Reborn as the Unwanted Mate
Indiana Sage wakes up inside her own werewolf novel-not as the loved main character but as the hated villain. Now reborn as Lady Lucindabella Pendragon, she's doomed to die painfully.
She's already ruined lives, forced an engagement, and tried to destroy the kingdom's greatest love story. Worse, she's engaged to Alpha Romanov "Rome" Windsor, the cold, dangerously powerful wolf prince who despises her and has every reason to.
Determined to survive, Indy breaks the engagement and steps off the villain's path. She helps Rome fall in love with Clara, the woman he's meant to choose. But the more she stays out of the spotlight, the more attention she draws. The kingdom starts watching. Other men start wanting her. And Rome can't stop watching the woman who now refuses to fight for him.
As desire tangles with regret, Indy realizes the story is no longer following the script she wrote. She was supposed to fade into the background. Instead, she becomes the one everyone wants.
Chapters
Share
Chapter 9
INDY
The reaction that followed right after was... phenomenal, to say the least.
From a young age, they always thought of me as obsessed with Rome. My father didn't even have to force me to marry him. I was the one who brought it up in the first place.
So, hearing this confession must have shocked them to the brim.
My father stood from his seat, narrowing his eyes to see if this was one of my tricks to elicit a reaction from him. However, he must have sensed the sincerity behind my eyes because a disbelieving smile appeared on his lips.
"Did you do something?" he asked.
"I think the right question is-did you hurt your head?" Tristan asked. "What's gotten into you?"
"I've done a lot of things," I said. "And I'm completely fine. I just had an epiphany that forcing a man who does not want to marry me into a marriage isn't something I want to live with for the rest of my life."
"I know the preparations are already underway, and I sincerely apologize for all the trouble I've put you in. However, I ask this of you-please break off the engagement."
It was silent for a couple of seconds before a shattering sound broke through the stillness. I jumped back, startled, and saw that Genevieve's wine glass had fallen to the floor. No, she threw it on purpose.
"Are you joking right now?" she asked.
"I am not," I answered seriously.
"You spent your entire life pining after Alpha Rome. You gave father the reassurance that you can be of use to this family. We were happy that you weren't here because the Windsors have housed you."
Somehow, her words didn't hurt me at all. I knew they were all deranged, so I listened with one ear, only for it to come out of the other ear.
"Hearts change."
"Yes," she smirked. "But you don't. You talked big about getting to marry him. Now, you have to prove yourself at all costs."
My father walked to me and held onto my shoulders. It wasn't a friendly gesture at all. It started with a gentle squeeze before it turned into a painful hold. Still, I held his gaze, making him narrow his eyes.
"Your gaze is different," he muttered. "You're being serious."
"I wouldn't have come here if I wasn't."
I looked him in the eyes for a few seconds before turning to my siblings. "This is my last request of you, so I hope you listen to it."
Genevieve strode toward where I was, making me face her. She then lifted her hand and brought it straight to my cheek. The impact caused my head to rotate to the side, and a sharp sting followed before a drop of blood dripped onto the spotless white floor.
"Useless," she muttered. "If this is one of your phases again, Lucinda, I suggest you snap out of it. You already know that our family will become more powerful if we merge with the Windsors. You are going to marry Alpha Romanov whether you like it or not."
This wasn't part of the story. In fact, I should have never left the Windsor mansion and should have asserted my power even more by digging up dirt on the youngest Windsor as blackmail. However, even with that, it seemed the story was hell-bent on following the true script.
It wanted me to marry Rome.
Yet that marriage would oppress more people and ruin more lives.
I stepped back and composed myself, not wanting to curse at these characters just yet. "Like I said, I will stop this marriage at all costs."
I looked them dead in the eyes. "Watch me."
With that, I turned around and walked out of the household. Genevieve's footsteps followed right after, making me hasten my movements; however, she halted when Tristan spoke.
"Let her be. She'll come back to her senses soon. She must just want some attention."
I heard her sigh before cursing under her breath. Meanwhile, my gaze hardened, but I didn't bother turning around. No one was taking me seriously!
I walked out of the gates and wondered where I could go. I didn't want to go back to the Windsor mansion just yet. It was suffocating there.
"So, you're really here."
My brows raised when I heard the familiar voice of Rome. He was leaning against the wall of the gates, looking at me with a subtle glare.
I stepped back. "What are you doing here?"
He crossed his arms in front of his chest. "Shouldn't I be the one telling you that?"
"You always come here when you've done something wrong. I'm sure you'll try to bury what you did to Clara and do something to flip the script around. I'm just making sure you won't do any of that."
"Don't worry," I muttered. "I told you. I'm trying to break off the engagement."
