Raihana Monib

Querencia Lynn was always the disappointment-the black sheep of her family. Scorned, unloved, and cast aside, her tragic life ends in an accident... only for her to wake up inside the very pages of a novel she was reading moments before death. Now reborn as a side character destined to become a villainess and political pawn, Querencia knows exactly how her story ends-betrayed by her fiancé, the crown prince, and discarded once she's served her purpose. But this time, she's not playing by the book. Armed with foresight, cunning, and a fortune of her own making, she's determined to break free from her chains-starting with her doomed engagement. But escaping the prince's grip means finding someone powerful enough to shield her from royal retaliation. Enter the Archduke of Wolreign: the prince's cold, formidable cousin and the only man strong enough to oppose him. Dangerous, untouchable, and infamously indifferent, the Archduke is no easy mark. Undeterred, Querencia approaches him with boldness and charm-but her first attempt ends in public humiliation. The nobles mock her. The Archduke calls her crazy. She only laughs. After all, villainesses never beg. They take. With everything on the line, Querencia offers the one thing no one saw coming: a marriage proposal. And for the first time, the unshakable Archduke is left without words. A woman scorned. A man who cannot be tamed. And a future rewritten by the very villainess meant to be destroyed.

One relationship was ruined because of a one-night mistake. "You are my wish to the Father, I pray that He grants you to me." That was my only prayer, but this is not the situation I wanted. I never intended to ruin a relationship, nor did I want to hurt another person. What happened in the past was unexpected, and now, here I am, facing the consequences of my actions. I'm married to a man who does not love me, and who never will, because he only sees me as a friend. "Wait for the love you deserve," as people often say. That's why all I can do is pray and dream that someday, the love I give him will be returned. Actually, I am his legal wife, but I let him do whatever he wants with his life. I also allow him to continue his relationship with the woman he loves, the one he's cared for from the very beginning. I'm not a martyr-I just want everything to be okay, and I don't want any conflict because I've accepted that this is the fate that's been given to me. We are not bound by love, and I've come to terms with that. I accept our situation, and I understand that we are married only on paper, even though we live under the same roof. I do my duties as a wife, like serving him. I learned to cook because of him, though I can tell he doesn't really eat what I prepare. Life is bitter, but this is who I am. I keep trying, trying to make things work between us, to make everything okay, just like when we were young, because we used to be friends. "Have you eaten?" I asked, seeing him drinking coffee in the dining area, focused on his laptop. I gave a bitter smile, already expecting no answer from him because who am I to deserve his attention? I took a deep breath; he didn't even glance at me. I don't have a contagious disease, yet he treats me as if I have leprosy. "Have you spoken to your father?" he asked emotionlessly, closing his laptop with a thud. "I-I told him," I stammered, bowing my head. "Good," he said and stood up. I watched him walk away without saying anything, then started cleaning the dining area. I noticed him stop, so I also paused, and he turned to face me. "Don't expect me to come home during the weekdays. Don't wait for me on the weekends either," he said seriously. All I could do was nod in agreement to avoid further conflict in our family. I endure this life even though it hurts because I'm the one to blame, and I'm the one who understands, so I carry the burden. "When we're at the camp, Psalm, just ignore me because they don't know we're married on paper," he said irritably and turned away. "I'm sorry," I called out, trying to apologize. My hands trembled as I held his hands with both of mine. "I-I'm sorry," I repeated. He sighed deeply and pulled his hands away from mine. "Your sorry won't change the situation, Psalm!" he replied angrily. "I-I love... you," I said bravely, though my voice was shaky. "But you don't own me," he replied coldly. I took a step forward to face him, but when our eyes met, I quickly looked away, playing with my wedding ring. "What do I have to do for you to forgive me?" I asked. "My freedom!" he answered shortly. "And please, stop wearing that ring because we're not lovers." "As you wish." "Do everything you can to earn my forgiveness!" were his last words before he left without saying goodbye. I exhaled deeply and cried. His request may be unclear, but I promise to find a way to give him the freedom he asks for. Even though I love him deeply, I'm willing to sacrifice for his happiness. "Being in love with someone who no longer loves you is the most painful feeling in the world," I whispered, wiping my tears before running to my room, where I cried my heart out. I let out all the pain through my tears. I released all my frustrations. I screamed and threw whatever I could get my hands on because, no matter how much I break down here, no one would hear me. "A-Ah... it hurts!" I cried out in frustration, burying my face in a pillow to calm myself down because there was no one else to comfort me but me. I got up and looked at the picture of us on our wedding day. I stared at Llishan's face, where you could see the forced smile on his lips. I stood and walked towards the picture, gently caressing his face. "I hope that one day I'll wake up, and the pain I carry will be gone." "I hope that one day this pretending will end. It's hard, but I hope that one day you'll have your freedom, baby, and I hope I'll be able to give you what you're asking for when I'm finally tired." This is the truth I'm standing on! I am Princess Psalm Jaxeen De-Gracia, and he is Mc Llishan Sanchez.

