Reborn Bride, No Longer Your Victim
On the eve of my wedding, a photo of my fiancé with an intern sent me fleeing to Paris.
But when the plane landed, five years had passed.
My parents were dead, killed in a car crash while searching for me. My fiancé, Clayton, was now married to that same intern. She was pregnant and living in our home.
He treated me like a deranged stranger, and when she faked a fall down the stairs, he blamed me. He locked me in a dark panic room-my greatest fear-to punish me.
There, in the suffocating darkness, I lost our baby.
He thought I was just acting for attention.
But a return ticket brought me back. I've woken up on my wedding day. My parents are alive. This time, I'm not running.
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Chapter 3
Audrey Hanson POV:
My eyes flickered, but I didn't dare turn around. I didn't want him to see the pathetic gratitude that I was sure was written all over my face.
"Don't misunderstand," Clayton's cold voice cut through the air, as if he'd read my mind. "I'm not doing this for you. I'm doing it for them. It's the least they deserve after..." He trailed off, but the unspoken words hung in the air: after their daughter abandoned them.
"Thank you," I managed to say, my voice a dry rasp. I fled the room before the tears could fall.
Back in the sterile guest room, I stared at my reflection. The clothes I'd been wearing for two days were crumpled and stained. I had nothing else. Nothing appropriate to wear to my own parents' funeral, five years late. The thought sent a fresh wave of shame through me.
A sharp knock on the door made me jump. Before I could answer, the door swung open.
It was Kisha. She glided in, followed by the maid, Maria, who was carrying a selection of black dresses. Kisha's smile was perfectly painted, but her eyes were cold, assessing.
"I thought you might need something to wear," she said, her voice dripping with faux concern. "I had Maria pull a few things from my closet. We're about the same size, aren't we?"
She gestured for Maria to hang the dresses on the wardrobe door. They were beautiful, expensive, and utterly alien.
"Clayton spoils me," Kisha sighed, running a hand over a silk sheath dress. "He insists I have the best of everything. He says taking care of me is his greatest pleasure now."
Every word was a carefully aimed dart. She was showing me her power, her place in his life. She was the one he spoiled now, the one he took care of. I was just a ghost in borrowed clothes.
"He's a different man since he met me," she continued, her eyes meeting mine in the mirror. "More grounded. He says I saved him from the darkness after you left."
I looked at the black dresses, their starkness a mirror of the void in my chest. I couldn't wear her clothes. It felt like another layer of surrender, another piece of myself I would be giving up to her.
"Thank you," I said, my voice tight. "But I'll wear my own things."
Her smile faltered for a second. "Suit yourself," she said, her tone suddenly sharp. She turned and swept out of the room, Maria trailing behind her.
I chose my own dark jeans and the crumpled sweater I arrived in. It was inappropriate, but it was mine.
The driver waiting for me was a familiar face. Frank. He had been Clayton's driver for years, a kind, quiet man who had always treated me with warmth.
His eyes widened in shock when he saw me. "Miss Hanson? Audrey? Is that really you?"
"It's me, Frank," I said, a weak smile touching my lips.
"We all... we all thought you were..." He stopped, his face full of confusion and pity.
I couldn't tell him the truth. The words would sound like madness. "It's a long story," I said, my voice weary.
The drive was quiet for a while, then Frank spoke, his voice low. "He changed after you left, miss. A lot. Sacked all the old staff, anyone who knew you. Said he didn't want any reminders."
My heart clenched. He had systematically erased every trace of me.
"And then, about six months later, he married her," Frank continued, his eyes on the rearview mirror. "Mrs. Young... Kisha. He treats her like she's made of glass. Better than he ever... well, he's very good to her."
He stopped, realizing he had said too much. But the damage was done. The last sliver of doubt I had was extinguished. It wasn't a rebound. It wasn't for show. He loved her. More than he had ever loved me.
The TMZ photo flashed in my mind. The way he was looking at her. It hadn't been a one-time mistake. It had been the beginning. He had been falling for her even then, while he was still engaged to me. The betrayal was deeper, older than I had even imagined.
The cemetery was quiet and green. I found their graves side-by-side under a large oak tree. Robert Hanson. Beloved Husband and Father. Mary Hanson. Beloved Wife and Mother.
