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 6
At 8,10 PM at Le Ciel, Niklaus sat in a private room, checking his watch again. Freya was late.
Rebekah sat across from him, her brown hair falling over her shoulders. She sat with perfect posture and her designer dress fit perfectly. She sipped her champagne before sighing.
"Your Luna certainly likes to make an entrance," she said with a fake sweet voice. "Is she always this late?"
Niklaus felt annoyed. Freya was never late. She was always ready five minutes early.
"Traffic might be bad," he said shortly.
Flex growled in his mind. "She's speaking ill of our mate."
Niklaus told his wolf to calm down.
Rebekah pressed her painted lips together but quickly smiled brightly. "Well, while we wait, let me tell you about Paris! The ballet academy was incredible. The director said I have the best extension he's seen in years."
Niklaus nodded, barely listening as Rebekah talked about her European trips. His mind went back to three years ago. When he hadn't properly explained finding his fated mate, she ran off to Europe.
The guilt had bothered him ever since. He knew Rebekah really cared about him, and she had been groomed to be his Luna. Finding out he had a fated mate must have hurt her badly.
But he needed to be clear with Rebekah now. Three years had passed, and no matter how his arrangement with Freya started, she was his Luna now. Having Freya here for dinner would make that clear to Rebekah without any awkward talks.
His phone buzzed. Niklaus looked down at the screen and frowned. It was a credit card alert. Freya had just spent a huge amount at The Royal Crescent Hotel.
"What the hell?" he said, staring at the screen.
What was Freya doing there instead of coming to dinner?
His jaw tightened. The card was linked to his personal account. He'd given it to Freya. In three years, she barely used it.
"Is everything alright?" Rebekah asked, leaning forward with fake concern.
Before Niklaus could answer, a loud crash of breaking glass filled the restaurant. He looked up and saw a man in black clothes charging toward their table with a gun.
The attacker fired without hesitation.
Niklaus's instincts kicked in. He could have dodged the shot, but Rebekah was faster. She threw herself in front of him just as the gun fired. The silver bullet hit her in the lower back, and she collapsed, screaming in pain.
Chaos broke out in the restaurant. Security guards tackled the shooter, and Niklaus knelt beside Rebekah. Her face had gone white.
"Someone call an ambulance!" he shouted, pressing his hand on her wound to stop the bleeding.
Rebekah whimpered in pain. "Nik... it hurts so much."
His stomach dropped. Silver bullets were deadly to werewolves. Even a small hit could paralyze temporarily. A hit near the spine could be terrible.
"Hold on," he said, lifting her carefully. "I'm taking you to the hospital."
As he carried Rebekah to his car, a thought crossed his mind, if Freya had been here, she might have been hurt instead. With her smaller frame and weaker wolf, a silver bullet could have killed her instantly. Maybe her absence wasn't such a bad thing.
At the hospital, the emergency team rushed Rebekah into surgery immediately. Niklaus was left alone in the waiting room.
Four hours later, the surgeon came out of the operating room. Rebekah was being wheeled out, her face as pale as the sheets covering her body.
Niklaus walked quickly to the doctor. "How is she?"
The doctor looked at his chart. "The silver bullet grazed her spine but the damage could be severe. We need to watch her closely though."
Rebekah, now awake but groggy, looked up at the doctor. "Will this affect my dancing career?" Her voice shook slightly.
The doctor looked cautious. "We'll have to wait and see how you recover, but there's hope."
Tears filled Rebekah's eyes. She turned to Niklaus. "Thank you for staying with me. You should go home now, I'll be--"
"No," the doctor said firmly. "She needs someone to stay with her."
Rebekah started to object, but Niklaus cut her off. "I'll stay tonight. You need to rest."
After knowing each other for so many years, Rebekah knew his tone meant no arguing. Still, she looked uncertain. "I'm grateful, but should I call Freya to explain?"
Niklaus paused, his jaw tightening. "That's not necessary."
He spent the night in an uncomfortable hospital chair, watching Rebekah's vitals and thinking about the hotel charge. Every time he thought about calling Freya, something stopped him. Pride, maybe. Or the worry that she might not be alone at that hotel.
