Lorraine

I was an Omega Healer, standing at the altar, ready to finally marry my fiancé, Kirt. Instead of completing the mating ceremony, he shoved me hard onto the cold marble floor in front of the entire Pack. "Are you really that desperate to become my mate? What a pathetic Omega," he sneered. My best friend Janice rushed over in fake sympathy, wearing my mother's stolen obsidian pendant proudly on her collarbone. In my past life, I endured this public humiliation, desperately hoping my blind devotion would eventually win his heart. But I was completely wrong. They only kept me around to steal my family's sacred Healer resources. Once they got what they wanted, Kirt and Janice locked me in a burning building. They stood outside with their arms around each other, laughing over the ashes of my grandfather's scrolls as the roaring flames consumed me. My family's legacy was stolen, and I died in sheer agony, betrayed by the two people I trusted most. As the fire melted my skin, I couldn't understand why my absolute loyalty was met with such vicious cruelty. Why did the Pack just stand by and watch me burn? Opening my eyes again, the Moon Goddess had thrown me back to the exact moment Kirt shoved me at the altar. This time, I didn't cry or beg. I grabbed a heavy oak stool, smashed it directly into my fiancé's skull, and turned my sights to the supreme Alpha of the Pack.

I was a top ER doctor from the 21st century, but I woke up on a cold stone slab. I had been reincarnated as an ugly, scarred Omega, sent by my adopted family to be buried alive as a human sacrifice for the dying Warlord Alpha. To avoid being buried with a corpse, I used my medical knowledge to expose that the Alpha was actually faking his coma. But instead of sparing me, he nearly choked me to death and threw me into the kitchens to rot. His "true love" even tried to drain my blood under the guise of a fake cure. When I exposed her lies and proved I was the only one who could truly save him, he agreed to let me treat him. But as a reward, he dragged a silver blade across my wrist and ordered twenty brutal lashes. "A lesson," he sneered, watching me bleed. "To remind you who is master." I endured the agonizing whipping without a single cry, my back torn to shreds. Why did my desperate attempts to save my own life only earn me endless torture from this monster? Bleeding and near death, I looked at his terrified executioner and spun my greatest lie yet. "Your Warlord isn't poisoned. He's infested by a parasite eating his soul." As the executioner dropped to his knees in terror, I closed my eyes and entered my hidden medical space to heal my wounds. From this moment on, the rules of this deadly game were mine to make.

On my wedding anniversary, I was drugged. I woke up bruised, aching, with a stranger's scent still on my skin. All that was left behind was a single obsidian cufflink-carved like a hawk mid-strike. Before I could even investigate, I walked in on my husband-and his influencer girlfriend-in our marriage bed. "I'm pregnant. It's time for you to step aside." Fine. I smiled, slipped into a blood-red dress, and walked into the Lowery family gala. When I saw Julian's older brother-just back from Europe-I recognized those ice-blue eyes. They were identical to the man from that night. Evander Lowery. The NHL's "Ice God." The man my husband hates most in the world. The man who took my first time. He stood in the center of the crowd, watching me with a knowing smile-like a hunter watching his prey stumble into the trap. "Are you sure you want a divorce?" he murmured in my ear. "Are you sure-that night was just an accident?" I didn't know it then. That cufflink was left on purpose. And my mother's ring-he'd taken that too. He admitted nothing. Explained nothing. He just locked me in his orbit and watched me drown. Everyone says he's ice. No one knows-he already burned a fire into me that I can't wash off.

For three years, Julia believed she was the luckiest woman in New York, deeply in love with her perfect boyfriend, Damian. On their anniversary, she sneaked into his study to surprise him, only to overhear a chilling video call. Damian was laughing about orchestrating the recent devastating arson at her father's company. He coldly revealed his ultimate plan: to broadcast their intimate sex tape at her father's upcoming 60th birthday gala. He wanted to completely destroy her family's reputation and seize control of Whitney Enterprises. "She's a spoiled, stupid girl," he sneered to his accomplice. "I've been playing this part for three years. It's getting old." When Julia tried to secretly investigate, Damian's hidden mistress deliberately scalded her hand with boiling tea in public to assert dominance. Desperate, Julia turned to her powerful brother for help, but she couldn't tell him about the sex tape to protect their father. Misunderstanding her motives, her brother accused her of being a fool blinded by love, cut her off, and abandoned her. Betrayed by the man she loved, humiliated by his mistress, and alienated from her family, Julia was left completely alone. She didn't understand how the man whose scent was her home could actually be a monster wearing a human face. But the naive girl who loved Damian died in that cold hallway. Wiping away her tears, she saved the mistress's taunting photos as evidence, swallowed her absolute disgust, and texted Damian. "I was being too sensitive. Can I come back tonight?" She was stepping back into the lion's den, and the war had just begun.

