My Death Was Just The Start
My wedding was tomorrow. I was a crisis counselor who had finally found peace with my loving fiancé, Dexter, and my best friend, Barbara.
A late-night call about a forced marriage led me to a hotel penthouse, where I found them naked in bed together.
It was all a cruel, three-year "savior game." They were bored heirs, and I was their project. They destroyed my career, caused me to lose our baby, and put my mother in the hospital.
They forced me to be a bridesmaid at their wedding-the one that should have been mine.
In front of hundreds of guests, they exposed my traumatic past and then tried to marry me off to a drunken stranger as a joke.
As I stood there, broken, a text from Barbara arrived.
"Your mother saw the livestream. She had a heart attack. She's not going to make it."
With nothing left, I ran to the 20th-floor window and jumped. They thought they had erased me. But my death was just the beginning.
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Chapter 2
Ella Robles POV
A police officer came to help me up, but I pushed his hand away. My legs felt like jelly, but I stood on my own. I would not let them see me break completely. Not here. Not in front of them.
Dexter, now dressed in a silk robe, stepped forward. "Ella, let's talk outside. Please." His voice held a hint of the old Dexter, the Dexter I loved. It was a trick. I knew it.
I flinched back from his touch. My skin crawled. I walked past him, a cold shell of myself. The penthouse suite, once a symbol of future happiness, now felt like a tomb. I walked into the room where Dexter and Barbara had been. The scent of cheap champagne and something else, something metallic and sickening, filled the air. My stomach churned.
Scattered on the floor were a few items. A small silver locket, a cheap necklace I' d given Barbara for her birthday. A crumpled photo, a selfie of us three, smiling, laughing. My heart squeezed.
I remembered Barbara' s words, just last week: "Dexter says this hotel is so luxurious, we should try it out for our anniversary, you know, as practice for your wedding night!" I had laughed, naive and trusting. I had seen the name of the hotel on Dexter's phone too, a reservation for tonight, but I thought it was for his bachelor party. He told me he was going to Atlantic City.
All the signs. All the little lies. I had missed them, or worse, I had chosen to ignore them. I was so desperate for love, for a family, I blinded myself. I pressed my nails into my palms until I felt a sharp pain, anything to distract from the emotional agony.
"What is this?" I demanded, my voice hoarse. I faced them, Dexter and Barbara, who now stood side-by-side, dressed and composed, but their faces pale.
Barbara looked down, wringing her hands. "Ella, I'm... I'm so sorry." Her voice was small, trembling. A performance. I saw it now.
Dexter stepped in front of her, his gaze hard. "Sorry for what, Barbara? For playing a game of savior with a broken girl? For trying to fix her?" He looked at me, his eyes devoid of warmth. "You wanted to know the truth? This was a project, Ella. A social experiment. To feel good before our arranged marriage."
"My father knew. He called it my 'charity phase.' Said it would make me look grounded for the board."
A project. The words echoed, cold and empty. Three years. Three years of healing, of building myself up. Dexter, the kind stranger who pulled me from the brink. Barbara, the compassionate friend who helped me navigate my trauma. They were my saviors. Now, I understood. They didn't save me. They just picked me up, dusted me off, and put me back in their twisted toy box.
I remembered Dexter's gentle hand on my back when nightmares plagued me, Barbara's warm hugs when my stepfather's memory resurfaced. They were not acts of kindness. They were carefully crafted scenes in their "savior game." I had poured my heart out, shared my deepest fears, my rawest wounds. They cataloged it all, using my vulnerabilities against me. I, a counselor, had become the ultimate subject of their amateur psychology.
I had given up everything for Dexter. My meager savings, my small apartment, all to move into a tiny place with him, believing we were building a future. I had defended Barbara against gossips, stood by her, believed in her good heart. And for what? To be a plaything. To be a joke.
"You were a challenge, Ella," Barbara said, her voice regaining some strength, a calculating glint in her eyes. "Dexter and I were bored. Our families arranged our marriage. We needed something… real. You were real. Your trauma was real. It made us feel virtuous. Like we were making a difference." She paused, then added, "Then we grew fond of you, actually. We want to offer you something. A severance package. A new life. Anything you need."
