already marching into the flames.

My husband, Captain Mark Olsen, just returned from deployment, his uniform sharp, his smile fake. I looked at him and said, flatly, “We need to separate.” It was the only way to escape the nightmare that haunted me. My five-year-old son, Leo, dead. Because of Mark. Because of his sister-in-law, Jessica. That future, that premonition, could not happen. Mark poured all our money into Jessica’s lavish spending, while our own son, Leo, wore hand-me-downs. He'd promise Leo the world, then cancel for Jessica’s 'emergencies.' The final straw: Leo burnt with fever, but Mark raced off to tend to Jessica’s perfectly healthy daughter. My son lay dying, just like in the terrifying vision, while Mark, a military hero to others, coldly dismissed my screams. How could a father abandon his own flesh and blood for a woman who manipulated his every move? The injustice, the rage, burned a hole inside me. But then, Jessica, emboldened, asked Mark to father *her* next child. She wasn't just taking my husband's money; she wanted his legacy. I saw my opportunity, a twisted, desperate path to freedom. I wouldn't just leave. I would sell him. For a cold, hard sum, I would hand over my husband, giving Jessica what she desired and freeing myself and Leo forever. This was my vow. My future, and my son's, depended on it.

Here's the translation: "My blind date took me to a restaurant and only ordered one meal. I said I wasn't hungry. He chuckled, 'Then let's not waste it.' He quickly grabbed my noodles and dumplings and added chicken legs and egg rolls for himself. Seeing him eat with grease all over his mouth and his belly round, I was furiously typing on my phone under the table. 'Family, who understands? Today I met a chicken leg guy... I'll bring him home for you to try in a couple of days.'"

Lillian woke in a werecreature universe as a total loser. Good news was that women ruled here and could take multiple mates, yet she still ended up as the one everyone looked down on. Compared to her talented sister at every turn, she watched her first match get stolen and her next four mates reject her without mercy. The first mate was the King of Succubine himself. On their very first meeting, he warned Lillian that he was only staying long enough to recover from his injuries-and that there could never be anything between them. The second mate was a merman. He took one look at her and said he had no interest in a loser like her, tossing her some cash so she could break off their bond herself. The third mate was the progenitor vampire-over a thousand years old. He admitted to admiring her sister instead and made it clear he had no interest in a layabout like Lillian. Lillian cut every bond and chose her own path instead. But as she rose higher and higher, those same men returned, full of regret and begging her to look at them again. The fourth mate was a werewolf Lillian had rescued from an underground fighting ring. She thought he might actually stay-until he revealed himself as royalty. And of course, he wanted to break their bond for more power.

I woke up to the stench of rust and rotting flesh, no longer a master botanist who commanded life itself, but a D-class exile dumped on a wasteland planet. Memories that weren't mine flooded in. I was framed by my stepsister, betrayed by my fiancé, and banished by my own family to the Ashfall Peninsula to die. The original girl actually starved to death in despair. The moment I opened my eyes, a scavenger tried to smash my skull with a rusty pipe just to eat me. After I killed him to survive, I discovered a harsher truth: in this universe, plant seeds are classified as A-level strategic resources, completely monopolized by the Imperium. But the universe had a sick sense of humor. A mandatory background scan suddenly triggered a galactic broadcast: I, the exiled trash, was a perfect genetic match for the Imperium's top war hero, General Alexander Orr. The family that ruthlessly erased my existence instantly saw me as a golden ticket. My cheating ex-fiancé was dispatched to drag me back, furious that his "property" was matched with someone else. They all thought I was still that weak, naive girl they could manipulate. But as I held the pure, glowing Life Source Crystals I had secretly extracted from the scrap heap, a cold smile crept onto my face. "I didn't come here to die. I came here to build an empire." I turned my back on the galactic broadcast and stepped into the deadly wilderness.

