shumeng

As she left the medical facility, Blaine finally decided to let go of her feelings for Stefan completely. The trash bin was filled with discarded tissues, symbolizing a small life that had ended before it even began. Blaine did not cry; instead, she calmly returned her aunt's call. "Aunt, I've been accepted into the graduate program at the university. I'll be heading there in a month to complete my enrollment, and I'd love to move abroad to live with you." On the other end of the line, her aunt's voice was overwhelmed with joy "That's wonderful, Blaine! Our family can finally be together again. You should talk to the Stefan properly, though. After all, his family raised you like their own daughter for so many years. And Stefan has taken such good care of you all these years..."

The day before the wedding, the luxurious wedding dress my husband had ordered arrived. As I gently touched my slightly rounded belly, I asked him for a divorce. Archie's secretary called, tearfully explaining, "Ma'am, it's all my fault for not understanding your preference. Please, don't take it out on Archie." Archie's soothing voice came through the phone, leaving me with nothing but a warning. "Don't say I didn't warn you." I packed my bags and left with determination.

In my previous life, on the day my sister and I were selecting partners from the snake clan, I rescued the distressed Dragon Crown Prince. In gratitude, upon returning to his clan, the Dragon Prince immediately made me his dragon consort. A year later, I hatched a golden egg, giving birth to a dragon child. The prince was overjoyed and, on the day of his coronation, he declared me the Dragon Queen, gaining the respect of all clans. My sister chose to marry a strong wild bear, only to become the least favored wife among them. Her jealousy towards me drove her mad, and during a snake clan celebration, she pushed me off a cliff, leading to my tragic death. When I opened my eyes again, it was the day we were to choose mates, and I saw my sister running towards the direction where the Dragon Prince was in distress. I realized she had been reborn too. However, she did not know that while saving the Dragon Prince was straightforward, bearing a dragon child was a near impossible feat.

My husband, the judge, still didn't know that I was lying cold and stiff in the morgue. After a night of drinking, he lazily sent me a voice message, "Where did you disappear to? I've won the case, and tonight, I'll celebrate with you." Seeing I didn't reply immediately, he sent two more messages, "Not answering me? What's with the act?" "Just because I didn't help you with your case, you're holding a grudge?" I still didn't respond. Frustrated, he blocked me. It wasn't until the third day, when he hadn't heard from me, that he thought to check the hospital. There, he ran into a nurse. When the nurse recognized him, she scoffed. "What? Just now remembering to look for your wife who died on the operating table?" My husband stopped in his tracks, staring at the nurse in disbelief. "What did you say? Who died?" The nurse gave him a look that seemed to question his intelligence. "Your wife, of course. I really don't know how you were her husband. She had kidney failure, and you still made her donate a kidney. You were just asking for her life." Upon hearing this, he completely lost it, desperately trying to reach me. "Alright, I won't yell at you anymore. Just say something, okay?" "Don't do this to me, I'll go crazy!" "Where on earth did you go?" "You're joking with me, right?" "Please, just reply." But my phone would never connect again. We were meant to live happily ever after, but as a judge, he decided to save his beloved, who was suffering from kidney disease, by unilaterally deciding to give her one of my kidneys. I explained to him that I had kidney failure and that another transplant would surely kill me. But he roared at me with disdain, "She was so gravely ill, you're still here, jealous and fighting for attention! Do you have a heart at all?" Under his forceful decision, I was sent to the hospital for the transplant. In the end, my condition worsened, and I died tragically in a deserted corner of the hospital.

My son's kindergarten was hosting a parent-child event. I made a special effort to attend, only to witness him holding the hand of my husband's secretary and saying, "Mom, I wish our family could stay together like this forever." Watching the three of them embrace happily, I was overwhelmed with a sense of weariness. Later, I filed for divorce and chose to spend fifteen years teaching in a rural area. If I couldn't find happiness at home, perhaps I could help others find theirs.

Derek's mistress was causing trouble again. He slid the divorce papers in front of me. "Just sign it for appearances and to keep everyone content." I clutched the hem of my dress, nodding silently. Then, I swiftly signed my name. As I was leaving, I overheard his brother teasing, "Your wife is so easygoing. Is there anything she won't do if you ask?" Derek took a graceful sip of his fine wine. "Wanna bet on it?" They wagered that in twenty days, at the city hall, no matter how teary-eyed I got, I would obediently complete the divorce proceedings. When the marriage certificate was exchanged for a divorce certificate, I held my phone tightly and calmly replied to the message I had just received, "After all this, will you marry me?" "Yes."

My mother kept a notebook of grievances. On one side, it listed the costs of raising me, while on the other, it recorded all my acts of defiance against her. In her notebook, I had all sorts of names. Burden, ungrateful wretch, ungrateful daughter... She hoped for my repayment, yet at the same time, she wished I were dead. Eventually, I did die. I left her with a hollow shell, my heart, liver, spleen, lungs, and kidneys all hollowed out, along with a bank card holding eight hundred thousand. "Mother, I've given you back everything, my money and my life. Does this make you happy?"