My blood ran cold. Severance package. Like a disposable employee. "I don't need your blood money," I spat, my voice shaking with rage. "You want to feel virtuous? You want to make a difference? Go to hell."
Dexter stepped forward, his face hardening. "Don't be ungrateful, Ella. We gave you three years of a comfortable life. We helped you recover. We played the part. You were a mess before us."
"You acted like saints," I snarled, my voice rising. "You paraded your 'goodness' while crushing my soul. You used my pain for your sick entertainment. You call that helping?"
"We could have revealed your past anytime," Barbara interjected, her voice sharp. "Your abusive stepfather. Your depression. Your vulnerability. We kept your secrets." She smiled, a chilling, condescending curve of her lips. "That's a gift, Ella. We still hold those cards."
My stomach clenched. Blackmail. They were threatening me.
"We even went through with the fake wedding planning," Dexter continued, oblivious to my terror, or perhaps enjoying it. "All the details. The venue. The dress. It was a lot of effort for us to pretend, you know." He rolled his eyes. "So, take the offer. It's generous. We're giving you a way out. A quiet exit."
"You think I want a quiet exit?" I laughed, a harsh, humorless sound. My eyes burned. "You disgust me. Your fake kindness, your twisted games. I hate you both."
I reached for the engagement ring on my finger. A simple silver band, a symbol of a love I thought was pure. I ripped it off. It burned my skin. I threw it at Dexter. It clattered to the marble floor, a tiny, insignificant sound that echoed loudly in the silent, ruined room.
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9.7
Luna Elena Frost was never chosen, only assigned.
Bound to Alpha Alaric Ashbourne through a cold contractual marriage, she endures three years as a Luna in name only. He never comes home, never defends her, and never looks at her, while his heart belongs to another woman.
At his grandmother's funeral, Alaric publicly dissolves their marriage, humiliating Elena before the entire pack. In that moment, she finally understands the truth. She was never wanted.
But the Moon has not abandoned her.
A forgotten night resurfaces. Her long-silent wolf begins to awaken. And secrets buried within her bloodline start to surface, drawing danger from every direction.
Cast out by the pack that once used her, Elena must flee, survive, and uncover her true power.
Only then does the Alpha realize his mistake.
By the time he turns back in regret, the Luna he rejected may already be gone forever.
8.3
I was the long-lost Donovan heiress, finally brought home after a childhood in foster care. My parents adored me, my husband cherished me, and the woman who tried to ruin my life, Kiera Reese, was locked away in a mental facility. I was safe. I was loved.
On my birthday, I decided to surprise my husband, Ivan, at his office. But he wasn't there.
I found him at a private art gallery across town. He was with Kiera.
She wasn't in a facility. She was radiant, laughing as she stood beside my husband and their five-year-old son. I watched through the glass as Ivan kissed her, a familiar, loving gesture he’d used with me just that morning.
I crept closer and overheard them. My birthday wish to go to the amusement park had been denied because he’d already promised the entire park to their son—whose birthday was the same day as mine.
"She’s so grateful to have a family, she’d believe anything we tell her," Ivan said, his voice laced with a cruelty that stole my breath. "It's almost sad."
My entire reality—my loving parents who funded this secret life, my devoted husband—was a five-year lie. I was just the fool they kept on stage.
My phone buzzed. It was a text from Ivan, sent while he stood with his real family.
"Just got out of the meeting. So exhausting. I miss you."
The casual lie was the final blow. They thought I was a pathetic, grateful orphan they could control.
They were about to find out just how wrong they were.
7.8
Alexis signed the divorce papers, leaving her with no assets, no alimony, and just the clothes on her back.
To forget her abusive husband Carlos, she got drunk and bought a high-end gigolo for the night with her last 800 dollars.
But the man she slept with wasn't an escort. He was Jarrett Hughes, a ruthless billionaire CEO.
And while she was gone, her ex-husband was busy destroying her entire life.
Carlos framed her with fake photos of her cheating to justify the penniless divorce.
Then came the real nightmare.