"You still expect me to believe that?"
"Yes," I said, looking into his eyes. "I'm really being serious."
He held my gaze before his eyes flicked to my cheek, probably where Genevieve hit me. I still hadn't seen the damage, but I was guessing it was pretty bad. It felt like I was hit by a meteor after all. Genevieve was an Alpha, so she was damn strong.
I quickly turned to the side, but he caught my jaw before I could fully turn away.
"What is this?" he asked.
The sparks that went flying through my skin, making my heart race, felt annoying at this point. Every time we touched, it felt so right. However, I knew better than anyone to hold onto these sensations.
Pushing his hand away, I let my hair cover the side of my face. "It's nothing," I said. "Just a big old insect bite."
It seemed he wasn't convinced, but fortunately, he let it go. "Why am I even asking?" he muttered. "You're probably doing this to get my pity again."
I sighed and shook my head. "I'm telling you-"
"Alpha Rome, you're here."
Our conversation was interrupted when Genevieve's voice cut through.
Rome turned to her and bowed his head. I watched as Genevieve smiled widely at him. I knew that look. Genevieve, at 32 years old, wanted Rome, too. However, she was already mated to a Beta. Her disdain for me increased even more when she found out I was fated to the Wolf Prince himself.
I could give him up for her if she wanted; although, I doubted they would believe that.
"Is my sister still giving you a hard time?" she asked.
Rome didn't answer and instead just bowed his head slightly.
She sighed and turned to me with a look of pity, one I knew was fake. "She's just being difficult like always. However, do not worry. These are just one of her episodes."
She smiled even wider and placed her hand on his shoulder. "In fact, she must be doing this to get your attention even more."
With that, Rome's expression hardened. Meanwhile, I opened my mouth to protest; however, Genevieve beat me to it.
"That's just how my sister is. Please bear with her since you are mates. The wedding is bound to happen in two months after all."
You may also like
8.0
Everyone in the Shadowfang Pack knew that Alpha Kael was fiercely devoted to his Luna.
To save me, he had sacrificed his own soul to shadow magic.
He had endured the agony of being flayed alive, just to keep me breathing.
He had torn open his own heart, feeding me his blood, just so we could be together.
For three hundred years, I firmly believed I was his Luna, his other half.
But now, I was looking right at him. Kael, my Kael, thrusting his hips forward in a violent, primal rhythm, pinning a woman against the mattress.
A bell hung around her ankle, chiming with his every movement.
It was Lyra. My handmaiden.
Her magic-laced voice slithered into my mind via the mind-link. "Does it hurt, Luna? The Bell of Severance only rings when I feel... pleasure. And with every chime, your soul shatters a little more."
Kael kissed her passionately. "Make it ring louder. I want to hear it."
9.3
One moment I was human, sixteen years old and in love, believing my life would follow a simple, ordinary path. The next, I was taken from everything I knew and thrown into Silverwood Academy, a hidden world where wolf shifters rule, magic breathes, and survival is never guaranteed.
They see me as an anomaly. A girl who should not exist.
My mark is rare, dangerous, and tied to an ancient bloodline that was meant to stay buried. It binds me to a goddess who gives power without mercy and a destiny no one walks away from unchanged.
At Silverwood, strength decides your worth. Alphas test me. Rivals hunt me. Teachers watch, waiting for me to fail. Every full moon pushes me closer to a power I do not fully understand and a future I never asked for.
And then there is love, complicated and cruel in the way only fate can be.
I am torn between the boy I loved as a human, a bond so strong it refuses to break even after death, and a dangerous pull toward a wolf who challenges me, pushes me, and makes me question who I am becoming.
Each choice costs something. Every secret carries blood. The more power I gain, the more I risk losing myself.
They want me to be a weapon. A leader. A legend written in moonlight and war.
But I do not want a throne or a prophecy.
I just want to survive the fate that marked my soul.
Because in this world, destiny is not a gift. It is a debt, and it always demands payment
7.4
Cadence, a modern botanist, woke up to a glaring sun and massive, alien purple leaves blocking the sky. She was stranded in a terrifying, primal world.
Before she could process the metallic smell of blood in the air, a white tiger the size of an SUV crushed a giant boar's neck right in front of her. The beast locked its piercing blue eyes on her hiding spot. But instead of tearing her throat out, a blinding flash of silver light erupted, and the monster transformed into a towering, heavily scarred naked man.
He was Harlan, a shifter who immediately claimed her as his mate under tribal law. Dragged back to his primitive village, Cadence faced a brutal reality. Unbonded females were targets, and she was expected to take multiple mates just to survive. The tribal women mocked her fragile frame, calling her useless. To make matters worse, her foreign scent attracted a rogue serpent-shifter who violently ambushed her in the river.