For three years, I surrendered my nights and bartered my own prospects to build a flawless legitimate business empire for my fiancé, Domenico, the most feared heir in the mafia syndicate. But as I was finishing the final ledger to secure his seat as Don, a flight confirmation popped up on his phone. He had booked two first-class tickets to a high-level mafia summit in Sicily—for himself and Lyla, the girl who had been actively trying to destroy my life. When Domenico walked into the room, he didn't explain. Instead, he complained I was working too slowly. He used the threat of breaking our arranged marriage as a leash, demanding I finish his work. Lyla rushed in, playing the innocent victim, and Domenico immediately wrapped a comforting arm around her waist. He looked at me with cold, vacant eyes and issued his final ultimatum. "Apologize to her, and know your place, or you will be nothing to the Family." His soldiers sneered, waiting eagerly for me to crawl back and beg for the future Don's favor. I stared at the arrogant man I had sacrificed my youth for. The dutiful beat of my heart, which had hammered out a rhythm for him alone, simply went still. The great, heavy anchor of my loyalty dissolved into a strange weightlessness. I didn't shed a single tear. I calmly stood up, walked over to the industrial shredder, and fed every single page of his commercial blueprint into the blades. "The betrothal is dead," I told him, watching his future turn to confetti. "I owe neither of you a single word."

For seven years, I hid my MIT Ph.D. and my identity as a top haute couture designer to be the perfect, obedient wife to billionaire Cornelius Lambert. But on our anniversary, while I waited at home with a cold dinner, I found him at a Michelin restaurant with his childhood sweetheart, Halle. My seven-year-old son sat between them, laughing loudly. "Mom is too boring. I wish Aunt Halle was my real mom." Cornelius didn't defend me. He just smiled and affectionately ruffled the boy's hair. When I finally packed my bags and left, I accidentally triggered an old AI robot prototype Cornelius had given me years ago. A hidden recording played his voice from the very night he proposed. "Why marry her? Because she's easy to control. Halle doesn't want to settle down yet, so Cassidy is just a perfect, temporary shield." Later, when I caught them being intimate in a dark parking garage and snapped a photo, Cornelius watched with cold, dead eyes as his massive bodyguard shoved me against a concrete pillar. My arm was torn open, blood dripping onto the floor, as they forced me to delete the evidence of his affair. For seven years, I filed down every sharp edge of my brilliance for a man who saw me as nothing but a pathetic, disposable placeholder. My heart turned to absolute ice. He thought I was just a weak, powerless housewife. But he forgot who he was dealing with. As his luxury car drove away, I pulled up the hidden command terminal on my phone and recovered the encrypted cloud backup of the photos. I looked at my lawyer with a bleeding arm and a cold smile. "Let's go. Now, we have a weapon."

I was just a struggling actress in Hollywood, desperate for a chance to prove myself. But the people I trusted most pushed me into hell. My boyfriend, Kole, and my best friend, Brittny, drugged me and handed my hotel room key to an abusive, greasy producer. They traded my body just so Kole could secure a movie role. As the producer pinned me to the bed and tore at my clothes, the original me died of sheer, paralyzing terror. I saw the text message on his phone, a gloating confirmation of my ruin. "She's all mine. You'll get your part." I realized the two people I loved most had treated me like a cheap bargaining chip. While I was being assaulted, they were probably celebrating, building their future fame on my absolute destruction. I didn't understand why they would do this. I gave them all my love and loyalty, only to be betrayed and discarded like trash. The sickening mix of love, betrayal, and paralyzing fear should have been the end of my pathetic, helpless life. But instead of breaking, a cold, calculating consciousness awakened inside me. The soul of "Reaper," a legendary underground doctor and ruthless operative, took over this fragile body. I snapped the producer's wrist, collected my blackmail evidence, and walked out into the cold Los Angeles night. This new life is a war, and it's time to make them pay.

