His Dead Lover In A New Body
Imogen Montgomery was the perfect billionaire heiress, deeply in love and ready to marry her fiancé, Clark Ellis.
That all ended the night her cousin Kathleen ripped the sapphire pendant from her neck and pushed her into a pool of toxic chemicals to die.
Two years later, Imogen's eyes snapped open. But she didn't wake up in a hospital. She woke up tied to a stained mattress, trapped in the battered body of Briana, a teenage girl from the slums who had just been sold to a local trafficker.
After violently fighting her way out of a cheap motel, she discovered the horrifying truth. Kathleen had taken over the Montgomery Group. She had locked Imogen's grieving parents away in a psychiatric facility as prisoners.
And worst of all, Kathleen was now flaunting her stolen wealth online, preparing to marry Clark.
A wave of pure, white-hot rage boiled in her blood. Kathleen had murdered her, stolen her family, and was playing the perfect grieving cousin. How was she supposed to fight back? She was just a runaway nobody now. If she tried to expose the truth, Kathleen's security would shoot her dead in the street.
She needed a weapon. She needed a shield. She needed the one man Kathleen feared.
Covered in mud and blood, Briana intercepted Clark's car in the freezing rain. She was going to infiltrate his home as his vulgar, unhinged fake mistress, and she would drag Kathleen straight down to hell.
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Chapter 4
The Range Rover pulled into the private alley behind a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
A bodyguard escorted Briana through the heavy steel back doors, leading her down a hallway lined with thick, sound-absorbing velvet carpets.
He pushed open a massive oak door. Inside the private dining room, low cello music played. Clark sat at the head of a long, black walnut table, slowly swirling a glass of dark red wine.
Briana intentionally dragged her feet, emphasizing her limp as she walked into the room. She kept her shoulders hunched, playing the terrified victim.
Clark didn't even look up. He picked up a thick manila envelope and tossed it onto the table. It hit the wood with a heavy smack.
Briana stopped. She stared at the envelope, her heart beating a rapid rhythm against her ribs. She calculated exactly how much he could have found out in an hour.
Clark tilted his chin toward the file. "Open it."
Briana bit her lower lip, letting her hand tremble as she reached out. She unwound the string and pulled out the papers.
The first page was a copy of Doyle's gambling debts from an underground casino. Attached to it was the transaction record of Doyle selling her to Preston for ten thousand dollars.
Briana forced her pupils to dilate. She let the tears spill over her lashes. Her shoulders began to shake violently.
She clutched the papers to her chest, her knees buckling. She collapsed into the chair, letting out a stifled, agonizing sob.
Clark watched her performance with dead, cold eyes. "You stabbed a man in the shoulder with broken glass and nearly severed his artery," he stated, his voice devoid of any pity.
The lie was exposed. Briana's crying stopped instantly. She lowered the papers. She looked up at him, the fake tears gone, replaced by the cornered, feral glare of a trapped animal.
Before she could speak, her stomach let out a loud, aggressive growl.
The sound shattered the heavy tension in the room. Briana's face flushed hot red. She dropped the file and stared directly at the steaming plate of Beef Wellington sitting in the center of the table.
Clark let out a short, humorless scoff. He gestured to the food. "Eat."
Briana didn't hesitate. She grabbed a fork and knife and tore into the expensive meat. She shoved huge pieces into her mouth, chewing with her mouth open, letting the rich gravy smear across her chin.
She ate like a starving dog. It was repulsive. It completely shattered any lingering illusion Clark might have had that this girl shared anything in common with the elegant, refined Imogen.
Clark watched her, a flicker of cold disappointment settling in his eyes. The absurd hope that had sparked in the car was irrational. This girl's desperation was raw, her vulgarity a harsh product of her environment. Whatever fleeting resemblance he had imagined was just that-a phantom conjured by his own mind. He would use her as a pawn, and when he was done, he would discard her. The mystery of her familiar gaze could wait.
Briana swallowed the last piece of meat. She grabbed a glass of lemon water and downed it in one gulp. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, smearing the grease further.
