Burned by My Ex, Reborn as His King's Mate
Seraphina died betrayed. She perished in flames-poisoned by Darius, the fated mate she'd foolishly loved. Her childhood sweetheart, who sacrificed her only to save his mistress.
Reborn five years earlier, Seraphina vows: Never again. No more submissions. No more suffering his cruelty. This time, she'll rewrite her destiny - then she meets Kairos.
The Untamed Alpha King who loathes the mate bond after his own betrayal. Her second-chance mate - a bond that will kill her if she rejects it.
Now, caught between Kairos' relentless pursuit and Darius' desperate attempts to reclaim her, Seraphina faces an impossible choice:
Drown the world in vengeance... or risk her shattered heart on the mate who could either heal her scars or destroy her completely?
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Chapter 4
Seraphina's POV
The pain of losing Lily's presence still throbbed in my chest like an open wound. Now my beautiful wolf, my another half, needed to retreat into the deepest recesses of my mind.
A hibernation that might have no expiration date.
My hands trembled-first with panic, then with reluctant acceptance. She had fought so hard for me. If rest was what she needed, I would guard her slumber like the most precious treasure.
'Sleep, my brave one,' I sent through the fading connection. 'I'll keep our heart beating until you return.'
Then a sharp rap of knuckles against my door shattered the silence.
I barely had time to wipe my tear-streaked face before the door burst open, revealing a whirlwind of golden curls and floral perfume. Callista Ophelia-my oldest friend and most vocal critic of Darius-swept into the room like a summer storm.
"Oh, thank the Moon Goddess!" She crushed me in a hug so tight that I could feel her rapid heartbeat. "You finally dumped that two-timing bastard!"
I stiffened. Even now, with the scent of gasoline still haunting my nightmares, part of me flinched at hearing Darius insulted.
Callista pulled back, her champagne-colored eyes scanning my face. "Wait-why aren't you celebrating?" She gripped my shoulders. "Sera, you do realize you just dodged a silver bullet, right?"
A humorless laugh escaped me. If only she knew how literal that bullet had been.
"I'm fine," I lied, turning toward the window where moonlight painted silver streaks across the floor. "Just... tired."
"Uh-uh." Callista's manicured finger hooked my chin, forcing me to meet her gaze. "I've known you since we stole cookies from the pack kitchen at six years old. That's your 'I'm dying inside' face."
Her words cracked something open in my chest. Before I could stop them, the truth spilled out. "Lily's... fading. The rejection-"
Callista's expression shifted from playful to deadly serious in a heartbeat. "Okay, new plan." She marched to my closet and began flinging dresses onto the bed. "We're going to the Howling Moon tonight."
I blinked. "The bar for werewolves?"
"Exactly." She tossed a scandalously short crimson dress at me. "Nothing mends a broken bond like rubbing your freedom in everyone's faces." A wicked grin spread across her lips. "And I heard the Shadowfang Pack's Alpha heir just returned from his warrior trials..."
As she described the mysterious, notoriously single Alpha heir, I felt something I hadn't felt in years-a flicker of interest. Not for the stranger, but for the life I could have now.
A life without fire.
Without betrayal.
A life where I got to choose.
Lily stirred weakly in my mind, her voice a whisper: 'Maybe... just for an hour...'
Callista winked, holding up two shot glasses she had somehow produced from her purse. "To new beginnings?"
For the first time since my rebirth, I smiled from the heart.
The moment we stepped through the frosted glass doors of Howl, the whispers began.
"Moonwhisper's rejected Luna..."
"They say she burned her own mating bond..."
"Look at the way she carries herself-like an Alpha..."
Callista squeezed my arm as three broad-shouldered warriors materialized from the smoky haze. The tallest-a russet-haired Beta with battle scars crisscrossing his neck-leaned in with a wolfish grin.
"Care for some company, lovely Luna?" His scent-pine and musk-rolled over me.
Callista arched a brow. "Oh, we absolutely-"
"I'm here to drink alone." My tone left no room for negotiation.
As Callista disappeared into the VIP section with her new admirers, I claimed a seat at the moonstone bar. This wasn't just any shifter den-the gilded wolf-head sconces, the waitstaff's silver cuffs marking high-ranking pack members, even the ice cubes carved like crescent moons screamed elite.
"Whiskey. Neat."
The bartender-a scarred Delta with knowing eyes-slid over a tumbler of amber liquid without comment. I downed it in one burning gulp.
"Another."
By the third pour, the world had softened at the edges. Bodies moved in hypnotic rhythms on the dance floor-females in backless dresses arching against warriors bare-chested beneath their suit jackets. The air thickened with pheromones and broken inhibitions.
Then I saw him.