Averay tightly embraced Haze, unwilling to let go of him at the airport. "Please... Haze. I don't want to go, p-please let me stay here. Haze..." she pleaded, her voice trembling with tears. Her tears flowed uncontrollably. Her chest tightened as if her heart was being painfully squeezed. "Please, Ave. Just go. This is for your own good. It will only hurt me more if you stay by my side. I don't want to see you crying, Averay. Just go inside," Haze said, his voice devoid of emotion. Haze didn't want to see a woman cry because it reminded him of his mother. "H-Haze... please, don't push me away... I want to stay with you, please... I love you." He gently removed her arms from his waist, turned his back on her, and started to walk away. But Averay hugged him from behind. "H-Haze, I love you! P-Please, choose me... love me instead. N-Not Kreza. Didn't she leave you? Please, choose me, Haze, I won't leave you. I love you... Hajinn." She sobbed, but his heart remained unmoved, showing no emotion. "I love her. I waited for her for so long, and now she's back. We can finally continue the love we lost, Ave," he said firmly. "W-What about me, Haze? What about me?" she asked, her sobs growing louder, attracting the attention of the people around them. Almost everyone at the airport was watching. "Ave, before Kreza, you didn't exist in my life. From the start, there was no Averay who loved me, and I can't love you back. Just go, Averay. It will hurt you more if you see me with the woman I truly love." "D-Do you really love her? D-Did you ever love me, even once, Haze?" Averay asked, her voice filled with emotion. She didn't want to leave; she wanted to stay. But now, the man she loved so deeply was the one sending her away at the airport. It hurt, but he was pushing her away. "I... don't and never did." With those words, her arms dropped to her sides, and she let him go. She closed her eyes tightly and cried. "Haze..." she called out. "Haze..." But he didn't respond. "Haze!" she screamed, but he continued walking out of the airport, ignoring her. "Haze! Haze! Come back here, please! Haze, I love you! D-Don't forget how much I love you!" She collapsed onto the floor, sobbing uncontrollably, letting her tears fall freely down her cheeks. It felt like a knife was stabbing her heart. She had no choice but to let go and leave behind the man she loved. She had done everything-begged and cried in front of him-but nothing changed. His desire for her to leave won out. She stood up, wiped her tears, took a deep breath, and looked at the airport doors where she could no longer see him. A bitter smile crossed her face, and once again, her tears fell uncontrollably. "Haze, I love you so much..." she whispered before turning away and starting to walk. This was it; she had to do this. She had decided to let him go. She could only wish him a happy life.

