Diagnosed With Cancer, I Got My True Mate
I used to devote everything to Natalie-working three jobs to put her through school, ignoring my own dreams, enduring a wrecked stomach from skipped meals. But she chose Brandon, driven by ambition and his family's influence, leaving me heartbroken.
I returned to my small hometown, where I met Lucy after saving her from a heart episode on a mountain.
She stuck by me when I was diagnosed with stomach cancer, supporting me through surgery and recovery, showing me quiet, steady care I'd never had. When she confessed her love, I realized this was the love I deserved.
I asked her to be my mate.
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Chapter 5
The phone connects, but it's Brandon's voice on the other end. "Hello? Natalie was up all night in the lab. She just crashed. What's up?"
Aaron's eyes glint with pity as he stares at me. "Hear that? The she-wolf you'd die for doesn't give a damn about you. She's too busy with another wolf."
"Pathetic."
Brandon's tone sharpens, sensing trouble. "Who is this? What's going on?"
"Don't worry about who I am," Aaron sneers. "Tell Natalie to get here now, or you'll be picking up this wolf's body."
He hangs up and starts tearing into Natalie and her mom with the vilest insults, lumping me in for good measure. The pain's numbing my body, but what scares me more is the thought of Natalie showing up. What happens if she does? Will they hurt her? Threaten her?
I'm shaking, swallowed by dread.
After what feels like forever, the warehouse door creaks open. Footsteps echo. My heart stops as I look up.
It's just Brandon.
He exchanges a few low words with Aaron, whose face twists through a dozen emotions before he shoots me a cold smirk. "Lucky day, pup."
He and his goons clear out. Brandon hurries over, untying my ropes and helping me up. "I'm getting you to a healer," he says, his voice shaky.
Blood fills my mouth; I can't speak. I let him half-carry me to his car.
At the hospital, the healer patches me up, fitting me with temporary fake teeth. Brandon stands nearby, wincing at the sight of me.
"Thanks for taking the hit for Natalie," he says quietly. "I worked out a deal with her brother. He won't bother her again."
I croak, "What deal?"
He looks at me for a long moment, then shakes his head. "You wouldn't get it."
"All you need to know," he adds, pausing, "is that with me around, Natalie won't end up like her mom."
I stare at his calm, confident face and realize he's right. I don't get it. He can handle problems I'd bleed out trying to solve. Natalie's always needed someone like him, not me.
I nod, my voice barely a whisper. "Don't ever tell Natalie about this."
Over the next few days, I nurse my wounds and wander the pack one last time. The little diner where we had our first stew is gone, replaced by some upscale steakhouse. The alley behind the school's been redone-no trace of the overhang we huddled under during rainstorms. Even the old tree by the river's been cut down, swapped for a scenic lookout with fancy neon lights that glow at night.
Standing by the river, staring at the glittering skyline across the water, it hits me: I never belonged in this pack. But Natalie? She's put down roots, grown into someone I can only look up to.
My phone buzzes. It's Natalie. "Where you at?" Her voice is as cool as ever.
I send her my location, and within twenty minutes, she's standing next to me by the river.
"What're you doing out here alone?" she asks, her gaze fixed on the water.
"Just thinking about old times," I say softly. "You remember when we first came to this pack?"
She's quiet for a bit, then says flatly, "Don't get stuck in the past. Gotta move forward."
I freeze, turning to her. "You. don't miss any of it?"
"Nope," she says, her tone steady, almost cold. "I hate it, even."
My heart lurches. I want to ask, Do you hate the years we spent leaning on each other, too? But the words choke in my throat.
"You're right," I manage, forcing a smile. "We both gotta move on."
Each to our own path.
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9.3
On her wedding night at The Plaza Hotel, Clara went looking for her husband.
Instead, she found him in the dimly lit parking garage, passionately pinning down her bridesmaid.
She couldn't even scream or expose them. Just hours before the ceremony, Julian had tricked her into signing away her twenty percent shares of their co-founded company, leaving her completely penniless and unable to pay her grandmother's life-saving medical bills.
Fleeing in absolute despair, a sudden hotel blackout plunged her into a second nightmare. She was dragged into a pitch-black room and brutally violated by a heavily drugged stranger.
When a shattered Clara returned to the office to audit the books and reclaim her power, Julian demoted her to a dusty desk by the trash cans.
He flaunted his mistress in the executive suite and deliberately sent Clara into a horrifying trap. He arranged for vicious clients to drug and assault her, demanding high-definition blackmail photos so he could divorce her with absolutely nothing.
"Since you want to play rough, you can service Mr. Petrocelli tonight," the thug sneered, locking the VIP room door.
Clara was pushed to the brink of hell. Why was the man she devoted three years of her life to trying to destroy her so completely? And why did the freezing cedarwood scent of the stranger who ruined her in the dark perfectly match Conrad Vance, the ruthless CEO and Julian's untouchable uncle?
Rather than let Julian win, Clara smashed a glass bottle, held the jagged edge to her own throat to force the men back, and threw herself off the second-floor balcony into the freezing night.
But the bone-crushing impact never came. A massive figure shot out from the shadows and caught her, and her brutal counterattack finally began.
7.7
Eva Brooks, a 25-year-old woman, was set up by her best friend. Her fiancé broke up with her and demanded compensation for allegedly cheating on him.
Eva had a one-night stand with the richest CEO in Dominic City, Ethan Owen. He was arrogant and offered her a job as his secretary.