On our sixth anniversary, I found my fiancé Carter had given my grandmother's heirloom locket to his "fragile" colleague, Carmen. When I confronted him, he slapped me across the face. He then dragged me out into the snow, forcing me to my knees to apologize to Carmen for upsetting her. The stress and his violence triggered a miscarriage. I was losing our baby right there at his feet. He never even noticed the blood staining the snow. He was too busy comforting the woman he chose over me and our child. I left that night and never looked back. Three years later, after building a new life and a successful bakery, he showed up on my doorstep, a ghost of a man, dying of cancer. He collapsed, coughing up blood at my feet, begging for a forgiveness I no longer had to give.

I was forced to marry Drake Knox, a Wall Street titan twice my age. I fought him at every turn, but his cold control slowly melted into a possessive passion I couldn't resist. Then his ex-girlfriend, Julia, returned, claiming a terminal illness had brought her back to him. He chose her. When I was injured and left bleeding in a hotel lobby, he ran to comfort her. When she murdered my dog, Peanut, and framed me, he believed her lies without question. His punishment for my "betrayal" was to lock me away in his mansion, a gilded cage he called protection. He sacrificed my safety, my sanity, and my freedom for the woman he truly loved. I was just a substitute. So I ran. And when he chased me down a highway, I gave him an ultimatum: let me go, or watch me die. I stepped in front of a speeding truck. I never expected him to swerve his own car into its path, sacrificing himself to save me.

For five years, I was Broadway's golden girl, and my powerful CEO boyfriend, Brennan, was my anchor. Our love felt invincible, a modern fairytale written across city marquees. Then he met Aimee, a struggling musician he claimed saved his life in a car crash. He gave her the vintage guitar he'd promised me. He stole my private journal so she could turn my pain into a hit song, making me a national laughingstock. He even used my dying mother's medical bills to keep me trapped. But the night my mother was dying, the night she needed an emergency helicopter, he diverted it. He sent her only hope to Aimee, who was having a "panic attack." My mother died alone. At her funeral, a reporter asked about his engagement to Aimee. He thought he had broken me, but he had just started a war. He didn't know the separation papers he'd already signed weren't for a payout-they were for a divorce, and I was about to disappear.

The scent of gasoline and burning metal, the agonizing twisting of the car around me-that was my last memory. My sister Bella' s triumphant smile, seared into my mind as flames consumed me. Then, a blinding flash, and I was back. Not in a hospital, but in my old bedroom, years younger, my hands smooth and unscarred. The shock of rebirth warred with a fierce, tiny spark of hope. A second chance. A chance to do it right. But the past wasn't content to stay buried. The memories flooded back: my father, framed and driven to suicide; his legacy left in ruins; my life single-mindedly devoted to clearing his name. And Bella, my own sister, orchestrating my downfall, poisoning my family and reputation for her frivolous desires, egged on by her manipulative lover, Leo. The car accident wasn' t an accident. It was a calculated murder, a final betrayal. They left me for dead, my life' s work shattered, my body broken. The raw pain of that memory still gnawed at me, the bitter taste of betrayal fresh on my tongue. Why had they done this? How could a sister be so cruel? Then, the creak of a door. Bella walked in, dressed in a brand new designer dress, her face a mask of practiced sweetness. "Chloe," she cooed, "I need to talk to you about something." It was the exact same scene. The same beginning. But this time, she wouldn' t find a victim. This time, I knew the game, and I was ready to play.

Sarah Miller finally shook off the fog of a traumatic brain injury, memories flooding back, only to discover her life in ruin. Her so-called friend, Brenda, publicly accused her of shoplifting, prompting Mike, her military husband, to present devastating divorce papers. Then, a debt collector arrived, exposing thousands in debt wrought by Brenda' s years of malicious manipulation. Mike, accustomed to Sarah's alleged "trouble," paid the debts but solidified his mistrust, silencing her pleas and locking her in their home. Brenda further engineered Mike's downfall: spreading rumors of his fictional injury, then "finding" Sarah' s pre-signed divorce papers, painting her as an abandoning wife. Believing these cruel lies, Mike signed the papers, utterly sealing their fate. Heartbroken and secretly pregnant, Sarah overheard Mike declare his resolute divorce, convinced she was a manipulative burden. How could she possibly explain the years of calculated deceit that orchestrated her complete ruin? Her newfound clarity only illuminated the utter devastation Brenda had wrought. Leaving behind the signed divorce papers and a silent farewell, Sarah vanished from Fort Henderson. Six years later, amid the chaos of Hurricane Anya, she' d unexpectedly face Mike again. But this time, a shocking truth-and a little girl-would unravel everything.

