Contract Over: I Rejected My Alpha Husband First
When her father fled with his mistress, leaving crushing debts behind, Freya Gilbert had nowhere to turn. Crashing Alpha Jonas's welcome ceremony in desperation, she never expected to find her fated mate there. But it wasn't gentle Jonas who made her wolf howl "mate." It was the dangerous, devastatingly powerful Niklaus Lockwood.
One scorching night of passion sealed her fate.
Niklaus already had his perfect chosen mate, the elegant Rebekah. Unwilling to abandon his plans, he offered Freya a cold business deal: be his contract Luna for three years, play the perfect wife in public, and he'd clear her debts. When their arrangement expired, she'd accept his rejection and disappear quietly.
Freya thought she could survive a loveless marriage. She was wrong.
Three years later, she's fallen hopelessly for the Alpha who sees her as nothing more than a gold-digging Omega. On their anniversary night, the very day their contract expires, Niklaus chooses Rebekah.
The message couldn't be clearer.
But when Freya files for divorce and moves out first, Niklaus's carefully controlled world shatters. The mate bond he's suppressed for years, and he never expected his obedient, compliant wife to actually leave him.
"I, Freya Gilbert, reject you, Niklaus Lockwood."
The words that should have set them both free only ignite a fire that threatens to consume them both.
Can a love born from a business contract survive the flames of pride and betrayal? Or will the most powerful Alpha in the territory lose his true mate because he was too blind to see what was right in front of him?
When the contract ends, the real battle for love begins.
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Chapter 10
Freya sat cross-legged on Fiona's couch, sketching idly in her notebook. Fiona handed her a cup of coffee.
A sudden sharp pain lanced through her head, making her gasp.
Luna Freya! Please come quickly! Margaret has collapsed! The doctors are with her but she's asking for you!
The mind-link was so urgent and frantic that it cut through all her mental barriers.
"What's wrong?" Fiona asked, alarmed by Freya's sudden reaction.
"It's Margaret," Freya said, already on her feet. "She's collapsed."
Vicki whined anxiously inside her. "You need to go. Whatever happened between you and Niklaus, Margaret has always been kind to you."
"I know," Freya whispered back.
"Margaret? Your mother-in-law?" Fiona asked. "Is she sick?"
"I don't know. I need to go." Freya grabbed her purse, her mind racing. "Can I borrow your car?"
Fiona nodded, tossing her the keys. "Call me if you need anything."
Freya burst through the front door of the Whitecrown Pack House, her heart pounding wildly. Several pack members looked up in surprise as she rushed past.
"Where is she?" she asked the first person she recognized.
"In the living room," the woman replied, pointing.
Freya ran down the hallway, bracing herself for the worst. She pushed open the double doors and froze.
Margaret Lockwood sat comfortably on the sofa, a teacup in her perfectly steady hands. Her complexion was rosy and healthy.
"Freya, darling!" Margaret exclaimed, setting down her cup with a delighted smile. "You came!"
Freya stood frozen, confusion and anger flickering across her face. "You're not sick?"
"Sick? Of course not," Margaret replied cheerfully. "Why would you think that?"
"I got a mind-link saying you'd collapsed," Freya said through gritted teeth. "That doctors were with you."
Margaret's face cleared. "Oh! That must have been Olivia being dramatic. I just mentioned feeling a bit faint earlier because I was worried about you."
Freya's shoulders slumped with relief, then tensed with irritation. "Was this Niklaus's idea? Getting me back here like this?"
"Niklaus?" Margaret looked genuinely confused. "He's been at work all day." She patted the sofa. "Come sit, dear. I've missed you."
Reluctantly, Freya sat. "I can't stay long."
"Where have you been?" Margaret asked, worry in her eyes. "I was so concerned. Niklaus said you needed space. What's happened?"
The genuine concern made Freya's resolve waver. Margaret had always been kind, had welcomed her into the pack when others looked down on her for being an outsider.
"Things between Niklaus and me are... complicated," Freya said carefully.
"How so? You're mates. What's complicated about that?" Margaret asked.
Freya sighed, knowing she couldn't tell the whole truth without revealing the contract marriage. "I don't think Niklaus wants to be with me. Not really. I think he's just... stuck with me because of our mate bond."
Margaret's eyebrows shot up. "That's nonsense!"
"Is it?" Freya countered. "For three years, he's barely acknowledged me except when he needed something. He's never once told me he loves me. Never once made me feel like I was anything more than an obligation."
