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 12
Niklaus's eyes glowed in the darkened bedroom. His breathing had become ragged. Sweat appeared on his forehead.
"Niklaus?" Freya repeated, alarmed by his appearance. "What's wrong with you?"
His muscular body was tense beneath his t-shirt. "I don't know." His voice was deeper than usual. It was husky with something primal. "I feel hot."
Freya sat up and moved away until her back pressed against the headboard. "It was the soup," she realized. "Your mother put something in it."
A low laugh escaped him as he moved closer. "Always so smart, aren't you, Freya?" He reached out and ran his fingers along her bare leg where his shirt had ridden up. "My brilliant mate."
She slapped his hand away. "Don't touch me. We're not mates anymore, remember? I rejected you."
"Did you?" He leaned closer. His scent surrounded her. It was clean from his shower but with underlying notes of musk and cedarwood. "I haven't agreed yet."
Niklaus grabbed her chin. His gaze burned as he stared at her mouth.
"Stay away from me," she warned out loud, pushing at his chest.
Niklaus was angered by Freya's blunt rejection. He grabbed her wrists and pinned them above her head in one swift movement. His body loomed over hers, powerful and intimidating.
"You still despise me?" he growled. "Let's talk about how you sleep with me that first night but called out Jonas's name in your sleep."
Freya froze. "What?"
His grip tightened. "Don't pretend you don't know. If it wasn't me that day, you would sleep with Jonas, wouldn't you? or any Alpha just for money?"
His words insulted her. In her anger, she slapped Niklaus across the face.
The sharp crack of the slap echoed in the room.
The anger in Niklaus's eyes burned even more fiercely.
"Am I wrong?" His face was inches from hers now. His breath was hot against her skin. "You claimed me as your mate in front of everyone and trapped me in this marriage. But your heart has always belonged to someone else."
Niklaus couldn't accept that Freya had forced her way into his life. Freya didn't get to decide when it was over.
Freya looked at Niklaus with some grievance. She was still being tormented by his humiliating words. He was accusing her of being a slut. Every time he brought up the public ceremony, Freya felt an unbearable sense of powerlessness.
He always unintentionally made her recall that desperate and humiliating night.
Now it seemed he hated her for taking away Rebekah's Luna position.
"Fine," she whispered harshly. "You're right about everything. I used you. Now I'm freeing up the position..."
Before she could finish, Niklaus silenced her with a dominating kiss.
Freya was stunned. Her hands pressed against his chest, trying futilely to push him away. However, what she got was a deeper and fiercer kiss. There was no tenderness, only possessive force.
He bit her lip. She tasted a hint of blood. She felt dizzy from lack of oxygen until his burning hands touched her and pulled her back to reality.
She turned her head to avoid his kiss. "Niklaus, let me go."
His hands released her wrists to slide down her sides. His fingers dug into her hips. The shirt rode up as he pressed against her. His body was hard and unyielding.
"Tell me you don't want this," he demanded against her lips. "Tell me to stop."
Freya couldn't form words. Her body left her gasping and arching into him despite herself. But even as her body surrendered, she noticed something had changed. The desperation in his touch felt different. It was more genuine than any intimacy they'd shared before.
His hands moved to the buttons of her borrowed shirt. He popped them open skillfully. As his mouth traveled down her neck, Freya closed her eyes. She hated herself for wanting this, for wanting him.
Suddenly, a shrill ringing cut through the room. Niklaus froze. His head snapped toward the sound. His phone glowed on the nightstand, displaying a name that made Freya's stomach drop.
Rebekah
For a moment, he didn't move. Then, slowly, he pulled away from Freya. The glow in his eyes dimmed as he reached for the phone.
His gaze met hers. Conflict was evident in his expression. Then he looked at the phone again and stood up.
"Rebekah? What's wrong?" His voice was controlled now, professional. All traces of passion were gone.
Freya watched as his face transformed from confused to concerned. She couldn't hear what was being said on the other end, but she could see its effect on Niklaus.
"I'll be right there," he said firmly. "Try to stay calm."
He ended the call and immediately began gathering his things.
"What happened?" Freya asked, pulling the shirt closed over her exposed skin.
"She can't feel her legs," Niklaus said tersely. "She's panicking."
"So you're just going to leave?" Freya couldn't keep the bitterness from her voice. "In the middle of the night? In the middle of... this?"
He paused, looking at her disheveled on the bed. For a second, she thought he might stay. Then his expression hardened.
"She needs me."
The three simple words cut deeper than any knife.
Without another word, Niklaus strode to the door and yanked it open. In the hallway, he nearly collided with his mother.
Margaret's eyes widened at the sight of her fully dressed son. "Where are you going at this hour?"
"Work emergency," Niklaus lied smoothly.
"But... but the soup," Margaret stammered. "You drank so much chicken soup. Are you sure you can focus on work?"
"I'm an Alpha. What effect does that little medicine have on me? Don't drug me next time."
Niklaus left quickly.
"Not drugged! Enhanced," Margaret corrected quickly. "It's just herbs to lower inhibitions. I was worried about my grandchildren!"
In the silence of the bedroom, Freya touched her swollen lips. Her body still hummed with unfulfilled desire. It was a cruel reminder of what almost happened. What might have happened if Rebekah hadn't called.
He chose her, she thought bitterly. He'll always choose her.
Vicki whimpered inside her. He is ours. We can still fight for him.
"No," Freya whispered aloud. "I'm done fighting for someone who doesn't want me."
She pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.
Tonight had shattered her last remaining illusion.
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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?