Her eyes were now crystal clear and sharp.
She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table. "I need your protection."
Clark leaned back in his chair, looking at her like she was a joke. "And why would I protect a slum girl with a murder charge hanging over her head?"
Briana's hands gripped the edge of the table. "Because you are being suffocated by your family's pressure to marry."
She stated the name of the socialite he was supposed to meet tonight-a detail she had deduced from her past life. She knew the Ellis matriarch's obsessive habits; the old woman always scheduled Clark's mandatory dates on the last Friday of the month, and she had caught a fleeting glimpse of a text notification flashing on Clark's phone screen earlier that confirmed the target.
The temperature in the room plummeted. Clark's eyes narrowed into lethal slits. Murderous intent rolled off him in waves.
Briana fought the urge to shrink back. Her palms were sweating, but she held his gaze. "I can be your perfect shield. I'll get rid of any woman you don't want to deal with."
She leaned closer. "Keep me alive, and I'll sign whatever contract you want. I'll be your most obedient dog."
Clark stared at her. His long fingers began to tap rhythmically against the armrest of his chair. Tap. Tap. Tap.
The silence stretched, thick and suffocating.
Suddenly, Clark's phone buzzed on the table. It was a text from his grandmother, demanding to know why he was late for his date.
A flash of pure annoyance crossed Clark's face. He flipped the phone face down. The corner of his mouth twitched upward into a cruel smirk.
"One month," Clark said, his voice like cracking ice. "You have a one-month trial. Starting tonight. You will get rid of the woman waiting for me."
Briana's lungs finally expanded. She stood up, grabbed the sides of her filthy jeans, and did a mocking, exaggerated curtsy. "Consider it done."
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9.1
I stood alone at the marble altar, the silence of the temple pressing against my eardrums.
It was my Mating Ceremony, but the groom was missing.
My phone buzzed with a notification: a livestream of my mate, Alpha Cain, skipping our union to welcome my sister, Eris, home.
In the video, he held her like she was fragile glass, captioning it: "True power recognizes true power."
When I returned to the Pack House, humiliated, I wasn't met with an apology.
I was met with a slap from my mother.
Eris, feigning a powerful "Alpha Aura," claimed my mere scent was poisoning her.
To "save" her, my family locked me in my room.
But the true betrayal came when I overheard their hushed whispers through the door.
"Use Vera," my mother said, her voice chillingly practical.
"She recovers fast. We can drain her blood weekly for Eris. She can stay as a servant to raise Cain and Eris's pups."
My blood ran cold.
They didn't just neglect me; they planned to harvest me like livestock.
They thought I was the weak Omega they exiled to the North years ago to peel potatoes.
They had no idea that in the North, I wasn't a servant.
I was Commander V, a warrior forged in ice and blood.
I reached under my bed and pulled out my black tactical duffel.
"Screw the meatloaf," I whispered.
I wasn't just leaving. I was going to war.
9.3
She sells flowers. He spills blood. And he will stop at nothing to make her his. Elena Rossi has always lived quietly among roses and lilies, dreaming of love as gentle as the petals she arranges. She thought she found it in Daniel, the man she planned to marry. Until her wedding day when a dangerous stranger walked into the church and shattered everything. Adrian Volkov is a king in the underworld, a man feared for his ruthlessness and power. But to him, Elena is not just a prize. She is an obsession. A storm he cannot live without. And he will burn the world and anyone in it, to claim her. Torn from the life she knew, Elena resists him, manipulates him, and even runs from him. But Adrian is relentless. His love is dark, his touch both punishing and tender, and his obsession inescapable. When betrayal and bloodshed close in, Elena must face the truth: She doesn't just fear him. She doesn't just hate him. She loves him. Petals and Blood is a haunting, passionate tale of obsession, betrayal, and the dangerous kind of love that blooms in shadows.
9.5
The first clue my life was a lie was a moan from the guest room. My husband of seven years wasn't in our bed. He was with my intern.
I discovered my husband, Brendan, was having a four-year affair with Kiya-the talented girl I was mentoring and personally paying tuition for.