"Oh, Freya." Margaret reached for her hand. "My son isn't expressive. He takes after his father that way. Mikael hardly said ten romantic words to me in our entire marriage, but I never doubted he loved me."
"It's more than that," Freya insisted. "I'm not what he wanted. I've always known that."
Margaret's face softened. "The Moon Goddess doesn't make mistakes, Freya. If she made you two mates, it's because you're perfect for each other."
Freya bit back a bitter laugh. If only Margaret knew how their mating had really started--with one night and a contract drawn up by lawyers.
"Sometimes I think even the Moon Goddess gets it wrong," she said, standing up. "I should go."
"No, please," Margaret said quickly, grabbing her wrist. "I haven't been entirely honest with you. The doctors were here yesterday. My heart... it's not as strong as it used to be."
Freya froze. "What?"
"They've advised me to avoid stress," Margaret continued, her voice trembling slightly. "And knowing my son and his mate are separating... that would be very stressful indeed."
Freya couldn't tell Margaret about the divorce, about severing their mate bond.
Guilt crashed over Freya.
"I'll stay for dinner," she conceded reluctantly. "But then I need to go back to my friend's place."
Relief washed over Margaret's face. "Thank you, dear. That's all I ask."
Hours later, Freya sat at the dining table, pushing food around her plate. Margaret had kept up a steady stream of conversation about pack business. Niklaus hadn't come home for dinner. Freya wondered if the company was keeping him busy, and if he was working too hard.
She immediately chastised herself for worrying about him. He was unreasonable and controlling. He didn't deserve her concern.
After dinner, Freya went upstairs to rest. Opening the door to the master bedroom, she was struck by how unchanged it was. Her small trinkets still sat on the vanity. Her books remained stacked on the nightstand. It was as if she'd never left.
The door opened behind her, and Niklaus walked in. He froze when he saw her, surprise flashing across his handsome face before it settled into a composed mask. His tall frame filled the doorway, his hair slightly disheveled.
Deep inside, he felt a surge of satisfaction. She had come back. His strategy of freezing her assets had worked after all. Still, anger simmered at her rebellion.
"Good evening," Freya said politely, keeping her distance. "I'm only here because Margaret asked me to stay. I'll be leaving tomorrow."
Niklaus frowned, moving closer to her. "Leaving? Where do you think you're going?"
He towered over her, his broad shoulders blocking the light from the hallway. His scent mixed with another flowery scent that didn't belong to him.
Freya felt a burning, twisting knot in her stomach. Rebekah's perfume. He'd been with her.
Was that why he came home so late? Had he been at the hospital taking care of Rebekah all this time?
Ignoring Freya's silence, Niklaus reached for his shirt buttons and loosened his tie. He spread his arms, waiting--expecting her to help him undress just as she had done countless times before.
Freya stepped back, her face twisting with disgust. "Your smell makes me sick. Stay away from me."
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8.6
Seven nights with the devil to pay a debt. One truth that will burn the world down.
Sienna Blackwood was never part of the deal until her step-brother gambled with her life to save his own.
Now, she is collateral in a brutal game of revenge. The collector is Dante Moretti, a billionaire with a fifteen-year grudge and a thirst for Blackwood blood.
He doesn't want her money; he demands seven nights of her total surrender.
But in the shadows of a Manhattan penthouse, hatred turns into a lethal obsession. When a syndicate ambush forces them to flee, the contract becomes a race for survival across the Atlantic.
Hunted for the three-year-old secret heir in their arms, Sienna and Dante must navigate a world of blood oaths and forced alliances.
In a game where every kiss is a tactical error, Sienna must decide: is her step-brother's rival the monster who shattered her life, or the only man who can save it?
7.6
When Christine Woods collapses into a hospital bed from unbearable pain, her husband's response is colder than the IV dripping into her veins: "Stop pretending to be sick."
That same night, a single social media post shatters her marriage--Neil Caffery, intimate with the first love he once claimed was dead.
Three years of marriage. Three years of neglect, indifference, and quiet self-deception.
In that moment, Christine finally understands the truth: she was never a wife--only a substitute.
Not wanting to live as a substitute any longer, she divorced her husband.
After divorce, Christine started her new life, achieving success both in career and love.
Seeing her so radiant and successful, her scumbag husband beg her to come back.
"Hazel, I know I was wrong. Please come back."