Carlos and her own aunt secretly drained her family's corporate accounts, driving her father to jump off a building.
At the hospital, her grieving mother blamed her for the tragedy, violently attacking her in the ER.
To top it off, her cousin Josie—who was secretly sleeping with Carlos—held her father's ashes hostage.
"Crawl on your knees and pick it up, or the ashes go in the river," Josie sneered, throwing cash into the freezing slush.
Stripped of her marriage, her father, and her dignity, Alexis sat bleeding in the snow.
She couldn't understand why the people she loved most had coordinated such a brutal slaughter against her.
But Carlos and Josie made one fatal mistake.
They didn't know the "gigolo" Alexis had accidentally bought was the most powerful man in New York.
Alexis looked at the towering billionaire standing behind her, a vengeful fire burning in her eyes.
"I need you to get my father's ashes back," she said, pulling him into a kiss right in front of her ex-husband. "I don't care what it takes."
7.6
Kaylee's family was drowning in debt, and her stepmother locked her inside a freezing bedroom.
To save their bankrupt company, they decided to sell her off to a sixty-five-year-old man with a disgusting reputation.
They cut off her allowance and confiscated the only precious keepsake her dead mother had ever left her.
"Put on the engagement dress, or I will smash your mother's crystal box into a million pieces."
Terrified of the old man, Kaylee risked her life by jumping out of the second-story window into a violent storm.
She hit the muddy ground hard, twisting her ankle and tearing her skin on rusted iron gates as she escaped into the pitch-black night.
Dragging her bleeding bare feet across the cold sand, her lungs felt like they were filled with broken glass.
She didn't understand why she had to be the sacrifice for their endless greed, or how they could be so cruel as to hold her dead mother's memory hostage.
She had absolutely nowhere to go, and the old man's cars were already pulling into the estate to claim her.
Cornered by the blinding headlights of a motorcade on the beach, she threw herself at the feet of Ernest Blackwell, the most ruthless billionaire in New York.
"Marry me! You need a wife, and I need a husband right now!"
To buy her freedom and crush the family that sold her, she chose to sign a twenty-million-dollar fake marriage contract with the devil himself.
9.7
Eliana Rivera is the firstborn daughter of business tycoon Cassian Rivera. When her father's company falls into debt, he marries her off to the arrogant and ruthless billionaire, Alexander Grayson, as part of a business contract and under the threat of blackmail.
Alexander, the billionaire CEO, never planned to marry, but the pressure of blackmail forces him into a union with a woman he barely knows. Although Eliana doesn't see Alexander as her ideal partner, she agrees to the marriage out of a sense of duty.
Once engaged, however, he barely acknowledges her presence and harbours disdain for her because of her father's actions and their relationship. But as they navigate their newfound relationship, the unexpected desire for each other's touch ignites-a twist neither of them planned, leading them toward an unforeseen love.
9.7
"Sign it. You're no woman if you can't give me an heir."
Niamh gave Marcus two years of her life, her unwavering loyalty, and her silent love. In return, the billionaire CEO served her divorce papers and a one-way ticket to the gutter.
Cast out into a rainy night with nothing but the clothes on her back and twelve dollars, Niamh’s story should have ended there.
Instead, she stumbled on a stranger in the rain.
In an attempt to save him, he kisses her senseless. He is the last Lycan King standing, and a man of terrifying power, yet he is haunted by a seven-century curse.
When the king has a taste of Niamh in the pouring rain, he knew he had to keep her for himself, even though she was human and it was against the laws of their kind not to mingle with humans.
The King needs her essence and Niamh realizes she could use her body to get what she wanted; revenge on Marcus and his mother for humiliating her and making her waste her time.
Now, the woman Marcus discarded is rising as a global conglomerate queen and a Divine Enchantress as assigned by the Moon Goddess.
While her ex-husband’s empire crumbles into bankruptcy and his body rots with a shameful curse, Niamh is learning that being "claimed" by the King is much more than the contract she'd initially made with him.
He wanted to use her as his cure. She wanted to use him for her revenge.
But in the Lumina Realm, the Goddess has other plans.