I gave Kaelen Sterling everything. My fortune. My family's trust. Even the military secrets that should never have left my father's hands. He swore he loved me. Then he used me to destroy my entire family. My father was beheaded for treason. My brothers died on the battlefield. My sick mother coughed up blood until her final breath. And the fortune my mother had saved for me became the stepping stone Kaelen and his precious "savior," Jacqueline Byrd, used to climb into the highest circles of the kingdom. When there was nothing left to steal, Kaelen locked me inside an abandoned manor and set it on fire. Through the flames, I saw him holding Jacqueline in his arms. She was pregnant with his child. And she was wearing silk bought with my mother's dowry. "Burn it all," Kaelen said coldly. "Leave no trace." I died screaming his name. Then I opened my eyes. I was twenty again. Kaelen had just returned from the battlefield after being declared dead for two years—and standing beside him was Jacqueline, looking fragile and innocent as ever. "She saved my life," he told me. "You will accept her." In my last life, I did. This time, I slapped him across the face. Then I burned our marriage contract. They all thought grief had driven me mad. They had no idea I remembered everything. Every betrayal. Every secret. Every scandal that had not happened yet. I knew which noble houses would fall. I knew which princes would rise. I knew the hidden weaknesses of the people who would one day control the Dragon Court. And they had forgotten something else. I was never just a wealthy heiress. I knew herbs. I knew alchemy. I knew how to survive a royal court where one wrong move could cost an entire family its head. Kaelen wanted my fortune. Jacqueline wanted my place. My stepmother wanted my mother's power. And the men above them wanted to use House Croft as another piece on their board. Let them try. I died once as their pawn. This life, I will take back my family, my fortune, and every drop of blood they owe me. And when I am finished, I won't just survive the Dragon Court. I will rule it.

On my wedding day, I caught my fiancé in my stepsister's arms. She was pregnant with his child. And instead of begging for forgiveness, Damian Harrison laughed in my face. He admitted he had always planned to marry me, dump me in some forgotten country estate, and keep my stepsister as the woman he truly loved. So I burned my wedding veil in front of the entire Harrison family and walked away. That should have been the end of it. Instead, Damian's mother sent armed men after me. Why? Because I was a Dragonless nobody from the borderlands, and in her eyes, humiliating a Harrison was a crime worse than her son's betrayal. I had no dragon blood. No powerful family willing to protect me. Not even my own father would risk offending the Harrisons for my sake. If I wanted to survive, I needed someone they feared more than they hated me. So I returned to the Harrison estate and made an outrageous demand. I would marry Damian's uncle. Gideon Harrison-the legendary Dragon Lord, the kingdom's greatest war hero... and a man everyone believed was dead. Perfect. As his widow, I would outrank the man who betrayed me, become his aunt by marriage, and gain enough power to make every Harrison who humiliated me regret it. I signed the marriage pact without hesitation. Then a knight burst into the ancestral hall with impossible news. Gideon Harrison was alive. My dead husband wasn't dead. He was being brought home.

I was the adopted, "Dragonless" daughter of the Sterling family, bound by a prestigious marriage contract to my fiancé, Julian. But during the annual charity ball, I followed a secret note to a guest suite, only to catch him tangled on the sofa with my cousin, Isabelle. When I calmly called the Dragon Guard to expose their affair, my adoptive parents didn't comfort me. Instead, they furiously blamed me. "It was an emergency! Our kind Isabelle used her scent to save him, and you just tried to destroy him!" They praised her as a hero, officially handed my fiancé over to her, and decided to punish me for tarnishing the family name. Their revenge was a new marriage contract. They were going to sell me off to Lord Valerius, a cruel, elderly man notorious for outliving three wives. I stared at the death sentence in my hands, my blood running cold. I was the one betrayed, yet I was being discarded like useless trash to pave the way for my cousin's happiness. Why should I let them destroy my life just to protect their twisted, perfect image? I didn't cry, and I refused to be their sacrificial lamb. I drafted a cold, calculated business proposal, packed my bags, and walked out of that toxic house forever. I was going to propose to the most ruthless, powerful predator in the kingdom-Gideon Montgomery. If I had to step into a dragon's lair, I would be the one to choose it.

After working herself to death, Hannah woke inside a werecreature novel as a doomed villainess with five mates her father had captured and forced into bonds. Worse, the original Hannah had abused them so badly they were destined to rebel and destroy her. Determined to survive, she planned to flee to her father, sever every bond, hoard supplies, and start over. But her escape took an impossible turn. The serpent, merman, lion, fox, and icy priest who should have hated her suddenly refused to let her go-each claiming her as his. Hannah could only stare. Weren't they supposed to want freedom instead of her?

