Blood on the Snow, A Lost Life
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.
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Chapter 5
Carter' s face, etched with a mixture of anger and fierce protectiveness towards Carmen, slowly began to contort. He hadn't even registered what I'd said, too focused on comforting her. Carmen, however, pulled away from him, her eyes wide with undisguised horror, fixed on the rapidly blooming crimson on the pristine white snow. Her gasp, sharp and sudden, yanked Carter's attention back to me.
My body swayed, a puppet with severed strings. The world spun, painting the snow a dizzying red. My strength evaporated, and I felt myself collapsing, the ground rushing up to meet me.
"Haven? What… what's happening? Why are you bleeding?" Carter's voice was a raw, panicked roar. He watched, stunned, as the dark red stained not just the snow, but my dress, then seeped onto his own pants as he tried to catch me. The metallic tang of blood filled the cold night air.
I tried to speak, tried to explain, but my throat was closed, my tongue thick and heavy. All I could manage was a choked whimper as another wave of pain, sharper and more insistent, ripped through me.
Carmen, surprisingly, found her voice. "She said… she said she was pregnant, Carter. And she's bleeding like that…" Her voice trailed off, a chilling understanding dawning in her eyes. As a mother, she knew what that meant. "Carter, you have to get her to a hospital! Now!"
Her words finally jolted him into action. He scooped me up, his arms surprisingly gentle, but the sudden movement sent a fresh gush of blood, hot and sickening, down my legs. He sprinted towards the car, his face a mask of terror. He drove like a maniac, ignoring traffic lights, swerving through the snowy streets, the horn blaring a desperate plea for right-of-way.
Each bump, each sharp turn, sent a fresh jolt of agony through my body. I could feel the blood, warm and sticky, soaking through my clothes, making a grotesque puddle on the passenger seat. The scent of it, thick and coppery, filled the enclosed space, making my stomach churn. I shivered uncontrollably, not just from the cold, but from a profound, bone-deep terror.
This is it, a voice whispered in my head. This is the end. For me. For the baby. For everything. A strange sense of calm began to settle over me, a terrifying resignation. I wanted it to end. I wanted to escape this pain, this betrayal, this suffocating weight of disappointment. I just wanted to be free.
He burst through the emergency room doors, me cradled in his arms, screaming for help. Nurses rushed forward, their faces a blur of concern. The bloodied tableau drew shocked stares from everyone in the waiting room. The smell of fear, disinfectant, and blood was overwhelming.
"We need a trauma room! She's bleeding heavily!" a nurse shouted.
My teeth chattered, a relentless rhythm against the pain. I was so cold. So tired. I just wanted to close my eyes and disappear.
"Haven! Stay with me! Please!" Carter's voice was frantic, his grip on me impossibly tight.
"Sir, you need to let go," a doctor said, her voice firm, as they wheeled a gurney towards us.
Carter resisted, his eyes wild. "No! I'm not leaving her!"
It took several nurses to gently pry him away. As they pushed the gurney into the brightly lit operating room, I caught one last glimpse of Carter. His face was a twisted mask of despair, his eyes wide with a terror that mirrored my own. A final, silent barrier descended as the double doors swung shut, severing us completely.
The cold, sterile air of the operating room brought a fresh wave of shivers. A nurse began injecting something into my arm, the liquid a cold ribbon tracing its way through my veins. The world began to blur, the edges softening.
"Please," I whispered, my voice barely audible, gripping the doctor's arm with what little strength I had left. "Please… just… take it out. Take it all out."
The doctor paused, her eyes searching mine. "Take what out, dear?"
"The baby," I whimpered, tears finally escaping, tracing paths through the grime on my face. "Just… take it out. I don't want it to… to suffer. Not like this. Not with him." The last words were a choked sob. "I can't… I can't let it live in this kind of world. It deserves better."
The doctors and nurses exchanged glances, their faces etched with a profound sadness. They said nothing. They just started their work.
My mind drifted, floating away from the pain. I saw Carter's face, younger, vibrant, full of hope. He was holding my hand, walking along a beach at sunset. "Someday, Haven," he'd said, his voice husky with emotion, "we'll have a little one. A girl, with your eyes. Or a boy, with my stubbornness. We'll build a home, a real home, filled with laughter and love. A family. Three of us, against the world."
The memory, so vivid, so beautiful, now felt like a cruel joke. Three of us, against the world. How ironic. The world had won. And I was alone. The warmth of that imagined future faded, replaced by the chilling certainty that it would never come to pass. Sweet dreams die hard, but mine had just been brutally murdered.