"She wouldn't do that to us," Flex growled. "She's our mate."
"But she doesn't love us," Niklaus said quietly.
By dawn, Niklaus was exhausted and irritable. He left the hospital only after the nurse said Rebekah was stable.
When he finally got home, his housekeeper Martha was already busy in the kitchen. She looked up in surprise.
"Alpha, you weren't home last night? Would you like some breakfast?"
"No," he replied shortly. His head was pounding from no sleep, and his mood was bad. He asked, "Where's Freya?"
"I think Luna Freya went to the office already. I haven't seen her since I got here," Martha replied. She didn't seem to know anything was wrong. Freya had given the staff the night off yesterday for their anniversary dinner.
Niklaus looked at his watch. It was almost 8 AM, and Freya was usually eating breakfast now. She hadn't come home last night. Was she still at that hotel? And with who?
His face darkened. Martha, still not noticing his mood, came over with a package.
"Alpha, this was delivered this morning. Someone sent you a package."
Niklaus took it without thinking, tearing open the envelope as Martha poured him coffee. The bold words "Divorce Agreement" at the top of the first page made his blood run cold.
He quickly scanned the document, his anger rising with each page. When he reached the asset division section, he let out a cold laugh. "How thorough."
Every property, car, bank account, and stock he owned were neatly divided in half.
"You've got quite the ambition, don't you?" he murmured.
Martha, who had seen the word "divorce," froze in place. She clearly wanted to disappear.
Niklaus grabbed his phone and dialed a number, divorce papers still in his hand.
After several rings, a sleepy female voice answered.
"What is it?"
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9.3
Born into privilege, Eleanor never imagined her life could shatter in a single night. Then her father disappeared with his mistress, her mother fell from a building and slipped into a coma, and everything she once owned turned to dust.
Determined not to ruin Jonathan's future with her family's disgrace, she ended their relationship and became the bride of a man trapped in a vegetative state.
She believed that was the last time their paths would cross. But two years later, Jonathan pinned her in the dark and whispered, "Long time no see, my sister-in-law."
7.6
To pay for her father's life support, Haleigh sold herself into a marriage with Fabian Blackburn, a ruthless billionaire in a deep coma.
But on her wedding day, she caught her boyfriend cheating with her stepsister, laughing about how they would steal the inheritance the second Fabian stopped breathing. Cornered and desperate, Haleigh secretly underwent IVF using her comatose husband's frozen sperm to secure the family trust.
Weeks later, a miracle happened. Fabian woke up.
But instead of gratitude, he treated her like trash. He threw annulment papers at her face, completely disgusted by the arranged marriage.
"If you try any dirty tricks to get pregnant, I will personally drag you to a clinic and have that bastard scraped out of you."
Terrified, Haleigh hid her positive pregnancy test and desperately tried to hack her way to enough cash to escape. But while using his computer, she accidentally opened a highly classified folder.
Inside was a medical file and a photo of a severely disabled girl who looked exactly like Fabian.
Before she could process it, Fabian walked in. Seeing the screen, his cold mask shattered into pure, unhinged madness. He lunged across the room, lifting her off the floor by her throat, completely ignoring her desperate gasps for air.
"Lock her in the basement," he roared to his guards. "No food. No water."
Curled on the freezing concrete, clutching her newly pregnant belly, Haleigh didn't understand what she had just seen that turned him into a murderous monster.
But she knew one thing: if she didn't escape this terrifying estate, both she and his unborn heir would die in the dark.
8.5
For five years, I was tech billionaire Alden Maxwell' s secret. A pretty accessory on his arm, a deal I made to save my father' s life. I played my part, quietly planning my escape for the day our contract ended.
But then his first love, Amanda, came back.
At a lavish auction, he spent ten million dollars to outbid me for my own mother' s heirloom bangle, only to place it on Amanda' s wrist, calling it a "token of his undying affection."
Later, he told me I was just practice. A "little bird" he could use to learn how to be gentle before he went back to his true love.
That' s when the last of my foolish hope died. I was never a person to him, just a transaction he could buy and discard.