Casey woke up with a throbbing skull in a glamorous dressing room, facing a public execution by an internet mob. Her wealthy family had thrown her away. Her hypocritical sister, Coralie, forced a holographic tablet into her hands, demanding she join a deadly survival reality show on a wasteland planet. "It's what Mommy wants. If you don't sign, you're dead to the Hendersons." The whole world wanted her dead. On the live broadcast, billions of viewers cursed her as a toxic stalker. The golden boy idol Kayson physically attacked her to defend Coralie's honor. Even the show's staff mocked her, deliberately leaving her with nothing but a torn, broken tent and a single bottle of water for the lethal alien wilderness. The universe was playing a cruel joke on her. She was framed as the villain of her sister's perfect story, banished to a wasteland where everyone expected her to cry, beg, and die on live television. But they didn't know she had already survived a decade in the ruins. Casey didn't shed a single tear. Instead, she invoked a hidden contract clause, demanding a full year on the planet instead of the standard month. "I'll survive for a year, and the planet becomes mine." She grabbed her broken tent, stepped onto the red alien dirt, and prepared to show the universe what a real predator looked like.

Genevieve woke up choking on her own blood, a fatal gash tearing through her abdomen. The memories of a primitive world crashed into her mind—she had transmigrated into the body of a sadistic beastman Mistress. But the five powerful beastmen "mates" standing over her hadn't come to her rescue. They had come to watch their tormentor die. "We should just leave her," Kameron sneered coldly. "The scavengers will clean up the mess." Gilberto spat in disgust, while Angelo, a silver-scaled snake-man, trembled in pure terror at the sight of her. The original owner had whipped them, humiliated them, and driven another mate to suicide. Now, they were letting her bleed out in the mud, their eyes filled with undisguised loathing and satisfaction. She was a top-tier apocalyptic survival expert, yet here she was, paying the ultimate price for a stranger's monstrous sins. It was a bitter, unacceptable irony to die helplessly in the dirt while her supposed protectors waited for her corpse to rot. She refused to accept this ending. Forcing a chaotic surge of energy through their shared Biological Link, she brought all five men to their knees in agonizing pain, commanding them to carry her back. In the dark cave, without a single scream, she plunged her bare hands into a fire and brutally cauterized her own gaping wound with searing ash. As the beastmen stared in horrified awe at the unbreakable soul now occupying the tyrant's body, Genevieve wiped the blood from her face and began to rewrite her fate.

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.

The sensation of falling wasn't like flying; it was heavy, violent, and smelled of burning flesh. Above us, on the crumbling balcony of the Sears manor, Duke Cato Sears turned his back, shielding his cousin Bianca from the smoke as he walked away, leaving my sister Blossom and me to drop into the abyss. As the darkness slammed shut like an iron door, I realized my entire life had been a cruel script written by the people I called family. In my first life, I was the sacrificial lamb of the Dawson manor, sold to a man who eventually watched me die without blinking. My sister Blossom had pushed me into Cato's arms to avoid his rumors, only to laugh when the fire finally consumed us both. My father had measured my value like a piece of livestock, and my step-grandmother didn't even acknowledge my existence while I was being led to the slaughter. I died in that fire, feeling the heat scorch my skin and the weight of a hatred so potent it tasted like bile. I spent twenty years being the weak, manipulated shadow of a girl, only to end up as nothing more than a phantom scorch mark on a "hero's" estate. I couldn't understand why my own blood treated my life like a game they could discard. The injustice of it all burned hotter than the flames that took my last breath. Then, I sat up, sucking in air that tasted of lavender and air conditioning, not smoke. I was back in my bedroom, three days before the engagement ball that ruined my life. Blossom stood at the door, her "sweet" mask slipping as she tried to manipulate me into the Duke's path again. She thought she was the only one who had come back, but she didn't realize that this time, I was going to let her have exactly what she wanted: the Duke, the bankruptcy, and the living hell that awaited her in that house.

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?"

Caryn lay pinned beneath concrete slabs in the apocalyptic ruins, a steel rebar crushing her chest. 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 ground the concrete down to crush her completely, 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 die 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 bleed Ford and his family dry before the apocalypse even began.