I sank to my knees, the grief I had been holding back finally overwhelming me. I laid my head on the cool stone of my mother's grave and wept, my body shaking with silent, ragged sobs. I didn't know how long I stayed there, lost in a sea of guilt and sorrow.
"I'm so sorry," I whispered to them, my voice breaking. "I'll fix this. I promise. I'll come back. I'll stop it from ever happening."
When I returned to the brownstone, the house was quiet. I was emotionally and physically drained. All I wanted to do was crawl into bed and wait for the seven days to pass.
Kisha met me in the hallway. She was holding a steaming mug. "You look exhausted," she said, her sympathetic mask back in place. "I had the kitchen make you some calming herbal tea. It will help you rest."
She held it out to me. I hesitated. I didn't trust her.
Her smile tightened. "Oh, Audrey," she said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "You don't have to pretend with me. I know you're pregnant."
My head snapped up. How? How could she possibly know? My blood ran cold.
"I saw the prenatal vitamins in your purse when Maria was checking it," she said, her eyes glinting with a cruel triumph. "Don't worry. Your secret is safe with me."
The mug in her hand suddenly seemed sinister. The scent of the tea made my stomach churn. I felt a wave of nausea, so strong I had to brace myself against the wall.
I pushed past her and ran to the nearest bathroom, emptying the contents of my stomach into the toilet. The retching was violent, leaving me weak and trembling.
When I finally emerged, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, Kisha was leaning against the doorframe, her arms crossed, the sympathetic act completely gone.
"You really think you can come back here with another man's child and win him back?" she sneered, her voice dripping with venom.
"It's not another man's child," I said, my voice shaking with a mixture of weakness and fury.
"Oh, please," she scoffed. "Do you take us for fools?"
Suddenly, the door at the end of the hall opened. Clayton stood there, his face a thundercloud. He must have heard the commotion.
Kisha's expression changed in an instant. Her face crumpled, her eyes filling with tears. She turned to him, her voice a wounded whisper. "Clay... I... I didn't want to tell you like this. But Audrey... she's pregnant."
Clayton's gaze snapped to me. His eyes, already cold, turned to ice. He strode towards me, his jaw tight with a barely controlled rage.
"You're pregnant?" he demanded, his voice low and dangerous.
---
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9.2
Clara was drowning in student debt and barely making rent when she downloaded a fantasy mobile game to escape reality.
Inside the game, an exiled prince named Alex was freezing to death. Pitying him, she spent her last few dollars on microtransactions to fix his shelter and cure his poison.
But the game was far too real.
Every time she paid, the prince reacted. When she complained aloud about going broke, the in-game army suddenly halted, as if the prince had heard her voice.
Then, the terrifying real-world consequences hit.
Clara woke up to find her water glass and a box of Kleenex had vanished from her locked bedroom overnight.
She frantically searched the tiny apartment, her heart pounding in her chest.
She thought she was losing her mind. Had she thrown them out in her sleep? Was there a stalker hiding in her home?
How could physical objects just disappear into thin air behind a deadbolted door?
Until she looked at her nightstand.
Sitting exactly where her missing items used to be was a glowing, weightless crystal cup that defied all logic.
And on her laptop screen, the exiled prince was carefully holding her Kleenex box, offering a mountain of real gold on an altar.
She hadn't just downloaded a mobile game; she had opened a cross-dimensional trade route with a desperate future king.
8.6
Four miscarriages had shattered my spirit, but it was my husband Blake' s silence that truly killed me. I was supposed to be his destined partner, the vessel for the twin sons who would secure his family' s real estate empire, all according to his spiritual guru.
Then I discovered the truth at a secret celebration. There stood Blake, beaming beside his high school sweetheart, Chyna, who held two newborn sons.
"The prophecy is fulfilled!" the guru declared.
My world imploded. Blake called me a "placeholder," admitting he' d orchestrated my miscarriages because those weren't the "destined" children. He moved Chyna into our home, gave her sons the names I had chosen for mine, and even destroyed my mother's rose garden, claiming its "negative energy" was making the babies sick.
He then forced me into a brutal "purification" ritual that left me scarred and broken, all to "cleanse" the house for his new family. My agony was just an inconvenient part of his twisted plan.
I escaped and built a new life, finding love with a kind man and his son. But just as I accepted his proposal, Blake found me, his eyes blazing with obsession.