The Montauk Highway rain slammed against our windshield, just like my stomach cramped with familiar, sharp pain. Marcus drove, his knuckles white, until his phone flashed 'Izzy.' My husband, always her loyal puppy, was gone in a flash. "Ellie, call an Uber. Izzy needs me," he' d declared, abandoning me sick and alone on that dark road. It was the ninth time Marcus chose his ex-girlfriend over me, his wife. The 'ninth goodbye' in a cruel bet Izzy orchestrated years ago: "Nine times, Ellie. Nine. Then you walk away." Each incident a deeper cut: my anniversary dinner, my emergency surgery, my grandmother' s memorial. I was just his convenient rebound, his 'consolation prize,' a pawn in their twisted game. Days later, after an elevator accident left me shattered and hospitalized, Marcus cradled Izzy, his terror only for her. I finally saw it with chilling clarity: he never truly loved me. My marriage was a meticulously crafted lie, orchestrated by Izzy from college. My love for him, that foolish, stubborn hope, was finally drained, leaving only an aching void. But the game was over. I had already signed the divorce papers he carelessly overlooked, ready for my freedom. When Izzy later set a vicious trap to publicly shame me, accusing me of assault, a mysterious stranger stepped in, changing everything. This was the end of a nightmare, and the beginning of my true life.

For six years, I believed Liam and I were building a real life together in our Chicago apartment. I always thought our love was solid, unbreakable. One quiet Tuesday night, searching his laptop for a tax document, I stumbled upon a folder simply named "C." Curiosity, that stupid little nudge, made me click. It wasn't finances; it was Chloe. Thousands of photos, her smiling face, and then the "Journal" subfolder. My hands shook as I read devastating entries. The flowers he bought me after my promotion, the romantic trip to Italy, even our engagement-each cherished moment a desperate reaction to a woman he still couldn't let go of. He worried I was pregnant, clearly terrified of being tied to me while Chloe was "still out there." Then Chloe herself started sending me messages, photos of her and Liam, bragging I was just a "placeholder." I heard him tell his best friend he was "stringing me along" to make Chloe jealous. The man I loved saw me only as a prop in his silent play for another woman. How could I have been so blind, so completely fooled? His ring on my finger was never for me. With a cold, hard clarity, I realized my entire relationship was a meticulously crafted lie. I saved every message, every damning photo, and wrote a short note: "We're done." I closed our joint accounts, changed my number, and bought a bus ticket out of Chicago. There was no sadness, just a firm click of a door closing on a life that was never truly mine.

"I broke up with Jiang Chen in the year he loved me the most. He repeatedly told his friends that the person he wanted to marry was his 'white moonlight.' Our eight years together became an unprecedented joke. My child was cruelly harmed by his 'white moonlight.' Yet, he coldly pushed me away, saying he had never seen someone as scheming as I was, using an imaginary child to frame others. When I walked into the wedding hall with someone else, he cried and pleaded with me, 'I’ve been by your side for a full eight years. Why could you so easily marry another man?'"

"No wolf. No family. Harmless. Useful. The second I am done with her, the Luna title is yours." Eira Crawford heard those words through her husband's office door. For four years, she had been Sebastian Vale's hidden mate. She managed his household, entertained his relatives, cleaned up his messes, and lived on the three thousand dollars he gave her each month like charity. Even buying a new coat required an explanation. But for his first love, he casually prepared three hundred thousand dollars in research funding. To Sebastian, Eira was nothing more than a wolfless Omega from an orphanage. A quiet, obedient wife with no pack, no power, and no value beyond being useful. He had never introduced her publicly as his Luna. His family treated her like a servant. His sweetheart mocked her as a woman who could only survive by clinging to an Alpha. So Eira stopped crying. She recorded the affair, filed for mate dissolution, and placed the divorce papers in front of Sebastian. Even then, he thought she was throwing a tantrum. He signed without hesitation, certain she would come crawling back once she realized no one else would want a discarded, wolfless Omega. He was wrong. The woman he left at home washing dishes was a Stanford-trained electrical engineer. The "useless" wife he ignored was the hidden chief engineer behind a national self-developed chip project. Her movements were classified. Her disappearance could alert the federal authorities. Her name, once revealed, was enough to shake the entire scientific community. And Sebastian knew nothing. After walking out of his house with nothing but her freedom, Eira crossed paths with Killian Sterling, the coldest and most powerful Alpha in the north. He did not know her name yet, but his wolf recognized something in her that everyone else had missed. Meanwhile, Sebastian finally realized that Eira was not bluffing. He searched the entire city like a madman. For the first time in four years, he publicly called her his wife. He demanded she return. He begged for another chance. But by then, Eira was no longer waiting in his house. She was seated at the Sterling Pack's dinner table, dressed with quiet confidence, while the most feared Alpha in North America stood beside her. In front of everyone, Killian Sterling placed his hand at her back and said coldly, "Eira is not anyone's discarded Omega." "She is my Luna."

