Her Final Act of Vengeance
My husband, Conrad, pulled me from the abyss after my brother died, saving me when I had nothing. He promised to protect me forever. But for ten years, his endless affairs and cruel mind games have been a slow poison, leaving me with a terminal illness and a broken spirit.
The final blow came on our tenth anniversary. He gave my gift-an emerald necklace I' d dreamed of since our honeymoon-to his mistress, Aubrey.
But that wasn't enough. He then gave her the last piece of my brother I had left: his final symphony. She scribbled on the pages, used them as a coaster, and called his life's work "garbage."
As my body failed, I realized the man who swore to save me had weaponized my deepest traumas to destroy me. My love curdled into a cold, quiet rage.
Now, drowning in guilt, he has destroyed Aubrey to atone for his sins. He kneels by my deathbed, begging for forgiveness, promising to do anything to earn it.
He has no idea my final act of revenge requires his absolute devotion.
And his life.
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Chapter 3
Chaos erupted around me. Gasps, shrieks, a cacophony of fear and confusion as people scattered, their elegant composure shattered. Conrad, his face a thundercloud, was already pulling Aubrey to her feet, his arm protectively around her. He didn't spare me a glance as he maneuvered her through the throng, disappearing into the panicked crowd. He was gone, absorbed by the chaos, leaving me alone on the cold marble floor.
The pain in my head was a relentless hammer, each throb echoing the hollowness in my chest. My limbs felt heavy, unresponsive. My breath came in ragged gasps, the glittering lights above swirling into a terrifying vortex. The sensation of being trapped, suffocated, overwhelmed me. My phobia, dormant for so long, clawed its way to the surface. I was drowning.
Just as I tried to push myself up, a sharp kick landed on my side. "You bitch!" Aubrey hissed, her face contorted with fury, her perfect makeup smeared. Her emerald necklace, miraculously still clasped around her throat, glinted defiantly. "You thought you could get away with that? You thought you could ruin my night?"
Another kick landed, this one harder, just below my ribs. A gasp escaped my lips, the air knocked out of my lungs. My body convulsed, a wave of nausea crashing over me again. My stomach heaved, but there was nothing left to give. Just dry, wrenching spasms that left me weak and gasping.
"Conrad!" I choked out, a desperate, raw plea escaping my lips before I could stop it. The sound was pathetic, even to my own ears. A desperate cry for the very man who had just pushed me away.
Aubrey' s eyes sharpened, a cruel smile forming on her lips. She knelt beside me, her designer gown rustling. "Conrad? Oh, sweetie, he' s gone. And he' s not coming back for you." Her hand, adorned with a massive diamond ring, clamped around my jaw, forcing my head to the side. "He told me everything. About your precious brother, Leo. How you were worthless without him. How you cling to Conrad because he 'saved' you. Pathetic."
The words hit me harder than any physical blow. They were Conrad' s words, twisted and spat from Aubrey' s venomous tongue. My mind reeled, a torrent of memories rushing back, threatening to drag me under.
The car crash. The mangled metal, the scent of burning rubber and blood. Leo, so full of life, so vibrant, silenced in an instant. And me, the survivor, trapped in the wreckage, watching his light fade, unable to help. The guilt had been a living thing, gnawing at my insides, leaving me hollow, an empty shell. My parents, consumed by their own grief, had pushed me away, unable to look at the living reminder of their lost son. "You should have been more careful," my mother had whispered, her eyes devoid of warmth. "You were older. You should have protected him." Their words, like daggers, had twisted in the wound of my guilt, festering for years. I was utterly alone, adrift in a sea of grief and blame.
Then Conrad had appeared, a beacon in my darkness. He had found me, a broken girl haunting the derelict conservatory where Leo and I used to play. He listened patiently as I poured out my heart, my guilt, my shattered dreams. He saw the music in me, the remnants of a talent I thought was lost forever. He lifted me from the ashes, gave me a new purpose, a new reason to live. He was my savior, my anchor, my everything. He promised me a life, a future, a family. He promised to protect me.
