Rising From Ashes: The Betrayed Queen Returns
I woke up strapped to a freezing operating table, a gaping hole crudely sutured over my heart.
Joi Rocha, my supposed guardian, stood nearby holding a glowing vial that contained my freshly extracted Phoenix gene sequence.
"Don't blame me, sweetheart. Gayla's body is just too weak. She needs this sequence more than you do."
In my past life, I endured years of illegal biological harvests for this family. My fiancé Brennon watched with cold eyes as they ripped the gene from my chest, while the elite academy students filmed and mocked my bleeding, broken body. They stripped me of my status, drained every drop of my worth, and left me to die in a freezing tomb just so their precious fake daughter could thrive.
Until my dying breath, I didn't understand. I had given them my absolute loyalty, so why was I treated like disposable medical waste? Why did my life mean absolutely nothing to them?
But opening my eyes again, I realized I had returned to the exact day they stole my core.
This time, I didn't cry or beg. I stared dead into Joi's eyes and smiled.
I detonated the residual energy in my chest to incinerate Gayla's stolen sequence, faked my own flatline, and injected myself with a hidden dark matter drive to completely rewrite my DNA.
If they wanted to play God with my life, I was going to burn their entire world to ash.
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Chapter 6
The space warped, and Aislinn dropped perfectly onto the dusty floor of her D-Block dorm room.
She glanced down at the terminal on her wrist. Only three days had passed in the real world.
Aislinn walked over to the cracked mirror in the corner. She wiped the grime away with her thumb and stared at her reflection.
The girl looking back had skin like porcelain. The scars from the gene extraction, the sickly pallor of her past life-all of it was gone.
She slowly clenched her right hand into a fist. She could feel the dark matter and Genesis particles surging through her veins, a terrifying, heavy power waiting to be unleashed.
A faint, desperate hiss came from the shadows near the floorboards.
Aislinn's eyes snapped to the corner. Her body dropped into a flawless combat stance instantly. She locked onto a pile of scrap metal beneath the air vent.
She walked over and grabbed the edge of a hundred-pound steel plate. She flipped it over with one hand, not even straining a muscle.
Coiled underneath was a bio-synthetic viper. Its scales were a deep, luminescent blue, but they were torn and bleeding. It wasn't a stray. It was a rare, lethal assassination specimen, secretly planted in this abandoned room by Gayla's cronies to finish the job if the surgery didn't kill her. But the harsh environment of the D-Block had degraded its synthetic organs, and it was dying.
The viper felt the sudden exposure. It reared back, baring its dripping fangs, ready to strike in a final act of defiance.
Aislinn didn't flinch. She extended her index finger. She forced a single drop of her own blood-thick with golden Genesis particles-to bead on her fingertip.
The viper froze mid-strike. Its biological instincts screamed at the overwhelming, intoxicating power radiating from that single drop of blood.
It slowly lowered its fangs. It slithered forward, its tongue flicking out to gently lick the golden blood from her skin.
The reaction was instantaneous. The viper's torn scales shed, replaced by flawless, armored blue plates. Its vertical slit eyes sparked with a new, terrifying intelligence.
The snake slithered up Aislinn's arm, wrapping securely around her wrist, nuzzling her pulse point. The biological contract was sealed.
Aislinn's lips curved into a cold smile. She stroked the smooth scales. "I'll call you Phantom."
BANG.
The heavy metal door of her dorm room buckled inward with a deafening crash.
The biometric scanner flashed a frantic red. The security alarm started screaming.
Aislinn's eyes went dead. Phantom instantly flattened itself, shifting its color to mimic a dull blue metal bracelet around her wrist.
BOOM.
A high-frequency kinetic blade sliced straight through the center of the reinforced door. The metal shrieked as the blade carved a massive hole.
The door collapsed inward in a cloud of dust. Sterling Prescott-Vaughn stepped through the wreckage. He gripped the vibrating kinetic blade, his face twisted in pure, hateful rage.
Sterling looked up and saw Aislinn standing there, completely unharmed. His eyes widened in absolute shock. "You're not dead?"
Aislinn looked at the humming blade in his hand. Her eyes filled with mocking pity. "I designed that blade for your birthday last year. And you use it to cut down my door?"
Sterling bared his teeth, raising the weapon. "You vicious bitch! You almost killed Gayla!"
He lunged forward with a roar. He swung the kinetic blade in a vicious arc, aiming straight for Aislinn's collarbone. The high-frequency vibrations screamed through the air.
A split second before the metal touched her skin, Aislinn raised her right hand.
She didn't activate a shield. She didn't dodge. She simply reached out and pinched the air right around the blade with her bare index and middle fingers. A concentrated, localized bio-electromagnetic field erupted from her fingertips. The intense pulse instantly inverted the weapon's frequency.
Sterling's eyes nearly bulged out of his skull.
The kinetic vibrations violently clashed against her invisible resonance field, burning out the internal motor. The blade stopped dead in her grip, letting out a pathetic whine before falling completely silent.
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7.4
I thought my life was over when my sister died, leaving me to raise her two babies in a world that wanted to swallow us whole. Then I made the mistake of a lifetime: I left a bold, humiliating voicemail for the one man I should have feared most.
Anton Oryolov.
The ruthless king of the Oryolov Bratva. A billionaire monster who rules the city with ice in his veins and blood on his hands.