Kaelen was supposed to be my destiny. The future Alpha of our pack, my childhood love, and my fated mate. But one night, I smelled another woman on him-a sickly sweet Omega scent I knew all too well. I followed him and found them under the great oak, locked in a lover's kiss. His betrayal was a slow and deliberate poison. When his precious Omega, Lyra, staged a fall, he cradled her like she was made of glass. But when he sabotaged my saddle during a dangerous jump, causing my horse to throw me and break my leg, he called it a "warning" not to touch her. His care for me afterward was just damage control to avoid my father's suspicion. At a public auction, he used my family's money to buy her a priceless diamond, leaving me humiliated and unable to pay. I finally understood what I'd overheard on the pack's mind-link days before. To him and his brothers-in-arms, I was just a "pampered princess," a prize to be won for power. Lyra was the one they truly desired. He thought he could break me, force me to accept being second best. He was wrong. On the night of my 20th birthday, the night I was supposed to be bonded to him, I stood before two packs and made a different choice. I rejected him and announced my union with a rival Alpha, a man who sees me as a queen, not a consolation prize.

My husband stood me up on the biggest night of my career—my first solo art exhibition. I found him on the news, shielding another woman from a storm of cameras while the entire gallery watched my world collapse. His text was a final, cold slap in the face: "Kacie needs me. You'll be fine." For years, he'd called my art a "hobby," forgetting it was the foundation of his billion-dollar company. He had made me invisible. So I called my lawyer with a plan to use his arrogance against him. "Make the divorce papers look like a boring IP release form," I told her. "He'll sign anything to get me out of his office."

For fifteen years, my husband Dustin and I were the fairytale. The high school sweethearts who made it, the tech CEO and his devoted wife. Our life was perfect. Then a text message arrived from an unknown number. It was a picture of his assistant's hand on his thigh in the suit pants I bought him. The texts from his mistress kept coming after that, a relentless barrage of poison. She sent photos of them in our bed and a video of him promising to leave me. She bragged that she was pregnant with his child. He’d come home and kiss me, call me his anchor, all while smelling of her perfume. He was buying her a condo and planning their future while I pretended to have morning sickness from bad scallops. The final straw came on my birthday. She sent a picture of him on one knee, giving her a diamond promise ring. So I didn’t cry. I secretly changed my name to Hope, converted our entire fortune into untraceable bearer bonds, and told a charity to empty our house of everything. The next day, as he headed to the airport for a "business trip" to Paris with her, I flew to Portugal. When he came home, he found an empty mansion, divorce papers, and our wedding rings melted into a single, shapeless lump of gold.

My mate, Alpha Damien, was holding a sacred naming ceremony for his heir. The only problem? He was celebrating a pup he had with Lyra, a rogue he brought into our pack. And I, his true mate, four months pregnant with his actual heir, was the only one not invited. When I confronted her, she clawed her own arm, drew blood, and screamed that I had attacked her. Damien saw her performance and didn't even look at me. He snarled, using his Alpha's Command to force me to leave, the power of our bond twisted into a weapon against me. Later, she attacked me for real, making me fall. As blood bloomed on my dress, threatening our child's life, she tossed her own pup onto a rug and screamed that I had tried to kill him. Damien burst in, saw me bleeding on the floor, and didn't hesitate. He scooped Lyra's screaming pup into his arms and sprinted away to find a healer, leaving me and his true heir to die. But as I lay there, my mother's voice echoed in my mind through our own link. My family's escort was waiting for me just beyond the territory border. He was about to find out that the Omega he threw away was actually the princess of the most powerful pack in the world.

After seven years in a dungeon for a crime I didn't commit, my fated mate, the Alpha who let them drag me away, finally opened my cell door. He announced I would take my place as his Luna, not out of love, but because the law demanded it. But the moment a frantic mind-link came through that his precious Seraphina-my adopted sister, the one who framed me-was having trouble breathing, he abandoned me without a second glance. That night, huddled in a dusty shack, I overheard my own parents' secret conversation. They were planning to have me exiled. Permanently. My return had upset Seraphina, and her "weak heart" couldn't take the shock. I lay there in the darkness, feeling nothing. Not surprise. Not even pain. Just a profound, empty coldness. They were casting me out. Again. But as they plotted my exile, a secret message arrived for me-an offer of escape. A new life in a sanctuary far to the north, where I could leave the Blackmoon Pack behind forever. They thought they were getting rid of me. Little did they know, I was already gone.

My husband was in the shower, the sound of water a familiar rhythm to our mornings. I was just placing a cup of coffee on his desk, a small ritual in our five years of what I thought was a perfect marriage. Then, an email notification flashed on his laptop: "You're invited to the Christening of Leo Thomas." Our last name. The sender: Hayden Cleveland, a social media influencer. An icy dread settled in. It was an invitation for his son, a son I didn't know existed. I went to the church, hidden in the shadows, and saw him holding a baby, a little boy with his dark hair and eyes. Hayden Cleveland, the mother, leaned on his shoulder, a picture of domestic bliss. They looked like a family. A perfect, happy family. My world crumbled. I remembered him refusing to have a baby with me, citing work pressure. All his business trips, the late nights-were they spent with them? The lie was so easy for him. How could I have been so blind? I called the Zurich Architectural Fellowship, a prestigious program I had deferred for him. "I' d like to accept the fellowship," I said, my voice eerily calm. "I can leave immediately."

