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 3
If I just lie here and play dead–
"Cleanup girl, you're not fooling anyone. Get up." His voice was low and menacing as he stood over me. His shoes–some high end sneakers–were on either side of my head. Sighing, I opened my eyes and put on a sheepish smile.
"Hey, Guy."
His perfect brow furrowed. "Don't hey me. I saw what you did. What the hell are you doing, throwing up a house like that? Since when can Battlefield Janitors do that?"
I sit up, dusting myself off as I get to my feet. He's tall, but he still stops just shy of my breasts in height. Speaking of breasts, his gaze landed squarely on mine.
"Ahem." I quietly snap my fingers, breaking his concentration. His blush almost made my day.
"Cleanup girl, have you always been so...Amazonian?"
"That's what you wanted to say? And yeah, ever since puberty. Why? Curious about how well I could clean you up?" I lean forward, making him step back just a bit-face turning crimson. Guy normally has a flirtatious air–especially around fangirls. That said, he's probably not used to being the one looking up.
Come on, go for the bait. I need you distracted.
"I–I mean–hey stop that!" he growled. "You can't distract me with your body...no matter how nice it is."
At least he was honest about his feelings.
"Distract you from what? I should really get back to work, lots of buildings to clean up and all-" I turned on my heel. He used his speed to get in front of me, blocking my path.
Damn.
"Listen. I'm not gonna report you to Rupert or anything like that. I'm just genuinely curious." His palms were up, fingers spread. Guy meant it...at least he was trying to mean it. I think.
"Swear to me you won't snitch." I demand, squinting at him.
"I swear on my parents' lives." Well darn. He really loves his parents in public and supposedly in private.
Scratching my head, I walk a few feet and sit down on the nearby park bench. It groans beneath my weight.
My hair sways in the wind as Guy steps to my side, floating just above the bench.
"I don't bite, ya know." I say, smirking at how uncomfortable he is.
"No. You clean. And right now it's time for you to come clean."
"That's what I've basically been doing. Cleaning–"
"And spitting up real estate? What part of the cleaning process is that?" He crosses his arms, examining me with amusement in his eyes.
I'm not the only one with a nice chest.
"That's...it normally doesn't work like that." I admitted, gently chewing on my bottom lip.
"So you've done this before then?"
"Throw up houses? No."
Guy shakes his head, a soft smile gracing his pale pink lips.
"Not that. Giving people their homes back."
I blinked slowly, unsure of what he had just said. Turning back to the apartment, I confirmed that it wasn't a dream. I really had given them a new home.
"The weight of it still hadn't hit me yet, not really. Each of the janitorial staff can use these same abilities that I can."
"But not like you can...Sapphyra." He leaned closer to me, our hands dangerously close. I hated how softly he said my name, as if he was trying to get inside my head.
And I hated how my heart responded.
I snorted and leaned back, draping my arm across the back of the bench. He didn't move an inch–didn't flinch.
"Why does that matter to you? What, are you afraid I'll steal your thunder or something?"
"Thunder-you know this is just a job for me, right?" He raised an eyebrow.
"Oh...you mean your name isn't Guy?" I covered my mouth, hiding the smirk behind it. Of course, it was just a job.
He rolled his eyes, running his fingers through his short black hair. Leaning forward, he locked his fingers together and hummed softly.
"Why haven't you told anyone about this?" Guy nodded towards the house.
"You mean why haven't I exposed myself to mass ridicule and invasive experiments? Who knows?"
"Hey. You don't have to be such an ass about it."
"I'm sorry, are you allowed to curse off the clock?" I snickered at him, enjoying every moment his face turned red. It was nice seeing him not so...put together, so fake. He almost seemed real.
"I'm a grown man; I can curse when I want."
He stiffened as I leaned forward, wiggling my eyebrows. "Then do it right now."
"What? Why would I?"
"You wanna know about me? We go tit for tat then. Go on, let it rip, superhero!" Smirking, I nudged his side with my elbow.
"I...um...this is idiotic. Fucking–" He covered his mouth,eyeing the dirt for safety.
"There ya go! Look at you."
"Your turn, cotton candy dipshit." He smirked, shoulders sagging slightly.
"Hm. What can I really say? I thought about it...once. It's not just what I can do with my job, but I'm–"
"You're big and strong too." It was my turn to blush.
"What, did you really think you were hiding well every time you lifted tons of cement? My hearing's pretty good. I always knew about your..." he smirked.
"What? Knew about my what?"
"Your incredible power of suck." He giggles as my cheeks burn.
"It's called vacuum! Not suck! If you're gonna tease me, get it right."
"Or what? Your boss is gonna sue me?"
"He probably couldn't afford to sue you since the city has you by the balls." Guy squints at me, disliking my smug comment.
"It's just a job. I mean, I like saving people but the costume and everything...I could do without."
"I'll believe it when I see it."
"Sapphyra. If I could talk to my boss would you think about it?"
"About what?" My throat tightened, making it difficult to swallow. I already knew what he meant; I just didn't want confirmation.
"A class change. You could be a superhero with me! Think about it. You and I want the same things–to help people. Giving that little girl her house back is going to be monumental for her, but you could do so much more!"
His eyes sparkled like a kid opening their presents on Christmas day. Not that we have christmas anymore.
Being a hero was never my dream...but it was a nice daydream–until the headaches rolled in.
I snorted up a few drops of blood, swallowing back another memory that refused to stay clear.
It would have been easy to get lost in his words, to hope with him. But I'd seen too much of what hope looks like when it disappears.
"Why don't you do more?"
There I went again-putting my guard up.
Guy's face fell. "What? I do–"
"No. Why don't you do more than just soak up the glory and take autographs? You knew I carried a little girl-her name is Penny, by the way. You've heard me lifting heavy shit out here-cleaning up behind your mess by the way-so why haven't you done more?"
I hop off the bench, feeling the anger rise from years of standing on the sidelines.
"Sapphyra, I try my hardest to keep everyone safe-including you." He stood up, floating high in the air to rise above me-a position of safety, no doubt.
"Tell that to the people you left behind!"
Oh god. Why did I say that?
His eyes widened, mouth set in a hard line. Guys chests rose and fell faster than I could keep up with. And then it stopped, steady and silent.
"I'll keep your secret." Was all he said as he turned away.
"Wait, Guy, I didn't mean–"
He flew away, done with my bullshit. My heart sank as he vanished from my sight.
I pinched the bridge of my nose,groaning as my work phone went off in my back pocket. As if today wasn't bad enough, it was my boss-and his calls were never casual.
"Fuck my life."
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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.