Sapphyra
Sapphyra used to have it all: a super-genius husband, a superhero career, and a dragon side she actually got along with.
Then everything went to hell.
When the world faced a threat she couldn't punch, Sapphyra tried to sacrifice herself so everyone she loved could escape. But Wyatt, her husband with backup plans for his backup plans, refused to let her die. He trapped her inside a digital coma, planning to wake her when the world settled down.
That was 100 years ago.
Now Sapphyra has ripped herself free and woken to a ruined city, a broken world, and a body she barely recognizes. Her powers are locked away. Her dragon side is caged. And the Class System controlling it all? Wyatt put it inside her.
Because of course he did.
It only gets messier. Guy, the charming golden retriever-energy hero she met inside the coma, is real-and so are his feelings for her. Meanwhile, Wyatt separated his mind from his body, so now his consciousness follows Sapphyra around like a brilliant, possessive bad hangover.
And then there's Rupert Domingo, the madman who escaped her digital nightmare and now rules the ruined city like his personal kingdom. He knows what happened while Sapphyra slept, and he'll give her answers...
If she survives his game first.
To win, Sapphyra has to rebuild her city, untangle her powers, face Wyatt's sins, and decide what scares her more: losing herself to grief, or becoming the dragon Rupert is desperate to wake up.
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Chapter 10
"Run Admin Controls."
I call out, feeling my way around the darkness. My hands are stretched out before me as I press them against the walls and hope for the best. My tail also slithers around the room, poking here and there until it finally comes across an opening. A slight seam in the wall, indicating sliding doors.
It's all coming back to me, in microdoses but coming back none the less.
"Hello? Run Admin Controls. Beacon Member Senior, Sapphyra."
Nothing. No lights, no A.I assistant voices. And worst of all? No wyatt.
"Wyatt, this isn't funny. Open the damn door!" I pound my fists against the doors. They refused to budge and I refused to give up.
"Fuck it. I don't have time for this." My tail jiggled and slid itself into the seam of the doors. Between it and me pulling like my life depended on it, we forced the doors open and stepped out into what was once my home.
Beacon Headquarters.
Cyran City, the home I've always known, had superheroes long before me and my friends. They called themselves Beacon. It wasn't until Wyatt and I started our own home for superheroes that needed a second chance that we uncovered the history behind Beacon.
"As I recall, we were in the midst of a name change before he put me in there. Come on Wyatt, Liam, Vega? Anybody?" I called out, walking amongst the cobwebs and blinking red lights of my home.
Red lights? Those were emergency power lights. Why would we need emergency power?
"Alright, who didn't pay the light bill!"
I glance at my tail, eyes having finally adjusted to the dark. "You're awfully silent. What's up?"
But it refused to look at me, opting instead to wrap around my waist–a gorgeous pink and white accessory.
"Why do I get the feeling something bad's gonna happen if I go outside?" I gulped, whispering to myself.
One of the functions that stays around with emergency power would be the calendar and time system. It sits on the wall of the white and gold squared seating area.
The strength left my body when I read the date and time.
Tuesday, March 1st, 2126. 9 p.m.
"That...there's no way that's right. When did I last see everyone–"
Blood and screams echoed around the compound but they weren't coming from the walls, they were coming from me. My head felt like it was splitting in two. More memories, more heartache.
I couldn't stop the memory. I had to relive that day all over again.
"Sapph."
"Wyatt, I can do this. I'm going back out there."
"The hell you are! Its a suicide mission!"
Behind us, a massive figure reached down, swiping one hand across Cyran city. An entire block was destroyed in less than 30 seconds. My tail and wings flared, the fire within me roared to life and demanded vengeance.
"Boss lady, that's not a good idea. We need to take who we can and leave the planet." Vega tried to reason with me.
"The ships still busted from the last time a Monolith attacked us! We have to go underground." Liam argued.
I wheeled on them, forehead vein throbbing. My mouth curled up in disgust.
"This is our city! We've protected it time and time again! We're Beacons, Pillars of Cyran. Without us it falls and you all want to run? Those are your families down there, your friends!"
"Sapphyra, baby. I love you but even you can't take on a Monolith. They're forces of nature. There is no fighting that." Wyatt stood in front of me, taking my hands in his.
I ripped them away, refusing to give in.
"Stop. I don't want to see anymore. Please..." I begged my brain to stop, felt my tail give my shoulders a rub but ultimately there was no fighting what came next.
In the end, they were right. We couldn't touch a Monolith. Not only was it too big to reasonably harm, it was a waste of time and resources to try and hold it at bay.
Wyatt was right. Monoliths were forces of nature, man in their purest form. They were so tall you couldn't see their heads on a cloudy day. One stomp might shake a continent loose if you weren't careful.
I said I wouldn't cry anymore today...but there's no fighting this.
"Did you all get your loved ones? Good. Get out." My dumbass wanted to stay and buy them some time.
