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 5
"Aubrey's reality show deal fell through, by the way," Conrad said, his voice casual, as if discussing the weather. He was carefully slicing a pear for me, his movements precise, almost surgical. We were in the hospital room, a sterile bubble of false peace. "Apparently, her 'colorful' past has made her a liability. Can't have a social media darling with a history of gold-digging and breaking up homes, can we?" He paused, offering me a sliver of pear. "What do you think about it, Janie? About her latest setback?"
I watched the pear, then him. "I think," I said, my voice thin and reedy, "that it's precisely what she deserves." My chest spasmed, a sharp, searing pain shooting through my ribs. I winced, clutching my side.
Conrad' s hand froze mid-air. He dropped the pear, his eyes widening. "Janie! Are you okay?" He rushed to my side, his concern suddenly genuine, but I pushed him away, a wave of disgust washing over me. His presence, his touch, felt suffocating.
"Don't touch me!" I snapped, my voice cracking. The pain intensified, a burning inferno in my gut.
He recoiled, his face a mask of hurt and anger. "What the hell, Janie?! I'm trying to help you! I'm trying to make amends! What more do you want from me? I left Aubrey, didn't I? I came back to you! I'm here, aren't I?" He grabbed my shoulders, shaking me gently, but the movement sent another jolt of pain through my body. "Tell me, Janie! What do I have to do to make you forgive me? Do I have to grovel? Beg? Cut off a limb? Tell me!"
I looked at him, my eyes burning with a cold, dead fire. "Do you truly want to make amends, Conrad? Or are you just playing another one of your elaborate games?"
His eyes flashed, a dark storm brewing. "Games? You think I'm playing games, Janie? You're the one who cheated on me, you're the one who tried to ruin Aubrey's career, you're the one who drove me to a breakdown!" He shoved me backward onto the pillows, his face inches from mine, his eyes welling up with tears. Real tears, for once. "You broke me, Janie! You destroyed everything we had!" He slammed his fist against the bed, his sobs wracking his body.
I stared at him, my heart a lump of ice. His tears meant nothing to me. They were just another performance, another attempt to manipulate. I had seen this act too many times. He was right about one thing, though. I had broken him. And it felt... good.
He pulled away, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, a sudden, chilling calm settling over his features. "You know what, Janie?" he said, his voice low and dangerous. "You are truly a monster. And you know what monsters deserve? To be destroyed. To be erased. I'll make you regret this." He turned and stalked out of the room, leaving the door ajar.
As he left, a wave of sickness washed over me, and I coughed, a violent, wracking cough that ended with a gush of blood pooling in my hand. My body was screaming, but my mind was clear. He was gone, but not without a theatrical exit. I watched the door, waiting. He hesitated, just for a second, his shadow framed in the doorway, then he disappeared. The bitter taste of blood mixed with the metallic tang of triumph.
Later that week, I saw it. A notification on my bedside tablet, an article from a gossip blog. "BREAKING: Influencer Aubrey Neal's Shady Past Exposed! Is Conrad Nicholson Her Latest Victim?" The accompanying image was blurry, but unmistakable-a close-up of Leo's symphony manuscript, its pages crumpled, splattered with what looked like red wine. Underneath, a caption from Aubrey's now-deleted Instagram: "Just a little 'artwork' for my new apartment. Conrad said it was garbage anyway."
My blood ran cold. He had given her Leo' s manuscript. My symphony, the one I had poured my heart and soul into, the last piece of Leo I had left. And she had desecrated it. She had called it garbage. My hands trembled, a primal rage coiling in my gut. This was too far. This was unforgivable.
I ripped the IV from my arm, ignoring the nurse' s startled cry as she rushed in. I stumbled out of the hospital bed, pulling on the first clothes I could find, my body screaming in protest. The pain was immense, but it was nothing compared to the fire burning in my soul. I needed to see her. I needed to make her pay.
I flagged down a taxi, my mind a blur of rage and pain. "Aubrey Neal's address," I gasped, the words catching in my throat. The driver gave me a strange look, but I didn't care. All I could see was Leo's defiled music, his memory mocked, his legacy spat upon.
When I arrived at Aubrey' s lavish penthouse, the door was ajar, the faint sounds of laughter drifting out. I pushed it open, my eyes scanning the opulent living room. And there they were. Conrad and Aubrey, entwined on the sofa, her hand stroking his hair, his head nestled in her lap. My emerald necklace glittered against her chest.
But it was what lay on the pristine white coffee table that truly stopped my heart. Leo's manuscript. Crumbled, stained, a half-eaten pizza box resting on its pages. A childish, crude drawing of a stick figure with devil horns had been scribbled across the opening bars of the melody. My brother' s face, in my portrait, was covered with spilled red wine.
"Conrad," I whispered, my voice raw, broken. "How could you?"
He looked up, his eyes widening in surprise. "Janie? What are you doing here?" He untangled himself from Aubrey, a flicker of annoyance in his eyes.
Aubrey, however, just smiled, a triumphant, venomous smirk. "Oh, look who it is. The ghost of a bitter past. Come to haunt us, Janie? Sorry, darling, we're not interested in your sad little melodies." She picked up the crumpled manuscript, holding it up like a trophy. "This old thing? Conrad said it was just sentimental garbage. I thought it made a lovely coaster."
A guttural growl escaped my throat. My body surged forward, fueled by a terrifying, animalistic rage. I lunged at her, my hands outstretched, craving to tear that smirk from her face. I wanted to scratch her eyes out, to make her feel a fraction of the pain she had inflicted. My fingers closed around her hair, yanking savagely.
She screamed, shrill and piercing. Conrad, reacting instantly, pulled me off her, his grip like iron. He threw me against the wall, my head hitting the plaster again. The shock rippled through my already damaged body. My vision swam, the room tilting precariously.
"You demon!" I screamed at him, my voice hoarse, raw with fury. "You utterly despicable, soulless demon! You gave her Leo's symphony! You let her desecrate his memory! I hate you! I hate you more than I could ever hate anyone!" My voice broke, choked with unshed tears.
I lunged at him again, a desperate, frantic attack. My fists pounded against his chest, weak, ineffectual blows. But I couldn't stop. I needed to hurt him, to make him feel a fraction of my agony. He caught my wrists, his gaze intense, a strange mix of anger and something else-a fleeting flicker of guilt?
"Janie, stop it!" he yelled, but his voice wavered. "You're insane!"
Just as he said the word, a violent spasm ran through my body. My muscles seized, my breath caught in my throat. My vision blurred, the edges of the room closing in. I felt a cold sweat break out on my forehead, my body trembling uncontrollably. My legs buckled beneath me.
Conrad, his face momentarily softening with alarm, caught me as I fell. His arms wrapped around me, pulling me close. My head rested against his chest, the familiar scent of his cologne, a mix of power and control, filling my nostrils. I heard his frantic heartbeat, felt the warmth of his body.
"Janie? Janie, what's wrong?" His voice was laced with genuine fear now, the anger gone, replaced by a desperate concern. He looked down at me, his eyes wide and panicked.
I looked up at him, my gaze clear, despite the pain that was ripping through me. "It's my disease, Conrad," I whispered, the words barely audible. A bitter, triumphant smile touched my lips. "It's terminal. I'm dying. And this time, there's no saving me."
His face went blank, then crumpled, his eyes filling with a raw, agonizing horror. He stared at me, his arms still wrapped around my rapidly weakening body, a silent scream frozen on his lips. Then, a single tear tracked a path down his cheek, a clear, devastating testament to his shock.
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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.