"You're mine, Amelia," he growled. "And you will return with me, or I will make sure you regret it!"
7.8
I thought I had found my savior in Alpha Camron after my adoptive family was brutally slaughtered.
But as I lay chained to the damp dungeon wall, my inner wolf silenced by silver poison, he sneered and rejected me.
"Did you really think I loved you? You were just a dumb, loyal dog."
He confessed that he had orchestrated my family's murder to frame Lycan King Asher.
Blinded by his lies, I had plunged a silver blade into Asher's heart—the only man standing in Camron's way to the throne.
My step-sister Erica then arrived to deliver the final, crushing blows.
"He was your true fated mate, Ella," she whispered with sadistic glee. "He loved you so much he retracted his aura, leaving himself defenseless so you wouldn't get hurt killing him."
Worse, she laughed at my swollen belly, revealing the baby I carried wasn't Camron's. He had paid a filthy Rogue to defile me in the dark.
The man I murdered was the other half of my soul, and the monster I trusted had destroyed everything I loved.
My heart simply gave out, drowning in an abyss of pure agony and hatred.
Opening my eyes again, the stench of burning flesh was gone.
I was back in my attic bedroom on my fifteenth birthday.
Today was the day my evil stepmother would start her deadly plot.
This time, I would tear them all apart.
7.1
I lay paralyzed on stiff white sheets, a prisoner in my own skin, listening to the rain lash against the window like nails on a coffin. My father, Elmore Franco, didn't even look at my face as he checked his clipboard. He just listened to the steady, monotonous beep of the heart monitor-the only thing proving I was still alive.
Without a hint of remorse, he pulled a pen from his pocket and signed the Do Not Resuscitate order. My stepmother, Ophelia, stepped out from behind him, wearing my favorite pearl necklace and smelling of cloying perfume. She leaned close to my ear to whisper the truth that turned my blood to ice.
"It was the tea, darling. Just like your mother. A slow, tasteless poison."
She chuckled as she revealed that my fiancé, Bryce, had a two-year-old son with my sister, Daniela. My inheritance had been funding their secret life for years, and now that the money was secure, I was an inconvenience they were finally scrubbing away. As my father yanked the power cord from the wall, the beeping died, and the darkness swallowed me whole.
I was being murdered by my own flesh and blood, used as a bank account until I was no longer needed. I died in that sterile room, drowning in the realization that every person I ever loved was a monster who had been waiting for me to take my last breath.
Then, I gasped. I woke up in a luxury hotel suite surrounded by silk sheets, five years in the past-the very morning of my wedding. Next to me lay Basile Delgado, the "Wolf of Wall Street" and my family's most dangerous enemy. In my first life, I ran from this room in a panic and lost everything. This time, I looked at the man who would eventually destroy my father's empire and decided to join him.
"I'm not leaving, Basile. Marry me. Right now. Today."
8.5
In my past life, Tom Bashington, plagued by infertility, tricked me into sleeping with his brother Danzel to conceive an heir for his own gain.
After I gave birth to Danzel's child, Tom tortured me and threw me into an ice cell.
I died in a fire, but not before seeing Danzel's desperate attempt to save me.
In this new life, I'm determined to expose Tom's schemes......
9.0
I was the wolfless orphan taken in by the Blackwood pack, secretly in love with Ryker, the future Alpha.
At the Mating Moon ceremony, the Goddess miraculously chose me as his fated mate.
But instead of a blessing, it became my ultimate nightmare. He dragged me onto the sacred stone in front of the entire pack to publicly humiliate me.
"I reject you, Elara Vance, as my mate!"
He chose a powerful she-wolf over a freak like me. The severing of the bond nearly killed me. I accepted his rejection and fled, living as a rogue for three years to bury the agonizing echo of his betrayal.
When I finally returned to visit his sick father, I was no longer that pathetic, broken girl.
Yet, the very night I arrived, he threw a lavish engagement party with his chosen Luna, a deliberate slap in the face.
I refused to run this time. I walked into his ballroom with my head held high to prove I was finally free of him.
But the moment our eyes met across the crowded room, a soul-crushing agony exploded in my chest.
Across the hall, Ryker let out a harsh gasp, clutching his heart in identical, terrifying pain.
The sacred bond he had so ruthlessly destroyed three years ago wasn't dead.
And now, it was going to destroy us both.