And now, he had betrayed that trust, not just with his body, but with my deepest, most sacred wound. He had given Aubrey the ammunition to destroy me, to mock the very foundation of my existence. He had made a mockery of Leo' s memory.
A searing pain, sharper than anything before, shot through my lower back. My vision went dark for a second. My body was failing, quickly now. The tremor in my hands had spread, my entire left side now a leaden weight.
"Janie!" A voice, distant and muffled, cut through the haze. Conrad. He was calling my name, frantic.
I tried to answer, to scream, to reach out. "Conrad...!" But only a raw croak escaped my throat, barely a whisper. My hands scrabbled at the polished floor, trying to find purchase, trying to move.
Aubrey's body stiffened. She grabbed my phone from where it had fallen, its cracked screen still lit. "Don't bother, sweetheart," she hissed, her voice a low, cunning triumph. "He' s with me." Her fingers flew across the screen, typing rapidly. Then she pressed the phone against my ear. "Conrad? Yes, darling, I' m fine. Just a little shaken by the commotion. Janie? Oh, she's probably just sulking somewhere. You know how she gets. Let's just go, I'm exhausted." Her voice was sickly sweet, a performance for him.
I heard Conrad's muffled reply, then the distant sound of his voice fading, receding. He was leaving. He was really leaving. Again. With her. He didn't even look for me.
Aubrey removed the phone, a triumphant smirk on her face. "See? I told you." She tossed the phone back onto the floor, where it landed with a soft thud. Just as she turned to leave, the screen flickered, a new text message popping up from Conrad.
"Janie, where are you? Don't play these games with me. Come home. We need to talk."
I stared at the message, then at Aubrey' s retreating back, her gown shimmering as she disappeared. A bitter, broken laugh bubbled up from my chest, dry and rasping. The irony was a punch to the gut. He wanted to talk now? After all this?
My eyes burned, but I wouldn't cry. Not now. Not for him. I saw the pattern, clear as day. His cycle of betrayal, his feigned remorse, his manipulative attempts to pull me back into his orbit. He was a master puppeteer, and I was just his favorite doll. My heart hardened, turning to ice.
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7.6
Warning: This book contains a large number of very hot adult scenes!
"Look at the state of you, my little she-wolf," his voice was low and full of menace, like sandpaper scraping across my nerves. "You got this wet just from that?"
Then he pressed a hard kiss to my knuckles.
Fuck!
His rough tongue slid across my slender finger bones, tasting the salty sweat and fear on my skin.
A violent tremor shot through my whole body.
A moan I couldn't suppress slipped from between my lips. "Ah. Sebastian."
I felt my thighs rubbing together on their own, that damn traitorous movement making my pussy clench so tight I nearly came.
Yes, that's it, you desperate little bitch.
I cursed myself in my mind.
He flipped my hand over, his thumb pressing hard-almost punishingly-into the sensitive skin on the inside of my wrist.
My pulse pounded there beneath his palm like it was going mad.
"This is beating so hard," he whispered, his breath hot against my skin, "is it beating for me, Seraphina? Tell me."
Then he took one of my fingers into his damn hot, wet mouth.
Oh God.
His rough tongue swirled, rubbed, scraped along the skin of my finger, warm saliva soaking every inch.
And his eyes never left me-fixing on me like a beast locking onto prey.
He sucked softly at first, then suddenly with force.
That rhythm.
Fuck, he was fucking my finger with his mouth.
"Are you using this to fuck my mouth, Seraphina?"
He let my finger go with a filthy pop, seeing straight through my thoughts.
"Imagine this is my cock. Does it feel good, you filthy little she-wolf?"
My back arched uncontrollably, like the lowest kind of whore silently inviting him.
A broken, shameful whimper escaped my throat.
"Good. so good."
My scent thickened, wild floral heat and lust filling the air, swallowing the last of my reason.
I could feel the terrifying restraint in his body cracking apart.
He wanted to hear me moan his name as I came.
He wanted to bury himself inside my soaked, empty heat until I could feel nothing except his violent thrusts.
He moved to my middle finger, giving it the same obscene, thorough attention.