However, before Christine could respond, the country's richest man kicked him and held Christine's waist, "Who are you? Stop pestering my wife!"
His voice was cold, his presence imposing.
Christine looked at him and snorted, "When did I agree to marry you?"
"Baby, are you still angry about last night? I promise, I will be gentle next time." The man said, looking at her playfully.
Christine hit his chest playfully, her face turning red.
9.1
Leo Vance builds things that last. Bridges. Buildings. A quiet, unspoken life with the woman he loves. What he has never been able to build is the courage to name what they are.
On the morning of his wedding to botanical illustrator Elara Ashford, Leo stands in a chapel in a suit he cannot bring himself to fully button, and realizes something that stops him cold - he has already been married to her. Not in any courtroom or ceremony, but in every moment that actually counted. The night she held his hand at his mother's funeral and said nothing, because nothing was the right thing to say. The years they ate ramen so he could chase a dream she believed in before he did. The night she stood in the doorway during their worst fight and looked him in the eye and refused to let him run.
He has said I do a thousand times in a thousand unspoken ways.
So why does saying it out loud feel like the beginning of the end?
What Leo doesn't know is that Elara has been sitting with her own impossible question for three weeks - ever since she found a note in his jacket pocket that made her wonder whether the man she is about to marry proposed because he chose her, or because someone told him he was about to lose her.
What neither of them knows is that the woman he was secretly engaged to four years ago just walked into the venue. His best man is in love with his bride. His estranged father is standing outside in a rented suit, unable to go in. And the wedding videographer has been filming everything - with two cameras.
By the time the officiant asks who gives this woman, nothing about this wedding will have gone according to the blueprint.
But then again, the most important things Leo has ever built never did.
Every Vow But One is a lux serialized romance about the terrifying distance between loving someone completely and choosing them on purpose and what it can cost when you finally close the gap.
8.4
Everly spent four years playing the perfect, accommodating wife to Carson Moss, swallowing every grievance just to secure medical treatments for their sick daughter.
But at a high-society banquet she exhausted herself organizing, Carson's pregnant mistress crashed the party.
The woman shoved an ultrasound of Carson's "real heir" directly into Everly's frail grandfather's face.
The shock triggered a massive heart attack.
Carson refused to use his private helicopter to save the dying old man, choosing to protect his mistress and his company's IPO instead. Her grandfather died on the hospital table.
Instead of remorse, her mother-in-law demanded Everly publicly cover up the murder.
"You will do exactly as I say, or I will freeze every single cent of the medical trust fund paying for your crippled daughter's treatments."
When a battered Everly returned to the estate, she discovered her three-year-old daughter covered in dark bruises and pinch marks. Her in-laws were deliberately torturing her disabled child.
Everly couldn't comprehend how a family could be so utterly heartless. Her only family was murdered, her child was abused, and her husband threw a five-million-dollar check at her face as hush money.
They thought she would just break and quietly disappear.
But when a terrifyingly powerful billionaire unexpectedly blocked Carson's security team from locking her up, Everly finally saw her window.
She grabbed her sleeping daughter and ran out into the freezing storm, making a blood-bound vow to make the entire Moss family bleed.
8.5
Kaelyn spent three years believing Andrew loved her completely, until one overheard conversation shattered everything.
He had never returned for her. He had come back to save another woman, even if it meant taking Kaelyn's heart.
Humiliated and done with loving alone, she agreed to marry Theodore, the blind yet powerful heir chosen by his grandfather.
After the wedding, no matter how many times she tried, she just couldn't get past his walls.
Then at a banquet, her desperate ex came begging. Before Kaelyn could react, Theodore drew her into his arms and murmured, "Giving up already? Try again. I'm ready to surrender."
8.8
She married the devil. Then she divorced him. Now she carries his child.
All Isabella Lorenzo wanted was to protect her family, and she thought marrying the ruthless and feared Luca Moretti... heir to the Moretti crime empire would be enough, but she was wrong. Instead of protection, her father was brutally executed and her heart left shattered in a million pieces.
Two years later, she has managed to move on from the past and rebuild her life in the shadows. Every feeling of emotion was buried in her past, but they soon reignite after a reckless night with a masked stranger... a stranger that happens to be Luca Moretti.
Now she's pregnant, and Luca will do anything to get her back.
But forgiveness is not something that exists in her heart anymore... will she be able to fully heal, or will her urge for revenge burn everything down?