Amy grew up as the Beta's daughter, loyal to the pack to point of losing herself, convinced that fate would one day reward her devotion. When the sacred bond finally marked her as the mate of the future Alpha, she believed she had found her true love. But the ecstasy of one night turned into the dawn of condemnation: in front of the entire pack, she was stripped of her rank, her mate, and her future-all for her own sister, who carried the future Alpha's child. Amy finally learned that destiny could be denied, bargained away, trampled upon. She stood tall as they took everything from her, bowed her head as they humiliated her, and personally prepared the wedding invitations for the man who had chosen her... then abandoned her. At that, something within her froze, fractured, transformed. Rejecting a sacred bond chosen by the Moon Goddess always had consequences, and one day, the pack would face the consequences of defying the Goddess's will.

"This is Virella, my wife." Three years. And that was all Alpha Kaelen gave me. No welcome. No touch. No recognition. Just another woman at his side, carrying his child. While I ruled in his absence, I was nothing more than a placeholder. A Luna he never chose. So I gave up. And I left. One rejection was all it took to break the bond. When I returned, I wasn't the Luna he abandoned. I was untouchable, respected, and feared. And no longer his to claim. Now he watches me like a man drowning... Because the woman he discarded came back as something far beyond his reach. And this time, I didn't come alone. The Alpha of Ebonmoon stands beside me, his presence crushing, and his hand firm on my waist... "Careful, Kaelen," his voice drops, dark with warning. "Rowena isn't yours anymore." His lips brush my temple, possessively. "She's mine. If you try to take her, I'll end you."

Talia Ashford has spent fifteen years hiding behind a glamour charm that makes her look plain, weak, and forgettable. Her stepmother, Vivienne Cress, reduced her to a servant after her mother disappeared in a mysterious fire. The pack believes Talia is worthless. On the day the Alpha of Shadowfang arrives, Celeste hits Talia and blames her for bad luck. But when Talia is called to the bonding ceremony, the bonding stone reveals a shocking truth. Talia is already bonded to Kaelen Frost, the cold and powerful Alpha of the Shadowfang Pack. Now Talia must survive her stepmother's schemes, hide her true powers, and uncover the truth about her mother – all while convincing the most dangerous wolf in the territory that she is not the weakling everyone believes her to be.

I was the wolfless disgrace of the pack, traded like cattle to a dying monster. When a royal decree stripped away my engagement, my own father gave my fiancé to my cruel sister, Charly. My punishment for being born without a wolf? A forced marriage to Demetri Contreras—the crippled, disgraced Alpha left to rot from silver poison. They threw me into a frozen, forgotten estate, waiting for my new husband to die so I could be buried as a silent widow. Charly laughed as she stole my life, my mate, and my future. My family discarded me, just like they murdered my mother years ago. They thought this exile would break me. They thought I was a helpless pawn. They didn't know that inside this fragile body lived the soul of the top interstellar miracle surgeon. Looking at the ruined, festering Alpha bleeding on my wedding bed, I didn't see a corpse. I saw the deadliest weapon in the realm. The fallen Alpha needs a miracle to survive. Lucky for him, I am the miracle. I will drag this monster back from the gates of hell—and together, we will burn my enemies to ash.