Elena died on the operating table, betrayed by her husband, her unborn child already gone. But death? Just her intermission. She woke up in a whole new world-a beastmen's world, where females are rarer than diamonds and the strongest males go mad without a woman's mark to calm them down. And her? Labelled the weakest female alive. An F-rank body with a joke of a status. But hidden inside? Unlimited mental power. Just as she's figuring out this mess, a system pops up with one hell of an offer: Complete the missions. Bond with assigned males. Save this world. Do all that, and you get a one-way ticket back home. for revenge. Sounds simple? Think again. A Wolf General, colder than a blizzard, who should have ended her-ended up letting her mark him. A Fox Prince, all charming smiles and secret schemes, who started playing games only to lose his own heart. A golden Dragon, sunshine-bright and fiercely possessive, who declares her his destined treasure. A shadowy Serpent, too patient and too dangerous, watching her every move from the dark. A Phoenix King, whose love burns so hot he'd reduce empires to cinders for her. They all need her mark. They all want her. And sharing? Not in their vocabulary. Too bad for them- She's not here for love stories. She's here to survive. To climb. To turn their legendary power into her own stepping stones. And one day. To go back and make her betrayers wish they were never born.

In the final days before the world collapsed, Ivy Brooks died... betrayed by the very people she trusted most. She had fought, struggled, and sacrificed everything just to survive the apocalypse only to be pushed into death along with her three daughters at the very end by her own husband. With her last breath, Ivy made a vow. If she could turn back time...she would never be weak again and of course protect her daughters. This time, she would stand at the top. When Ivy opened her eyes, she found herself back in time with her still rounded belly of her third baby.... Twenty days before the apocalypse. Armed with memories of the future and a mysterious system in her mind, Ivy moved without hesitation. She hoarded supplies, secured weapons, and took control of every resource she could get her hands on. While others laughed, doubted, and wasted time... Ivy was building her empire along with her daughters. In this life, she would not be prey but will be an hunter. With danger closing in and only twenty days to prepare, Ivy must outplay enemies both old and new, uncover the truth behind the system, and carve out her own kingdom in a collapsing world. Because this time...she wasn't just going to survive the apocalypse. She was going to rule it along with a man, a love interest from the past before her marriage collapse. He provided everything Ivy needed. Money especially in change of a marriage with her and when the apocalypse started too....he ruled it with her as well as her daughters.

Caryn lay trapped beneath concrete slabs in the apocalyptic ruins, a steel rebar pinning her down, the pressure unbearable. Her fiancé, Ford, knelt in the narrow gap above her, completely unharmed. "Sorry, babe. It's a new world. Survival of the fittest." He sneered, twisting the cap off their last bottle of purified water. He drank it all, wiped his mouth with a clean hand, and told her she would just waste it. He had manipulated her into signing over her uncle's house-her only defensible shelter-just to sell it for cash. Now, as a violent aftershock made the rubble groan and shift, Ford scrambled away without a single backward glance. For five brutal years of starvation and injury, she had clung to him and her grandmother's antique locket, only to meet her end betrayed and full of agonizing regret. Why had she been so foolish to trade her survival for a lie? A gasp of frigid air flooded her lungs, and her eyes flew open to a smooth, white ceiling. She wasn't in the dusty ruins; she was in her pristine silk bed sheets. She grabbed her phone, her hands trembling as she stared at the date on the screen. It was exactly thirty days before the world would crack apart. She looked at the silver locket in her hand, a diamond-hard rage crystallizing in her chest. This time, she would activate its secret, and she would strip Ford and his family of everything before the apocalypse even began.

She died in the apocalypse-betrayed, abandoned, and torn apart by the infected. Then she woke up. Two months before the end of the world. Twenty-two years old again. And on her wrist, a wooden bracelet that her mother had left behind. The bracelet came with a system. A system that eats gold. With enough gold, she can unlock infinite storage for food, water, weapons-anything she needs to survive. The super-hurricane, the floods, the insect plagues, the volcanic winter, the scorching heat... she knows exactly what's coming. While the world sleeps, Joanna shops. She drains her aunt's bank account, maxes out every loan she can find, and buys out half the city. The apocalypse is coming. She'll be ready. But when the chaos begins, the wolves come crawling back-relatives who sold her, friends who betrayed her, a father who abandoned her. They want her food. Her water. Her mercy. Joanna has a different plan. "Why don't you decide who dies first?"