I expected him to fire me. I expected him to destroy me. Instead, he gave me a choice that felt like a death sentence: sign a contract and become his.
The rules were simple. I belong to him. I live in his shadows. In exchange, he protects the children. But as the doors of his mansion locked behind me, I realized the "forced proximity" wasn't just a business arrangement. It was a cage.
He thinks he can use me as a pawn in his dark mafia games. He thinks the children are just leverage to keep me in line. But he's starting to look at me with a hunger that isn't in the contract, and I'm seeing a man beneath the monster that I never expected to find.
In the Cruel Paradise of the Bratva, loyalty is a lie and love is a weakness. Our deal is signed in ink, but it's going to end in blood.
He owns my signature. He owns my safety. Now, he wants my soul.
7.5
I was the adopted daughter of the wealthy Ruiz family, but the moment their true heir appeared, I was thrown away like trash.
Not long after being kicked out, my adoptive father and uncle hired a hitman to stage a fatal car crash on Mulholland Drive.
Pinned under an overturned Porsche with a shattered leg, I watched the hitman point a suppressed pistol between my eyes.
"The Ruiz family sends their regards."
Before this, my reputation had already been completely destroyed by a director, a pop idol, and a reality TV star, leaving me blacklisted and universally hated.
My adoptive family didn't just want me ruined; they wanted me permanently silenced to tie up loose ends.
The hitman pulled the trigger, and the original Alicia died in despair, tasting only rain and blood.
Until her last breath, she didn't understand.
Why did the family she loved treat her like a disposable object? Why did those three men maliciously frame her and turn the world against her?
Opening my eyes again, the fear was gone, replaced by an ancient, cosmic indifference.
I, the Arbiter, had taken over this deceased vessel.
Moving faster than the human eye, I crushed the hitman's steel gun with my bare hand and turned his soul into dust.
Looking at the memories of those who wronged this girl, I signed a contract for the very reality show they were starring in.
Since I borrowed this body, taking out the trash is a required courtesy.
8.7
My little brother's heart monitor was screaming its final warning. I called my husband, Dante Volkov, the ruthless underworld king whose life I'd saved years ago. He had promised to send his elite medical team.
"I'm handling an emergency," he snapped, then hung up. An hour later, my brother was dead.
I found out what Dante's "emergency" was from his mistress's social media. He had sent his team of world-class surgeons to deliver her cat's kittens. My brother died for a litter of cats.
When Dante finally called, he didn't even apologize. I could hear her voice in the background, asking him to come back to bed. He even forgot my brother was dead, offering to buy him a new toy to replace the one his mistress deliberately crushed.
This was the man who had promised to protect me, to make my high school tormentors pay. Now, he was holding that very tormentor, Seraphina, in his arms. Then came the final blow: a call from the clerk's office revealed our seven-year marriage was a sham. The certificate was a forgery.
I was never his wife. I was just a possession he was tired of. After he left me to die in a car crash for Seraphina, I made one call. I texted a rival mob heir I hadn't spoken to in years: "I need to disappear. I'm calling it in."
8.7
My new boss is gorgeous, arrogant, and filthy rich.
The only problem?
He doesn't know he's also the father of my baby.
Six years ago, I was supposed to get married.
But the night before the wedding, my groom-to-be showed me sides of himself I'd never seen before.
I might've died in that hotel room...
If Mikhail Novikov hadn't burst in to save me.
Handsome, strong, capable knight in shining armor-sign me up, right?
WRONG.
Because Mikhail wasn't just the hero I never knew I needed...
He was also way more dangerous than I ever could've known.
But for one night, I let myself do something I never should've done.
It was worth it-several times over, if you catch my drift.
In the morning, though, I did the reasonable
I RAN.
For six years, I keep running.
Until I walk into work one day, and find my new boss waiting in my office.
Guess who?
And guess what he does when finds out about our baby?
8.5
"You are getting married, huh?" A shrill voice asked me from behind. "You don't look happy.'
"It's a complicated situati..." He cut me off.
"I can make you happy."
My eyes darted between his lips and eyes, he noticed my indecision and locked his lips with mine.
While battling with betrayal, Iris melts into a mafia's touch without knowing who he is. Now she must bear all the consequences that follow.
7.3
While I was pregnant, my husband held a party downstairs for another woman's son.
Through a hidden mental link, I overheard my husband, Don Dante Rossi, tell his consigliere he was going to publicly reject me tomorrow. He planned to make his mistress, Serena, his new mate.
An act forbidden by ancient law while I carried his heir.
Later, Serena cornered me, her smile venomous. When Dante appeared, she shrieked, clawing her own arm and blaming me for the attack.
Dante didn't even look at me. He snarled a command that froze my body and stole my voice, ordering me from his sight as he cradled her.
He moved her and her son into our master suite. I was demoted to the guest room at the end of the hall.
Passing her open door, I saw him rocking her baby, humming the lullaby my own mother used to sing to me.
I heard him promise her, "Soon, my love. I'll sever the bond and give you the life you deserve."
The love I felt for him, the power I'd hidden for four years to protect his fragile ego, all turned to ice.
He thought I was a weak, powerless wife he could discard. He was about to find out that the woman he betrayed was Alessia De Luca, princess of the most powerful family on the continent.
And I was finally going home.