"This is insanity! You think I'm just going to roll over and let my wife become a martyr? Live to fight another day, I'm begging you Sapph." Wyatt tugged on my arms but I moved past him.
"I'm not human, Wyatt. I'll be able to do something. I swear. Sometimes it takes a monster to beat a monster, right!" My goofy grin did little to temper his justified anger.
"It's not a monster. It's human!" He shouted. I turned to him, confused as I watched our teammates and their loved ones evacuate through portals and tunnels.
"What are you talking about?"
"It's human, Sapph."
"Wyatt, you've never been able to get a sample from a Monolith. How would you know?"
His silence spoke volumes. I didn't like a damn thing they were saying.
"Wyatt!"
"You're right. I never could get their DNA but I had yours, love." My tail split into three and wrapped around his neck.
"You promised me you would never try to–"
"I know." He wheezed out. "But after the baby...you needed a distraction. You needed hope."
A scream ripped from me. The words wouldn't come but my fire sure did.
"WHAT DID YOU DO?!"
"I leaked your DNA into the water system. Changed it so it would tap into the weaker genetics of humans and add Dragon DNA to them."
My nostrils flared as my emotions rushed to keep up with the betrayal.
"How long?"
"I had your DNA before Barnaby...but I didn't release it until after."
The air left my lungs, gravity crushed my heart.
"Wyatt that was three fucking years ago! The tappers–all the people who got superpowers because of drinking tap water–all the lives ruined, that was your fault?!"
I released his neck just enough so he could swallow his bullshit and give me the truth.
"Yes. I did it for you."
"No you didn't-not for me you didn't! 2 million people died, Wyatt. Didn't you feel anything at all? Did their deaths mean nothing to you?"
He adjusted his glasses.
I closed my eyes, knowing whatever he said next could never make up for this.
"I always told you I would let the world burn for you." Was his only response.
I wanted to kill him. Smack some sense into him, make him face justice for all the people he had a hand in murdering. All the families he destabilized, the lives ruined.
"No one is that special."
"Sapph–"
"I don't wanna hear it. Also, the fact that you would use our son's death as an excuse for your war crimes...I can't deal with you right now. Don't be here when I get back." I flew off without thinking. My mind was still intent on facing the monster in front of me–the Monolith–that I ignored the monster behind me.
Screaming in agony, I felt something cold and metallic grab me by the wings and yank me back. It was Wyatt, wielding some sort of contraption bathed in green light.
"I'm sorry. I know I hurt you–"
"FUCK YOU! Let me GO!" No matter what I did, nothing was freeing me. My back arched as something sharp pierced me.
Nothing pierces me. He really has betrayed me, hasn't he?
"I'm working on something, Sapph. A new way to do with the Monoliths and tappers. It all stems from your DNA but I've devised a way we can help people and give them powers safely."
"Go to tell, Wyatt." I remarked bitterly, watching the Monolith tear apart the other half of the city.
"It's called the Class System. It won't make sense now, but it will." He paused, watching my eyelids droop.
"Maybe by the time you wake up, you'll forgive me."
The world went dark for me after that.
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8.9
Just hours after I endured a grueling labor to give Kaelen, my fated mate and the Alpha, two beautiful twins, he walked into the infirmary.
Instead of holding our newborns, his Alpha aura pinned me to the bed as he coldly announced, "I reject you as my mate."
He claimed I reeked of another Alpha. His sister Vanessa threw a stack of photos at my face, showing me at a cafe with a broad-shouldered man. Before I could even explain, Kaelen forced a pen into my trembling hand while I was still bleeding, making me sign away my parental rights. His mother then snatched my newborn son Liam from the crib.
"Take the girl and get out of my territory," Kaelen commanded, leaving me in the freezing room with my severed mate-bond and my crying daughter.
I didn't understand how our sacred bond could be shattered by a single fake photo, or how my fated mate could be so blind and ruthless as to rip my baby from my arms.
Five years later, his precious heir is dying, and Kaelen desperately needs an alliance and a bone marrow donor. But when he finally sees me at a high-society gala, he doesn't find a broken, exiled Omega.
He finds me standing beside that very same "lover"—Dominic, the Alpha of the Silverwood Pack, my older brother. And this time, I am the one holding the blade.
8.4
My mate, Alpha Santino, brought another woman into our home. She was a pregnant Omega, the widow of his fallen Beta, and he swore to protect her above all others.
He gave her my seat of honor, left our bed cold each night to soothe her feigned nightmares, and ignored me completely. I was the Luna of the Blackstone Pack, but I was becoming a ghost in my own life.
The final betrayal happened in my own bedroom. She stood over my vanity and deliberately shattered my mother's sacred moonstone necklace, the last piece of my family I had left.
When Santino burst in, he didn't see my heartbreak. He saw only her fake tears.
"What did you do to her?!" he roared, his voice laced with the Alpha's Command, a sacred power he used to crush my will.