His tongue circled wickedly at the base, then pushed deep, sucking hard as if tasting the sweetest honey.
Fuck!
My hips jerked upward without control.
My other hand dug into the carpet, knuckles white, vision dissolving in the storm of desire swallowing me whole.
"I need you. to fill my pussy, Sebastian."
--
I grew up as a human in a wolf pack, but ironically, I ended up becoming the mate of the pack's Alpha. I thought I would fit perfectly into the wolves' world-until the day I caught my Alpha mate tangled with another she-wolf in the back seat of a car.
With trembling hands, I tricked him into signing the divorce papers-silently swearing revenge. But they didn't stop. His mother sent thugs to destroy me. His mistress tried to erase me. Even my coworkers wanted to use me.
That night, I nearly lost my life.
Until Alpha Sebastian found me-cold, ruthless, unmatched. He said he didn't need a mate.
But he protected me like a mate. Touched me like a mate. Looked at me like a mate, as if I already belonged to him.
I tried to resist his approach. I didn't want to make the same mistake twice. Wolves would never accept a human mate.
But whenever he came near me, whenever those scorching hands reached for me, I always hungered for him-wanted more-yet I was done with promises.
Until I discovered that my past was not simple at all-and Sebastian had his own reasons for approaching me-
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."
9.1
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.
8.6
I'm an assassin for the Snicker pack, cold and relentless. My mission? Kill Alpha Ronan of a rival pack in three months.
Five attempts. Five failures. All thanks to my incompetent partner. One time, he even gave me an overtime drug. Pathetic.
The deadline was here, and I couldn't do it. I couldn't kill him.
"I won't do it. Just let me die instead," I told my partner.
Silence. Days passed with no reply.
Then, on the final day, I found it-a secret buried deep in the mission......
9.1
He lifted his hand and brushed a strand of hair from my face, fingers grazing too gently. I snapped, "How many times do I have to tell you not to touch me?" His mouth curved, the faintest smirk. "You walked in here looking like a fucking temptation. And you think I'm not supposed to touch?" I tilted my chin, refusing to back down. "Funny. I thought you said I didn't look good." He leaned closer, voice low, eyes burning through me. "You don't look good. You look dangerous." My chest tightened, heat crawling under my skin. I rolled my eyes, masking the pull I refused to admit. "Get lost," I muttered, shoving against him. "You're mine, Tessa,"
******
His Biker Girl | swore l'd never get tangled up with bikers. Then I met him.
Jason "Viper" Kane, the ruthless prince of the Black Serpents.
Arrogant. Untouchable. Dangerous. Every girl on campus wants him, but not me. He thought I'd be easy to break. He was wrong.
Her Biker Prince She's fire wrapped in leather, and every time she rides, she tempts me closer to the edge. Tessa Monroe, bold, defiant, impossible to control. I wanted to crush her pride, ruin that ego, make her beg. But the more I chase her, the more I burn. She's the one thing I shouldn't want. And the only thing l'll never let go.
8.6
Today was my father's grand second wedding, but for me, it was the anniversary of my mother's death.
My new stepmother, Marley, who was only four years older than me, cornered me. To establish her dominance as the new Luna, she ordered her servants to force me to my knees and violently ripped my late mother's necklace from my neck.
It was the only memento my mother had left me. Marley sneered, threw it to the ground, and shattered the gems. When I scrambled to pick up the broken pieces, she dug her high-heeled shoe into the back of my hand, mocking me as dirty trash. No one stepped in to help. My father was too busy celebrating his new marriage under the dazzling lights, completely erasing my mother's memory and leaving me to be abused in my own pack.
My heart was full of grievance and despair. Why did my mother's lifelong devotion end with her grave desolate and her daughter humiliated? I swore I would never become a weak, discarded she-wolf whose life depended on a man.
Desperate to escape the suffocating wedding, I ran outside and stumbled right into the chest of a terrifying stranger.
"No one should ever touch what is precious to you."
His golden eyes blazed with fury as sparks instantly shot through my veins. He was Kade Blackwood, the ruthless Alpha of the feared Blood Moon Pack—and my fated mate.