As the eldest daughter of the Sharp family, I was treated worse than a stray dog, while my younger sister Seraphina was their precious princess. When the family needed someone to marry a dying billionaire heir, they naturally chose me to take her place. To force my consent, my brothers held a peanut butter sandwich to my face—knowing it was a lethal allergy—while dangling my EpiPen just out of reach. On speakerphone, my own mother sighed in annoyance. "Let her die. It might be for the best." I choked out an agreement just as my throat closed up. But the forced engagement broke my sacred mystical vow, causing me to violently cough up my own lifeblood. Seeing the blood, Seraphina dramatically fainted. My brothers instantly carried her to the hospital, stepping over my dying body and leaving me to bleed out on the cold marble floor. I had to use a forbidden blood rune, draining my last ounce of strength, just to survive the night. Even the mystical Order I served offered no comfort, calling only to demand I secure ten billion dollars for them or forfeit my soul for eternity. Abandoned by my blood family and my spiritual master, I was completely alone, left with nothing but a broken body and a ticking clock. But they made one fatal mistake: they let me live. I turned to the dying heir they forced me to marry, a man plagued by a dark curse only I could cure. "I will be your wife, and I will save your life," I told him. In exchange, I would use his unimaginable wealth and power to make everyone who threw me away pay the ultimate price.

In the hidden hollows of the Appalachians, my family knew a secret: a spark of life, a whisper of old magic in our blood that could make the barren fruitful. It was just folklore until Eleanor Montgomery arrived, her son Ethan, heir to a sprawling industrial empire, dying. Desperate, my family agreed: I, Sarah-Mae Jenkins, would marry Ethan, save him, and secure our future. My "gift" worked. I conceived twins, and Ethan recovered, vibrant and strong. But on the day our healthy babies were born, he stood over me, cruel and triumphant, and smothered them. "Mountain trash," he spat, then sealed me alive in their cold family crypt. To erase all trace, Montgomery Industries orchestrated a chemical spill, annihilating my entire valley, my home, my people. Every hope, every life, gone. Everything I had, destroyed. Why such monstrous cruelty for a boy' s twisted obsession? Why was my very essence, my gift of life, deemed a curse worthy of such utter annihilation? The pain was a living thing, consuming me. Then, darkness. Then, light. I gasped awake in my own bed, back in the small cabin, on the very day Eleanor Montgomery' s black car would wind its way up our mountain road. This time, there would be no bargain. This time, Sarah-Mae Jenkins was reborn for one purpose: revenge.

I woke up floating. Not in a dream, but tethered to a nightmare. My body lay cold on the bed, while my son, Leo, whispered, "Papa won't wake up." My wife, Eleanor, stood by the door, her face a mask of ice. I was a ghost, able to watch, but powerless to intervene. Then Julian Croft appeared, oozing charm and false sympathy. The man who'd received my liver, the root of my demise. Eleanor dismissed Leo's desperate pleas, accusing *me* of manipulation, of using our son. She chose Julian, leaving Leo behind, a small, trembling figure in our empty home. What followed was agony. I watched my seven-year-old journey miles to her office, only to be publicly humiliated, framed by Julian, and then viciously beaten. Eleanor, blind to the truth, abandoned him again, leaving him bruised and alone in a dark alley. My spirit seethed, consumed by a cold, useless rage. How could she believe such lies? How could she discard her own child so easily? The injustice was unbearable. I was murdered, my son brutalized, and the woman I loved stood by my killer. I longed to warn her, to protect Leo, but I was just air. A silent scream. Then Julian delivered the final blow: my little boy was tossed into the freezing Hudson River. But as Leo's small form sank into the darkness, a desperate hope ignited. A stranger, an angel, pulled him from the depths. My death was real, my son's suffering unbearable. And now, the true battle for justice, and for Leo's future, was about to begin.

When I decided to put my job as a sugar baby behind me, I never thought that 3 supernatural men would appear before me. Renald, the spoiled movie star –also a vampire-werewolf hybrid. Tony, the most wanted bachelor in the whole city –who is a demon. And Michael, the cold billionaire –plus an angel. On top of that, my previous sugar daddy admits that he is an immortal sorcerer AND is the other three men’s father! What is going on???