Perched in the VIP loft like a king overlooking his domain, the male dominated the space without effort. Midnight curls framed a face carved by the gods themselves-sharp jaw dusted with stubble, lips made for sin. His tailored suit did nothing to hide the predatory grace beneath, the fabric straining across shoulders that spoke of endless battles won.
When those storm-gray eyes locked onto mine, time stopped.
For one heartbeat, two, he saw me-not as Darius's castoff, but as prey worth chasing. Then-deliberate insult-he turned away.
Challenge ignited in my blood.
I walked toward him without a second thought. The bass vibrated through my bones as I leaned closer to the mysterious stranger, my lips brushing the shell of his ear. "All alone, Alpha?"
He stiffened-just for a heartbeat-before turning those storm-gray eyes on me. Up close, he was even more devastating: the faint scar bisecting his left eyebrow, the way his tailored shirt strained against his muscular frame, the intoxicating scent of winter storms and leather that clung to his skin.
"You're drunk," he murmured, though his fingers tightened imperceptibly around his whiskey glass.
I laughed, tracing the rim of my own drink. "I'm intoxicated, yes. But not from the alcohol." My nails grazed his wrist. "From you."
His gaze darkened, a predator finally acknowledging worthy prey. In one fluid motion, he pulled me flush against him, his large hand splayed possessively across my lower back. "You'll regret this in the morning," he warned, his breath hot against my temple.
"Try me."
Our lips were a hairsbreadth apart when he suddenly stilled. "Do you even know who I am, little wolf?"
Before I could respond, Callista's shriek cut through the pulsing music.
"Brother?!"
I recoiled like I'd been struck. Brother? That meant-
Kaelos Harrington.
The legendary North American Alpha. Callista's older brother. The most dangerous unmated wolf on the continent.
His grip tightened as I tried to pull away. "Running now?" he purred, dragging me back against his chest. His heartbeat thundered against my palm-steady and unrelenting.
Then his lips crashed onto mine.
The world narrowed to the scrape of his teeth, the possessive slant of his mouth, the way his growl vibrated through my very bones. When he finally pulled back, his eyes glowed molten silver in the dim light.
"Too late forto regrets, little Luminara."
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7.1
The last thing I remembered was the blinding flash of my starship crashing. But instead of a rescue crew, I woke up tied to a wooden post, surrounded by hostile beastmen.
My universal translator kicked in just in time to hear their priestess, Chelsea, declare that I was a cursed demon who ruined their hunt. To save the clan from winter starvation, I was to be burned alive.
The flames were already blistering my legs, and jagged stones hurled by the crowd gashed my forehead. I barely negotiated a three-day reprieve to find them food, venturing into the deadly primeval forest.
I found a massive supply of wild potatoes and even gained the protection of Bronson, a terrifyingly powerful saber-toothed tiger beastman.
But Chelsea wouldn't stop.
She labeled my food as poisonous, tried to sentence me to starve in a penitent's cave, and when my agricultural knowledge proved her wrong, she invoked an ancient law. She incited the tribe's savage warriors to fight over me, turning me into breeding property.
I was a scientist offering them endless food, yet their primitive ignorance and one woman's vicious jealousy kept pushing me toward a brutal end. I was terrified, completely powerless against their monstrous physical strength.
As five ruthless challengers drew their bone axes to claim me, I begged Bronson to leave me and run.
Instead, he pulled me against his scarred chest and kissed me fiercely in front of the entire clan.
"She is my mate," he roared, unleashing a soul-crushing aura. "Anyone who wants her, come at me together."
9.2
Clara was drowning in student debt and barely making rent when she downloaded a fantasy mobile game to escape reality.
Inside the game, an exiled prince named Alex was freezing to death. Pitying him, she spent her last few dollars on microtransactions to fix his shelter and cure his poison.
But the game was far too real.
Every time she paid, the prince reacted. When she complained aloud about going broke, the in-game army suddenly halted, as if the prince had heard her voice.
Then, the terrifying real-world consequences hit.
Clara woke up to find her water glass and a box of Kleenex had vanished from her locked bedroom overnight.
She frantically searched the tiny apartment, her heart pounding in her chest.
She thought she was losing her mind. Had she thrown them out in her sleep? Was there a stalker hiding in her home?
How could physical objects just disappear into thin air behind a deadbolted door?
Until she looked at her nightstand.
Sitting exactly where her missing items used to be was a glowing, weightless crystal cup that defied all logic.
And on her laptop screen, the exiled prince was carefully holding her Kleenex box, offering a mountain of real gold on an altar.
She hadn't just downloaded a mobile game; she had opened a cross-dimensional trade route with a desperate future king.
9.7
Some chains are forged in iron.
Others in desire.
Sebastian Kol has existed for six centuries. Cursed to burn alive in his own skin every night he transforms into a beast even he cannot control. He wants one thing. Freedom. And after five centuries of searching, a prophecy finally gives it a name.