As his secretary, Ethan couldn't shake his fondness for Eva. He became obsessed with her, worrying that she was cheating on him.
He broke up with his fiancée to become engaged to Eva, but will his fiancée let him go? Will Eva accept a relationship with her boss?
8.7
"You're leaving," Lorenzo said softly.
Ivy straightened her spine and raised her chin. "I am. I'm getting out of this place even if it means climbing over the front gates. I can't stay here anymore. I'm leaving!"
"You can't," Lorenzo said flatly. "Not now."
"Watch me," Ivy hissed, brushing past him.
Lorenzo stepped in her way and grabbed her by the arms-not roughly, but firmly.
"I mean it, Ivy. You can't leave," he said tightly.
She struggled against his grip, her bag falling to the floor with a thud.
"Let me go, Lorenzo! I don't belong here. This place is insane. Your family is insane!"
"You belong to me," he said sharply, eyes burning into hers. "And it's my job to protect what's mine."
"I don't want to be yours," Ivy cried. "I want to be free! I want to live!"
Something shifted in Lorenzo's face. He looked at her then, not as an obligation, not as a pawn, but as a person. A frightened, strong, beautiful woman who had been caught in a storm she never asked for. And something in him cracked.
Lorenzo reached down and cupped her face with both hands. Ivy flinched at first but didn't pull away. His thumbs wiped away the tears rolling down her cheeks.
"I never wanted to hurt you," he said quietly.
Her lower lip trembled. "Then let me go..."
"I can't," he whispered.
And then, without thinking, he leaned in and kissed her.
***************
Ivy Wesley believed that marrying a wealthy stranger would be her golden escape from a life of struggle. Lorenzo Martinelli was supposed to be her way out: her fresh start, her answer to every prayer whispered in the dark.
But the moment the mansion doors shut behind her, Ivy understood the truth. She hadn't stepped into a fairy tale. She had walked straight into the lion's den.
The whispers about the Martinelli family's ties to the Mafia aren't just rumors; they're real, and now Ivy is bound to them by a ring on her finger and secrets she can never unlearn. There is no undoing this choice. No clean exit. Not after what she's seen. Not after what she knows.
Surrounded by dangerous alliances, ruthless power plays, and truths sharp enough to draw blood, Ivy finds herself caught in a world where trust is a luxury and loyalty can be lethal. Yet in the middle of the chaos, something even more unexpected takes root: a love she never planned for, never prepared for, and may not survive.
Now Ivy faces an impossible choice: run while she still can, or stand her ground beside the man who could destroy her as easily as he protects her. In a world where betrayal lurks behind every polished smile and devotion can cost a life, can their love endure... or will it be the very thing that brings everything crashing down?
9.6
For a decade, I was the perfect wife to tech mogul Carson Jarvis. I cleaned up every scandal and endured every affair, trapped by my father's "poison pill" inheritance clause that would leave me with nothing if I divorced him.
His latest mistress was pregnant, but that wasn't what finally broke me. It was when he shut down our mansion's power grid for their tryst-and turned off my grandmother's life support.
He murdered her.
At a charity auction days later, he paraded his new love while she announced her pregnancy. When I confronted her for stealing my money, Carson watched as his guards broke my arm, leaving me bleeding on the floor while he comforted her.
He thought I was his unbreakable wife, a possession with nowhere else to go. He expected me to clean up this mess, just like all the others.
He was wrong. As I watched him shield her during the chaos of an explosion I secretly arranged, I knew my old life was over.
Tonight, the world would learn of my death. And with it, Carson Jarvis would lose everything.
8.9
I walked in on my fiancé sleeping with my maid of honor...
On the day of our wedding.
I did what anyone would do:
Threw my ring in his face and found somewhere quiet to cry.
But then something else happened.
Something unexpected.
In that quiet place...
Someone found me.
Anton Stepanov is like something out of a dream.
Scratch that: out of a nightmare.
He's rich as sin, arrogant as heck, and way too handsome for his own good.
He's also way too handsome for mine.
So when he offers me his hand and a way out of the worst day of my life, I do the only thing I can do:
I say yes.
That's how I ended up on his yacht.
That's how I ended up in his bed.
That's how I ended up pregnant with his baby.
9.0
Seventeen years after going missing, Brooklyn was finally brought back to her ultra-wealthy biological family.
But instead of a tearful reunion, her parents and sisters treated her like infectious garbage, mocking her cheap clothes and calling her a country bumpkin.
They dumped her into a remedial class to hide her away, cut off her allowance, and threatened to lock down her trust fund to force her into absolute submission.
One night, Brooklyn stood in the shadows of the estate and overheard a conversation that shattered everything.
She hadn't wandered off as a child.
Her parents had deliberately thrown her away because a fake fortune teller claimed her birth chart was a jinx to the family's wealth.
They felt zero remorse, only plotting to banish her again the moment she turned eighteen.
Her biological father thought he was putting a leash on a helpless, uneducated girl by cutting off her pocket change.
He had no idea that Brooklyn was the anonymous VIP who casually dropped sixty million dollars on an emerald at the city's most exclusive auction.
He didn't know she was the elusive medical genius that the world's most powerful billionaires were currently tearing the city apart to find.
The last microscopic shred of hope for a family withered into cold ash in her chest.
"Lock down my trust fund?"
She pulled out her encrypted phone and activated her shadow networks, severing herself entirely from their pathetic surveillance.
Since they believed she was a jinx, she was going to show them exactly what a real curse looked like.