So I disappeared. I took a five-year, off-grid research position and cut all ties. When he finally tracked me down, begging me to name my price, I faced him through the sterile glass of the facility and gave him my final answer.
"We' re done."
9.5
Bridget left the office early on her anniversary, her pocket heavy with a custom velvet ring box meant for her fiancé.
But when she pushed open the bedroom door, she found him tangled in their bed with her best friend, Chloe.
"Bridget! Wait, it's not what it looks like!" Jacob stammered, his eyes wide with panic.
"Evidence," Bridget stated coldly, snapping a photo of their naked bodies before fleeing into the freezing New York night.
Desperate to numb the betrayal, she got blackout drunk at an underground lounge and threw herself at a dark, terrifyingly handsome stranger.
She woke up in a penthouse suite alone, finding only a limitless black credit card left on the nightstand.
Humiliated and feeling like a cheap escort, she ran away, swearing to forget the nightmare.
But the nightmare had just begun. When she rushed into the office, she discovered the stranger was Jevon Rocha—the ruthless billionaire CEO of her company.
He didn't fire her. Instead, he trapped her in a twisted, obsessive power game, forcing her into his private life and demanding she report to his penthouse.
Bridget couldn't understand why a ruthless billionaire was so dangerously fixated on a low-level employee.
Until she stumbled upon his secret social media account and saw a crayon drawing of a little kid, captioned with a single word: "Finally."
A wave of absolute horror washed over her. He wasn't just playing games; he was hiding a secret child and a messy, high-stakes family drama.
She refused to be the naive collateral damage in a billionaire's twisted life.
Trembling, Bridget hit "Block" on his profile, determined to escape his dangerous web.
7.2
I spent my whole life trying to fit into the "Kensington aesthetic," dyeing my hair blonde and playing dumb just to earn a crumb of my father's approval. But when the manor went up in flames, I realized I was never a daughter to them-I was just an inconvenience.
I lay pinned under a heavy oak beam, the smell of copper and burnt sugar filling my lungs. My father, Arthur, stood in the doorway with my brothers, looking like a phalanx of saviors, but their eyes weren't on me.
They rushed past my outstretched, bloody hand to save my sister, Karly, who was huddled in a corner without a scratch on her. My brother Archer scooped her up like spun glass, stepping over my crushed leg without a second glance. Just before they crossed the threshold, Karly looked back at me and smiled-a small, victorious, terrifying smile. My father didn't offer help; he just shouted that I was an arsonist and slammed the door, sentencing me to burn alive in my own bedroom.
As the crystal chandelier melted and crashed toward me, I didn't feel fear anymore. I felt a guttural, distilled hate for the family that left me to die because of a lie. I had spent my life begging for scraps at a table that was never meant for me, and I died realizing they never loved me at all.
"If I come back," I promised into the void, "I will burn you all down."
I gasped for air and woke up in my bed, the smell of lavender replacing the smoke. It was September 14th, five years before the fire, the exact week I had started ruining myself to please them. I looked in the mirror, scrubbed off the pathetic makeup mask, and realized the old, desperate Kala was dead. If I was going to burn, I'd make sure they were the ones who felt the heat first.
"Queen is back online," I whispered.
9.5
Zara grew up with nothing but resilience and ambition. Raised in an orphanage, she fought her way into the corporate world, believing education would be her salvation and love her reward. When she married Dante, a powerful CEO, she thought she had finally found both.
She was wrong.
Behind closed doors, Zara's marriage became a nightmare of cruelty, betrayal, and calculated malice. Stripped of her career, manipulated through her own child, and nearly killed by the very family she married into, Zara is forced to face a devastating truth: she was never meant to survive.
When she walks away from everything with no money, no protection, and only her dignity Zara makes one promise: she will return.
What she doesn't expect is to uncover a shocking secret about her past one that reveals she was stolen as a child, her life destroyed by a conspiracy rooted in greed and revenge. Reclaimed by her real family and armed with power she never knew was hers, Zara rises from the ashes stronger than ever.
This time, she isn't fighting for love.
She's fighting for justice.
And revenge will be delicious.