Eighteen days after giving up on Brendan Maynard, Jayde Rosario cut off her waist-length hair and called her father, announcing her decision to move to California and attend UC Berkeley. Her father, surprised, asked about the sudden change, reminding her how she' d always insisted on staying with Brendan. Jayde forced a laugh, revealing the painful truth: Brendan was getting married, and she, his stepsister, could no longer cling to him. That night, she tried to tell Brendan about her college acceptance, but his fiancée, Chloie Ellis, interrupted with a bubbly call, and Brendan' s tender words to Chloie twisted a knife in Jayde' s heart. She remembered how his tenderness used to be hers alone, how he had protected her, and how she had poured out her heart to him in a diary and a love letter, only for him to explode, tearing the letter and yelling, "I'm your brother!" He had stormed out, leaving her to painstakingly tape the shredded pieces back together. Her love, however, didn't die, not even when he brought Chloie home and told her to call her "sister-in-law." Now, she understood. She had to put that fire out herself. She had to dig Brendan out of her heart.

For my entire life, I believed my Alpha, Kaelen, was my fated mate. A sacred gift from the Moon Goddess. But on the eve of my eighteenth birthday, he presented another she-wolf, Seraphina, as his chosen Luna, using a borrowed pup in a cruel plot to crush my spirit. When Rogues attacked our pack, a silver chandelier fell towards us. Kaelen lunged past me without a glance, shielding Seraphina with his own body while I was left to be crushed. He never even looked back. Later, after falsely accusing me of hurting her, he dragged my injured body to an ice-cold hydrotherapy pool and shoved me under the water. As I struggled to breathe, he loomed over me, his voice a roar of command. "If you ever touch her again, I will strip you of your name and make you Rogue." Watching the man I loved try to kill me, the last of my hope finally turned to ash. That night, I accepted an offer to join the Silverwood Pack. Then, I walked to the forge and tossed every memento he'd ever given me into the flames, watching the girl who loved him burn away forever.

My world revolved around Jax Harding, my older brother's captivating rockstar friend. From sixteen, I adored him; at eighteen, I clung to his casual promise: "When you're 22, maybe I'll settle down." That offhand comment became my life's beacon, guiding every choice, meticulously planning my twenty-second birthday as our destiny. But on that pivotal day in a Lower East Side bar, clutching my gift, my dream exploded. I overheard Jax' s cold voice: "Can't believe Savvy's showing up. She' s still hung up on that stupid thing I said." Then the crushing plot: "We' re gonna tell Savvy I' m engaged to Chloe, maybe even hint she' s pregnant. That should scare her off." My gift, my future, slipped from my numb fingers. I fled into the cold New York rain, devastated by betrayal. Later, Jax introduced Chloe as his "fiancée" while his bandmates mocked my "adorable crush"-he did nothing. As an art installation fell, he saved Chloe, abandoning me to severe injury. In the hospital, he came for "damage control," then shockingly shoved me into a fountain, leaving me to bleed, calling me a "jealous psycho." How could the man I loved, who once saved me, become this cruel and publicly humiliate me? Why was my devotion seen as an annoyance to be brutally extinguished with lies and assault? Was I just a problem, my loyalty met with hatred? I would not be his victim. Injured and betrayed, I made an unshakeable vow: I was done. I blocked his number and everyone connected to him, severing ties. This was not an escape; this was my rebirth. Florence awaited, a new life on my terms, unburdened by broken promises.

For three years, my fiancé Jaxon kept me in a top Swiss clinic, helping me recover from the PTSD that shattered my life. When I was finally accepted into Juilliard, I booked a one-way ticket to New York, ready to surprise him and start our future. But as I was signing my discharge papers, the receptionist handed me an official certificate of recovery. It was dated a full year ago. She explained that my "medication" for the last twelve months had been nothing but vitamin supplements. I had been perfectly healthy, a prisoner held captive by forged medical reports and lies. I flew home and went straight to his private club, only to overhear him laughing with his friends. He was married. He had been for the entire three years I was locked away. "I've been handling Alina," he said, his voice laced with amusement. "A few tweaked reports, the right 'medication' to keep her foggy. It bought me the time I needed to secure my marriage to Krystal." The man who swore to protect me, the man I worshipped, had orchestrated my imprisonment. My love story was just a footnote in his. Later that night, his mother slid a check across the table. "Take this and disappear," she ordered. Three years ago, I had thrown a similar check in her face, declaring my love wasn't for sale. This time, I picked it up. "Alright," I said, my voice hollow. "I'll leave. After my father's death anniversary, Jaxon Francis will never find me again."