Emilia Taylor was the most unwanted daughter of the Frostridge Pack. She had no wolf, no status, and no one who truly loved her. After failing to awaken at the age of twenty-two, she was betrayed by her lover, abandoned by her family, and finally sent by her father to the Silver Moon Pack-to become Sebastian Simons' seventh bride. Sebastian was the Alpha everyone feared. Rumor had it that none of his first six wives had met a good end, and every woman who married him eventually became another name on the list of the dead. Everyone was waiting for Emilia to die. But they did not know that her failed awakening had not left her with nothing. Instead, she had gained the ability to read minds. She could hear the malice and lies hidden behind every smile. Everyone's thoughts were open to her. Except Sebastian's. She could not hear his mind, nor could she see through his secrets. When a wolfless girl abandoned by everyone meets a cold-blooded Alpha haunted by the mystery of six dead wives, will she become his next victim-or the only one who can break the curse?

I was three months pregnant when the car hit me. Lying there, barely hanging on, I called my husband-Alpha Ethan-over and over. No answer. When I finally woke up from the pain, I saw a post from his first love, Ivy. "Thank you, Alpha, for knowing how scared I am of the dark and staying with me all night. He even cleared his whole schedule today to take me to the auction, just to give me the best gift in the world. I'm so happy!" Right then, it hit me. While I was fighting to protect our child, he was with another she-wolf. I calmly liked her post and put my phone away. Since he chose his first love, I chose to let go. Seven days from now, I'd leave his world for good-with our child.

I was waiting at the Registry Hall to formalize my mate bond with Gabe, my childhood sweetheart and the Alpha of our pack. He was thirty-two minutes late. When I finally found him in a private VIP lounge, his hands were buried in my cousin's hair, their lips locked together. Hailee was supposed to be my maid of honor. Instead of apologizing, Gabe looked me dead in the eye and used his Alpha authority to publicly reject me. The severing of our ten-year bond tore my soul apart, but the nightmare didn't stop there. My grandfather immediately called, demanding I clean up a mess Hailee had made. When I refused, he disowned me on the spot, froze every single one of my bank accounts, and stripped me of my family name. Within hours, my entire pack erased my existence, gleefully announcing Hailee as their new Luna. I had given my entire life to a family and a man who discarded me like worthless trash the second I became inconvenient. I was left broken, humiliated, and utterly penniless in the blink of an eye. But as I stumbled out of that sterile hall, a terrifyingly beautiful stranger stepped out of the shadows, radiating a primal power that made my knees weak. He was Caden Sinclair, the ruthless Lycan King, and he was dodging a forced political union of his own. "You need a shield. I need a wife. Marry me." Without hesitation, I signed the Eternal Vow.

Accidentally murdered the bride? Check. Forced to marry the cursed Alpha who's lost six wives? Check. Now wearing her dress, dragged to his bed, while the pack waits outside for proof he's fucked me raw? Double check. Remi was just trying to catch her cheating boyfriend in the act. Instead, she tripped, ripped lace, and cracked a skull. Now Alpha Nero Blackwater owns her. "Bride for bride," he growls. "You owe me a wedding... and a womb." The curse kills his mates before dawn. Unless he plants an heir fast. But something's wrong. What if there was never a curse at all? One night to survive. One claiming to break everything. One Alpha who'll fuck her senseless... even if it's the last thing she feels.

I was lying in the cold delivery room, enduring the agonizing contractions of giving birth to twins. When I desperately called my fated mate, Alpha Dixon, to tell him the babies were coming, his voice was like ice. "Let my assistant handle it. Don't call me again." He hung up, abandoning me for another woman's laughter in the background. He left me to give birth completely alone, treating me like a pathetic, disposable Omega. He had even threatened that if I didn't sign the mate rejection papers, he would take my children away forever. I thought my life was shattered by the man who was supposed to protect me. But a routine blood test by the hospital's Healer revealed a shocking truth. I wasn't an orphaned nobody. I was the long-lost pureblood White Wolf heir of the legendary Beaumont Pack. Within hours, my true family—a powerful Alpha father, a Luna mother, and three fiercely protective brothers—rushed to my side, wrapping me in the absolute authority and wealth of the world's strongest Pack. Backed by my new family, I summoned Dixon to the Pack Council to formally complete our rejection. I watched his arrogant face as the clerk asked if I accepted his rejection. But just as I opened my mouth to sever our bond forever, Dixon froze. He was hit by an urgent mind-link, and his cold confidence instantly shattered into pure, unadulterated panic. "We're not done!" he snarled, fleeing the hall before the ceremony could end. I stood there, staring at the door. What on earth did that mind-link say?