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8.5
He bought her womb. He never expected to lose his heart. Athena was sold like an animal to a ruthless Alpha who wanted an heir-not a wife. Marked as his breeder, she was his to touch, to hold, and to use. Athena suffered in silence, hiding the truth that she was his fated mate, hoping he would one day love her. But when she could no longer endure the pain, Athena fled-taking with her the one thing Alpha Raphael truly wanted: his child. And she vowed to make him pay for treating her as nothing more than a slave. Can the man who once shared her bed and haunted her dreams win her back?Or will Athena fall for the new Alpha who offers her something she never had-freedom and love?
7.2
"I reject you as my mate, Omega." his angry voice growled, shocking me.
"I-Is this because I am your stepsister now?" I asked, feeling an unfamiliar pain in my chest.
He scoffed at me, gave me a glare, and replied, "Even if you weren't my stepsister, I would never accept you as my mate. Because you are ugly, weak, and vulnerable."
I fell to my knees as tears streamed from my eyes. All I wanted was to die from the shame and pain of rejection.
-
Elara was a young omega whose fate collided with her two Alpha stepbrothers. She found herself trapped between them.
The Kingston brothers, Trevor and Kevin, were the dream of every girl. Kevin was wild and aggressive while Trevor was cold and calculative.
They were the two dominant Alpha brothers who possessed everything other boys desired. But when fate connected Elara with one of them, they rejected her. When she chose the other one, the rejected mate wanted her back.
They had no idea that their one wrong decision would set off a chain reaction of feelings.
This is a tale of a love triangle, shocking betrayal, and the unexpected path from hate to love.
9.4
She only wanted to protect the man she loved... but she changed him instead.
Rena never imagined that her creation would turn into something powerful, something dangerous yet still deeply tied to her heart. Beneath the darkness, he still remembers her... still wants her... still loves her in a way only a monster can.
Now, caught between fear and a love she can't let go of, Rena must decide can she save him... or will she fall for the monster she created?
8.0
My father raised seven brilliant orphans to be my potential husbands. For years, I only had eyes for one of them, the cold and distant Caspian Vance, believing his distance was a wall I just had to break through.
That belief shattered last night when I found him in the garden, kissing his foster sister, Lyra—the fragile girl my family took in at his request, the one I had treated like my own sister.
But the true horror came when I overheard the other six Ashworth Fellows talking in the library.
They weren't competing for me. They were working together, orchestrating "accidents" and mocking my "stupid, blind" devotion to keep me away from Caspian.
Their loyalty wasn't to me, the heiress who held their futures in her hands. It was to Lyra.
I wasn't a woman to be won. I was a foolish burden to be managed. The seven men I grew up with, the men who owed my family everything, were a cult, and she was their queen.
This morning, I walked into my father's study to make a decision that would burn their world to the ground. He smiled, asking if I'd finally won Caspian over.
"No, Dad," I said, my voice firm. "I'm marrying Silas Blackwood."
8.0
To the outside world, I was the envy of every she-wolf as the fiancée of Alpha Kael. But inside the gilded cage of his pack house, I was a ghost.
I molded myself into perfection for him, wearing the colors he liked and suppressing my own voice.
Until I walked past his study and saw him with Lyra—the orphan he called his "sister."
His hand rested intimately on her thigh as he laughed, telling her, "Elara is just a political necessity. You are the moon in my sky."
My heart shattered, but the physical blow came days later.
During a training exercise, the safety cable snapped. I fell twenty feet, shattering my leg.
Lying in the dirt, gasping through the pain, I watched my Fated Mate run.
Not to me.
He ran to Lyra, who was burying her face in his chest, feigning terror. He comforted her while I bled.
Later, in the infirmary, I heard him whisper to her, "She won't die. It will just teach her who the real Luna is."
He knew. He knew she had sabotaged the rope with silver, and he was protecting her attempted murder.
The final thread of my love incinerated into ash.
The next morning, I walked into the Council Hall, threw a thick file on the table, and looked the Elders in the eye.
"I am dissolving the engagement," I stated coldly. "And I am withdrawing my family's silver supply. I will starve this Pack until you beg."
Kael laughed, thinking I was bluffing. He didn't notice the lethal Beta from the rival pack standing in the shadows behind me, ready to help me burn Kael's kingdom to the ground.
9.4
I was recovering from surgery for a stress-induced ulcer, the price I' d paid for building an empire with my husband, Braden. He said he was at a work dinner. He lied.
From my hospital bed, I found his anonymous online confession: a sordid tale of his affair with a young intern while his "sick" partner was away. The details were a perfect match.
But the true horror came later. His mistress, Kandy, in a fit of rage, shoved me so hard I fell. The fall caused a miscarriage, ending the life of the child I was secretly carrying-the child he had begged me for.
He later saved me from a fire, leaving him with a mangled leg. In the hospital, he pleaded for my forgiveness, then begged me to spare Kandy from the consequences.
"She's just a kid," he pleaded.
He wanted me to save the very person who destroyed our baby.
In that moment, the woman he married died. I decided I wouldn't just leave him. I would systematically destroy everything he had ever built.