Leilani Ravenwood.
She carries the mark of the moon goddess on her skin and a prophecy that brands her as his salvation. Her blood silences his beast, and her touch sets him on fire.
In the worst possible way. And in the best possible way.
Furious at the hold she has over him, Sebastian takes her, strips her of everything, and bends her world until it breaks, determined to own what the goddess dared to use against him. What follows is dark and consuming. A monster who has never met his match, and a woman who proves to be it.
But Leilani Ravenwood does not break easily. And somewhere between the hatred and the hunger, the punishment and the pull, the ancient beast begins to suspect the terrible truth.
The woman born to be his salvation may already be his undoing, his poison and cure wearing the same skin.
And he is running out of reasons to care.
9.5
As a highborn succubus, I somehow managed to starve myself to death-thanks to my obsessive cleanliness and ridiculously picky appetite.
When I opened my eyes again, I had transmigrated into Vivian Hartwell-the long-lost "real" daughter with a tragically cursed fate.
I had barely been taken back into the Hartwell family before they forced me to attend a so-called "death matchmaking" event in Kingsford-on behalf of Natalie Hartwell, the fake heiress-to meet Damian Blackwood, the infamous "living reaper."
Rumor had it Damian was brutal and bloodthirsty-every woman who'd ever been involved with him either ended up dead or driven insane.
At the event, over a hundred socialites were trembling on their knees, silently praying they wouldn't be the one chosen.
Just as Damian let out a cold smirk and reached to pick his unlucky victim, I took a deep breath from the back of the crowd.
The scent emanating from him was a rare, potent masculine essence-something encountered perhaps once in ten millennia.
For a painfully picky succubus like me, this was nothing short of salvation.
I kicked aside the girl blocking my way, my eyes practically glowing as I threw both hands up. "Pick me! Hurry, pick me!"
7.3
For a thousand years, the Vora beastmen have been cursed by a madness-a burning sickness in their blood that only one thing can soothe: the legendary 'Blood-Blessed,' a human female whose very scent is a living cure.
When a virus wiped out nearly all females, their desperate hunt for this mythical girl turned into a brutal conquest. They crushed our fallen human kingdoms, reducing us to breathing meat under their cruel "Livestock Codex."
To save my little sister from being branded for their elite breeding auction, I took her place in the male-only death draft.
Disguised as a boy, I was thrown into a pitch-black labyrinth, a living sacrifice meant to feed their ultimate nightmare: the feral, half-dragon Mad King.
He tore our steel cage apart like wet paper. I pressed my back against the freezing wall, watching in horror as he slaughtered the screaming men around me.
He ripped the filthy coat from my body, exposing my true gender. As his crimson eyes locked onto my throat and he opened his jaws for the kill, my rage burned away my fear.
I was a pureblood heiress of a dead empire, but I would not die cowering like an animal. I gripped a shard of glass, ready to aim for his eye.
But as he lunged, the glass sliced my palm. The moment my blood hit the air, the legend became my reality. The sweet, intoxicating scent that flooded the dark wasn't just my pheromones-it was the living cure.
The terrifying, apocalyptic tyrant froze mid-strike. He dropped his massive body to his knees, his fangs retracting as he gently, desperately licked my bleeding hand.
His chaotic red eyes darkened with an absolute, world-ending obsession as he pulled my fragile body against his burning chest.
"Mine."
I was meant to be his final meal. They called me the Blood-Blessed. He called me his Queen.
9.2
I woke up suffocating in the dark, only to find my mind trapped inside a tiny, plump, and entirely uncoordinated body.
A cold, mechanical voice echoed in my brain, announcing that I was dead in my original world and had transmigrated into a corporate revenge novel as the six-month-old illegitimate daughter of Edward McClure, the story's ruthless villain.
The system mercilessly outlined my doomed fate. Tonight, my cold-blooded father would abandon me to a state orphanage. By age two, he would officially sign my rights away, leaving me to die miserably at the hands of human traffickers. Outside my nursery, I could hear his terrifying footsteps approaching, his voice devoid of any human warmth as he debated throwing me out like garbage. I was completely helpless, trapped in a baby's body, staring up at a man who looked at me with pure, visceral disgust.
Why did I have to be reborn as the tragic cannon fodder of a tyrant destined to put a bullet in his own head? How was I supposed to win over a severe germaphobe when my unequipped infant reflexes made me literally pee and vomit all over his pristine Tom Ford suits?
"Your ultimate mission is to prevent Edward McClure's self-destruction. Step one: Survive tonight's abandonment crisis."
Hearing the system's terrifying ultimatum, I swallowed my adult panic, forced a pool of pitiful tears into my large eyes, and reached my chubby little hands toward the monster.