Then, for her, he did the unforgivable. He raised his hand and struck me, his mate.
In that instant, the love I had desperately clung to turned to ice. The man I had sworn my life to had not only betrayed me but had defiled the sacred bond the Goddess herself had blessed.
As the pain of his betrayal ripped through me, something ancient and powerful awakened in my blood. I rose to my feet and spoke the words that would destroy his world and begin mine.
"I, Alessia Bianchi, reject you, Santino Moretti, as my mate."
7.6
I woke up to the suffocating smell of copper and sulfur, my fingers wrapped around a blood-soaked leather whip.
Hanging from an obsidian cross in front of me was a boy with silver hair and dead, golden eyes.
His pale chest was torn open to the bone.
I recognized those eyes immediately. I had spent three years describing them on my laptop.
He was Kamari Monroe, the tragic, overpowered protagonist of my own web novel.
And I wasn't just a bystander. I was Benedict Guerrero, the sadistic academy headmaster. The ultimate villain.
A reel of images flashed in my mind: my original ending. Kamari, fully awakened, skinning me alive and burning my soul in a furnace for forty-nine days.
My loyal attack dog, Gideon, stepped forward with a basin of glowing green liquid.
"Headmaster, let me wake him up with this bone-rot acid so you can resume."
If that acid hit Kamari, his hatred would become permanent. My gruesome death would be sealed.
But if I broke character and apologized, the magical world would sense the shift, and Kamari would just think it was a sicker, more twisted trap.
How was I supposed to survive a death sentence I wrote myself?
I couldn't show weakness. I had to play the monster to survive.
Suppressing my terror, I smashed the acid basin, healed his ruined flesh with agonizing dark magic, and lied straight to his face.
"Someone had to be the monster to push you into the fire."
This time, I will rewrite my own fate.
9.2
Lainey spent her last life destroying herself for Larry, only to become the woman he discarded most cruelly. He never loved her, never wanted her, and made no secret that his first love still owned his heart.
On their wedding day, he abandoned Lainey at the altar for that woman, then later used Lainey as nothing more than a stepping stone for his company's rise. In the end, he even had her kidney ripped from her.
Reborn at the very moment everything began, Lainey called off the wedding without hesitation. But after losing her, Larry begged desperately.
Lainey shot him a cold look, then turned and walked straight into the arms of a powerful, aloof man, who stared down at Larry with pure contempt. "She's my wife now."
7.4
Bridget, a ruthless twenty-first-century Wall Street analyst, woke up violently coughing up murky lake water in a decaying 1978 slum.
She quickly realized she was trapped in the body of a naive, marginalized teenager who had just committed suicide over a boy's cruel rejection.
The original girl had been mercilessly bullied by a fake rich kid named Kurtis and his cruel followers. They had publicly read her desperate love letters out loud, mocking her as a toad trying to eat swan meat, and simply watched as she threw herself into the freezing water. Now, her impoverished mother was left weeping by the bed, facing catastrophic debt and total social ruin in their small town. Everyone expected the surviving girl to wake up begging and crying for the boy who humiliated her.
Instead, a cold, calculating fury took over Bridget's analytical mind.
"I already died in that lake. That stupid girl is never coming back."
How could anyone throw their life away for a pathetic, vain clown wearing a mass-produced fifty-dollar watch? To Bridget, those uncollected love letters weren't symbols of teenage heartbreak. They were toxic assets. They were reputation landmines left out in the open that threatened her new family's survival.
Locking away the dead girl's weak emotions, Bridget forced her freezing, exhausted body out of the clinic bed. She set a hard three-month deadline to drag this family out of tier-one poverty. But first, she was marching straight to the volunteer camp to liquidate those liabilities and completely destroy the people who drove this body to death.
8.6
In my past life, I was the weak Luna everyone despised.
A fake daughter!
A disposable pawn!!
A girl my family happily executed!!!
They forced me to marry my brother to protect the family's reputation. They feared the world will know that their Alpha Son was born Impotent- they made me carry the blame of-
"A HEN THAT CANNOT LAY EGGS!!"
I obeyed them... and it cost me my life!
Their real daughter framed me countless times. My husband who was also my brother and we grew up together never believed me... They called me fake and treated me like a servant. She framed me and made the wolf world see my shame. I died trying to save my life from them.
But I woke up 10 years before my death.
This time, I refused to play their game.
After accepting the marriage to my brother...
I went behind them to meet my mate. The most feared man in our CLAN. His Uncle.
The crippled Lycan lord in disguise who once asked me to marry him.
He thought I had come to reject our bond like my past life but this time. --------I stood before him with a dangerous deal.
"Do you still want to stay the crippled Uncle in the shadows?" I asked, in a serious tone.
He replied. "I don't know what you are saying."
I knelt down placing my hands on his lap."Tomorrow morning they will be here. Do you dare to come claim your mate?"
This Time!!......I' Elena Alvarez, will Light fire to their World.