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 4
"Yes, 'Chovy?" I answered in the tiniest voice I could muster. Antonio "Anchovy" Bennet was known for two things: being a rude little shit and a slave worker. From calling me off the clock to making me miss my mother's birthday–and then not paying me for the job I did–he's the worst.
But in this economy,beggars can't be choosers.
"Don't start with me, runt." He thinks it's funny every time he calls me that.
"How was your day, boss-man?" Leave it to me to egg him on, anyway.
"It was fine until I got a message from Rupert Domingo asking to see your big ass." The phone slipped from my hand. Scrambling to catch it, I missed half of what he said next.
"I'm sorry, did you say the president wanted to see me?!"
"No, of course not. Must have been a fluke. How many other giant bitches named Sapphyra do you think I have employed?! Now stop asking stupid questions and tell me what you did to get on his bad side!" I could hear his ragged breathing from here.
"Me? I did nothing, I swear!" I didn't, not that I could think of. A thought plagued me, though I tried not to lean into it.
"I'll keep your secret."
Guy could have been lying. Rupert was his direct boss. Why wouldn't he tell him after the crappy way I talked to him? Which means I did technically do something bad.
Couldn't worry about that now, though.
"I did nothing, Chovy, and even if I did, I would have told you about it. I've been working for you for five years now; I'm not some rookie."
He scoffed and snorted what was no doubt a line of this week's designer drugs. His habit has gotten the company close to bankrupting over the years.
"Whatever kid. Don't tell me, it's not my problem. Anyway, he wants you at the Imperial tomorrow morning, 8 a.m. sharp. I don't need to tell you what happens to people who disappoint him, do I?"
That might have been as close to kind as he's ever been to me.
"And I ain't paying you just cus' the president wants ta' see ya either! Lazy bum."
He hung up on me, a tiny blessing.
As I clocked out, I headed home, left with my thoughts. My bus ride was quiet. Yesterday it was loud, but months ago the sound was deafening. That's also the last time the bus was full of people.
Sometimes when I turn my head or close my eyes, it almost feels like the people were still there. I feel a hand on my shoulder, smell something musty–but when I open my eyes there's no one there.
Every street we passed was another reminder of where the lines in the city sat. Maintained neighborhoods, pristine and secluded, never had to worry about cleanups. They weren't the leftovers–the rest of us were.
Growing up, I thought I was lucky. Mom bought a house with Dad's life insurance money long ago in one of the safer districts of downtown. Safety was short-lived, unfortunately. Once I turned 18, downtown stopped being a haven the day a building collapsed from a swarm of flying monkeys.
Almost at my stop.
We flew past Ernies. I saw a waitress carrying a large pink cake covered in berries with numerous candles on top. A young woman sat at a bar with a handsome young man next to her.
The flames on the candles flickered and laughed at me as my past kidnapped me once more.
"Happy birthday Sapph!" I hate that I still hear him on that day so clearly.
As I stepped into my house, I had to bite my knuckle to stifle the memory until it passed.
"Mom, I'm home!" I toss my keys into the bowl, kick off my shoes and wander into the kitchen–ravenous.
On the table next to the bowl was an overdue bill from The City.
"Hey baby. Did you have a good day at work?"
I bent down for her, letting my tiny mom kiss my cheek. She's not just tiny because I'm huge–over the years she's shrunk because of an incurable bone disease that I can't pronounce the name of. Yet even with a walker, at 54, my mom refuses to let anything slow her down.
She's such a badass; she's a secretary for the police department.
"Mostly. I helped a little girl reunite with her mother. The roads are empty where the attack happened, too."
Two truths, let's not add a lie.
"Mm, did you run into Mr. Dynamo again? I know you love yourself some Dynamo."
Bless her heart, she still thinks I'm that little girl with the superhero crush.
"Momma, I'm older now. I've moved far beyond crushing on celebrities." Especially when I casually break their hearts. God, I'm such a horrible person.
"What's wrong baby?" I tried not to look her in the eye but it was too late.
She's giving me the mom look. The look. The one that quietly commands you to dump out the contents of your soul. Or else.
"Nothing's wrong." There's the lie.
She squints, pouring herself a cup of coffee at the same time–never missing a drop.
"Mmhm." The soft hum is my first warning to come clean. Even now at 30 years old, I still start sweating whenever I hear that.
"Mom, I'm serious."
"I'm sure you are. You're a grown woman now–no need to tell your old fuddy-duddy momma about anything going on in your life." She's so dramatic.
"I'll just waste away knowing that my dear daughter doesn't need me anymore–"
I caved. "Okay! Fine. Mom, yeah, stuff...stuff happened today. I said some things to Guy."
She sipped her piping hot coffee, one eyebrow raised.
"First name basis already?"
"Mom! Not the point."
"Carry on. What did you say to him?"
Biting my bottom lip, I exhaled slowly.
"I may have...refused his invitation to be a superhero like him." Not with him. That's the last thing my mother needs to hear.
"And he took it that bad? I always knew you were a heartbreaker honey." I rolled my eyes at the pride dripping from her voice.
"It's not just the rejection, it's how I said it. Or, rather, what I said after. I spiraled, panicked–"
"You self sabotaged again?" She already knew. I hate that this is a pattern for me.
Running my fingers through my hair, I nodded.
"I started blaming him for all the bad shit in the city. Blamed him for the people he couldn't save-"
She slowly placed the cup down, sighing. She wasn't angry or disgusted–though I wished she was. No, she was disappointed and I hated that even more. When her hands folded over mine, my breath caught in my throat. I ripped my hands away and turned my back on her, heading towards my room.
She didn't stop me. Who could blame her?
I closed the door behind me, locking it. She had a key, of course–it was her house. No, I wanted to lock it for my peace of mind.
"Please tell me you're here. I need you so bad right now." The words ripped from my throat just as my strength left me.
I squeezed my eyes shut, and opened them again, coming face to face with my soulmate.
My gut finally started untangling itself as I stopped holding back tears.
"Rough day, beautiful?" The love of my life asked me.
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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.