The next morning, she sat at our breakfast table in his shirt while he made us pancakes. He lied to my face, promising he'd never love another, just before I learned she was pregnant with his child-a child he'd always refused to have with me.
The two people I trusted most in the world had conspired to destroy me. The pain wasn't something I could live with; it was an annihilation of my entire world.
So I made a call to a neuroscientist about his experimental, irreversible procedure. I didn't want revenge. I wanted to erase every memory of my husband and become his first test subject.
9.7
Sienna woke up in a hospital room, her body screaming from a severe car accident. Through the glass, a man paced with violent rage, a dark shadow she felt absolutely nothing for.
Her friend Julia burst in, eyes bloodshot, dropping a bomb: "He didn't even try to help you." Dante, Sienna's fiancé, had protected another woman, Valeria, in the crash, leaving Sienna to burn alive.
Her past life unspooled – seven years sacrificed, an architecture degree abandoned, all to serve Dante. Her phone was a shrine to him: his photos, his "taboos," and even "Valeria's preferences," with no trace of Sienna herself.
But amnesia brought no heartbreak, only a cold, calculating fury. She felt disgust for the "idiot" she'd been, stripped of dignity. The memory loss was a release, a blank slate.
With chilling resolve, Sienna deleted every trace of Dante. Ripping out her IV, she declared, "The wedding proceeds." Not for love, but as a weapon: "I need to take back everything that belongs to me before I disappear."
9.4
I was a New York photographer, but I woke up under the brutal sun of the African savanna.
Worse, I wasn't human. I was trapped in the body of a male cheetah, with two starving cubs clinging to my fur, telepathically calling me "Mom."
But I am a real man!
To keep my adopted sons alive, I had to fight hyenas and dodge rogue lions. But the real nightmare was my bizarre survival mechanism. Under extreme threat, I would uncontrollably shift back into my human form—stark, undeniably naked. I was forced to sprint across the plains with my bare skin exposed, carrying two cubs while escaping furious lionesses. I became a freak, the most confusing and humiliating legend of the animal kingdom.
Covered in bloody scratches and mud, I was pushed to the brink of despair. Why was I thrown into this beast's body? Why did my only defense mechanism involve profound social death?
Just when I barely survived a cliff dive to escape the lions, my path was blocked by two massive, highly intelligent prime male cheetahs.
But the alpha, Bradley, didn't want to kill me for my territory.
His intense gaze raked over my naked, bleeding human body with a dark, possessive hunger.
"You are full of surprises."
He purred smoothly, teaching me to magically summon a fur skirt before demanding I join his coalition.
"Oh, you'll come to me. I guarantee it."
Looking into his predatory eyes, I realized I was no longer just surviving the wild; I was the prey of a completely different kind of beast.
7.1
I worked eighty-hour weeks on Wall Street just to keep my sick brother alive, enduring endless humiliation from the wealthy family that adopted us.
But when I went to surprise my boyfriend of three years, I found him kissing my spoiled adoptive sister, Tatum.
They were celebrating their engagement to merge their powerful families.
To keep me quiet, my adoptive mother, Eleanor, threatened to freeze my brother's medical trust fund unless I attended the party to play the supportive sister.
Instead, I discovered Eleanor had been embezzling from my brother's life-saving fund to cover her own bad investments.
The nightmare worsened when a drunken Ryder cornered me in my apartment stairwell.
"Once I marry Tatum, Eleanor is giving me control of Liam's trust fund to buy out my father's board members."
He planned to drain my brother's medical money, dump Tatum, and keep me as his mistress.
For a decade, I suffered their abuse hoping for a shred of decency, only to realize they were plotting to leave my brother to die on the streets for corporate greed.
Calling the police wouldn't stop these billionaires. I needed absolute power.
Remembering the dark, predatory gaze of Jaren Jarvis—the ruthless billionaire who had watched me fight back at the party—I canceled my call to 911.
If they wanted to destroy my only family, I was going to use the devil himself to crush theirs.