The icy shock of the serpent's attack plunged Cadence into a deadly, burning fever. The tribe's Shaman tried his healing magic, only to shake his head and abandon her.
"She lacks primal fortitude. She will rely entirely on her own weak vitality. I can do nothing."
As Harlan held her shivering body in despair, Cadence felt a deep sense of desperate injustice. Was she really going to die in a filthy stone hut in an unknown universe, killed by a simple cold?
No. She remembered her grandfather's strict survival lessons. Forcing her heavy eyes open, she grabbed her terrified tiger mate's hand. She didn't need their failing magic; she had science.
"I need specific plants to live. I need white willow bark. And a spicy, ginger-like root."
She rasped, preparing to show this savage world the true power of a modern survivor.
7.6
A jagged spike of agony woke Kiana up in a filthy stone room.
She had transmigrated into the body of a notorious, exiled matriarch in a brutal wasteland.
Before she could even process her new reality, she saw a massive, bloodied man huddled in the corner, trembling in absolute terror.
Foreign memories detonated in her brain: the original Kiana swinging a spiked whip, laughing as she tore his flesh open.
He was her husband, and she was a monster who tortured her own consorts.
The situation was a complete death trap.
Another husband stormed in, throwing down a marriage contract and demanding to sever their ties, which would leave her to be eaten by mutated beasts.
Outside, her third husband lay dying from a toxic wound while the rest of the tribe mocked her, eagerly waiting for her downfall.
Scanning her own body, Kiana discovered her face was covered in ugly purple bruises.
The original host hadn't just been naturally insane; she had been secretly fed a chronic poison by political enemies, destroying her beauty and driving her mad until she was exiled.
As a survivor from a modern apocalypse, the sight of broken, enslaved men made her skin crawl.
She refused to die in this savage wasteland as a pawn in someone else's twisted game.
Kiana tossed the contract back to the furious man.
"Give me three months. I will save him, and I swear I won't touch you."
With her apocalyptic healing powers and a newly awakened Spatial System, she was going to rewrite the rules of this primitive world.
9.5
I woke up gasping from a nightmare of flames devouring Chandler Finch's estate, my body wrapped in burning curtains as I died alone.
But my eyes opened to silk sheets in his penthouse master bedroom. He was alive beside me, his cedarwood scent real. This was my second chance—I'd been reborn.
His phone buzzed: Eugenia Stewart's "emergency." Her security detail reported her refusing meals, unstable. Chandler bolted without a glance, rushing to her side.
I signed the brutal cohabitation contract binding me to him, but Temperance had planted birth control pills in the trash—a trap to frame me. Chandler found them, exploded in jealous rage, crushing the pills to dust. "No child unless it's mine," he growled, possessive fire in his eyes.
Brett, Eugenia's lapdog, stormed in later, accusing me of manipulation. I fired back: Chandler demanded my womb for his heir. Brett paled, fled to tattle.
Then the storm hit—power outage, locked on the terrace in pouring rain, freezing as Eugenia faked an asthma attack on Chandler's line, stealing his focus again. I hung up, huddled with a stray puppy, nearly dying from hypothermia.
He'd never believed me before—Eugenia's lies always won, dooming me to isolation and fire. Why did her every whimper trump my screams? How could he be so blind?
This time, reborn weeks before the inferno, I wouldn't beg. I'd play his game, shatter Eugenia's web, and make Chandler mine—before the flames returned.
7.0
I was the fated mate of Ryker Blackwood, the future Alpha, but my lack of an awakened wolf made me a pathetic joke to his pack.
Instead of protecting me, he publicly rejected me, chose the manipulative Lilith Vane as his Luna, and locked me in a freezing dungeon.
While the entire pack cheered for their final mating ceremony above, I rotted in heavy chains below.
When a rogue attack killed our unborn pups, I reached out to him in agony, but his voice through our fading bond was like splintered ice.
"Our pups are dead. Don't bother me again."
He didn't care at all. The casual dismissal shattered my inner wolf, and I died in that filthy cell, suffocating on my own despair and a hatred so potent it burned through my last breath.
Until my last moment, I couldn't understand why my absolute devotion was met with such cruel betrayal, and why my fated mate let our children die without a second thought.
Opening my eyes again, I wasn't in the dungeon.
I was back in my seventeenth year, choking on the icy water of the lake Lilith had just pushed me into.
Seeing Ryker's arrogant sneer and Lilith's fake concern on the shore, I didn't cry or beg for his attention like I did in my past life.
This time, I would publicly sever our sacred bond, awaken my true Alpha bloodline, and make them pay for every drop of my blood.