Taming Asher
On a scale of one to ten, my life had always dangled between three and four, thanks to my very wretched humble background, until the day it hit zero.
"I will give you the money on the condition that you send that text to Asher." Mia Harper began with a mischievous smile on her face.
"Asher?" I repeated.
"You heard me right."
No way.
Asher Thorne was the hottest, attractive and most popular kid in school. Bad boy, star hockey player, arrogant and snobbish, were the perfect words to describe him with. He hardly ever smiled and didn't talk to just 'anybody'.
I stared down at the ridiculous message typed on my phone screen...
And that was how it all started for the scholarship student, Grace Williams, the cool genius who preferred to stay invisible and out of trouble.
But not for long.
Thanks to Mia, she gets tangled with Asher and fresh troubles that came with their forbidden alliance. Determined to tame the bad boy, she steps into a world of secrets, rivalry, and dangerous attraction. Will she survive it?
And more importantly... will she dare to step into the love zone?
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Chapter 4
"Come on, Bennie, won't you say hi?" His grandma entreated. "Or is she so pretty and dead gorgeous, you can't?"
Asher scoffed this time and broke the staring contest, looking away. "Gorgeous, my foot." He muttered under his breath.
I heard him though. I knew I was pretty, but for her to use dead gorgeous was a little over the top. It's not like I looked dressed up in my old cargo dress and moccasins. With my hair parked in my usual rough bun because I hardly have the time to take good care of it. Or was she being sarcastic?
Whatever. I returned my attention to the elderly woman. "I'll like to hurry now. Please can I get my bags?"
"Yeah, sure." She responded. "Bennie, do me a good favour and drop her off. Her bags are a lot."
"No, thank you. I will simply take a taxi." I quickly objected. She laughed.
"You don't know how much you will be charged for these, do you? Don't worry, he has a ride. Let him handle it for you." Then she looked up at him. "Will you, darling?"
"Of course, yeah." He answered sweetly.
I glanced back at him abruptly, sure I must have misheard. But he gave me a very sweet and polite smile, taking my bags from his grandma.
My God. I am so doomed right now. All because of a cup of noodles I might have just ignored. I expected him to protest, not put up a fake act. Now what was his plan?
I felt worse and sick to my stomach when he opened the passenger door for me, before turning around to settle into the driver's seat. I can't believe I was getting a ride from the most popular guy in school. His car this time was a silver pickup, a GMC Canyon, different from the white Porsche 911 Turbo he often drove to school.
Today, he had decided to pack his hair in a ponytail at the nape of his neck, and he looked hot as usual in baggy pants and a designer shirt. My eyes rested on his hands the moment he touched the steering. Good Lord, the guy was so hairy. I don't know why, but my eyes wandered instinctively to his bare legs.
Freaking fine and hairy.
Why won't the girls gather to watch him play?
"What are you staring at?"
His deep husky voice startled me. I felt my stomach dip in embarrassment and my cheeks heat up too.
I forced a scoff. "Nice wheels. Nice ride too."
Dumb lines.
He said nothing.
The silence made me feel more stupid.
Okay, Grace. You've got this. Show this dude what you've got so he doesn't think you're tripping over him. I cleared my throat as he pulled the car out of the lot. "Listen, Ash. Let's just pretend we never met, okay? I told you yesterday to send me the bills, not flood my phone with endless questions." I began, feeling my courage return. "Drop me at the next bus stop. I'll find my way from there. Thanks for the ride. I know this whole drama was just for your granny."
He was silent again.
I was forced to pinch myself at this point to be sure I wasn't dead and invisible.
"Bennie?!" I called in exasperation.
That did it.
The car came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the road. He turned to me stiffly with a killer glare.
"What did you just call me?"
"Ben..." I stopped. Not now. I could always do this later. Cars honked impatiently behind. I felt very uncomfortable. "Please, let's just move first. It's not safe here."
I tried not to look panicky. It was at the tips of my lip to tell him to kill me if he wanted to, rather than giving me that killer gaze, but that would only be expressing my fear to him. I wouldn't let him see that. "Fine. Suit yourself." I reclined my head against the headrest and shut my eyes like I don't care, forcing my racing heart to stay still, lest he noticed. The car moved then, and it was so hard to withhold my smile but I did.
"Twelve bucks."
He finally broke the silence.
My eyes flew open. "Twelve bucks for what?"
"The ride."
"Okay." I uttered with an air of nonchalance, though I felt deeply broken inside. I had been hoping to add the cab fare to my savings, instead of returning it to my mean aunt. If only I hadn't called him Bennie. But I wasn't going to let him see my disappointment. I guess my response surprised him because he stole a glance my way, but I looked away and stared out the window. My vision attempted to blur with tears, but I forced them back in. I'm no loser.
Country bumpkin from nowhere.
Poor hopeless nobody.
For some reason, these phrases kept repeating in my head nonstop. They messed with my brain. Maybe returning to Minnesota wouldn't be such a bad idea since everyone here hated me.
It really hurts.
I must have been deeply absorbed and lost in my thoughts before I realized the ride was lasting longer than usual and he had not even bothered to ask my destination. I sat up immediately, glancing around, but I could barely recognize the area. "Please stop the car." I said frantically. The sun was gradually setting, and when I looked at the time on the dashboard it was twenty-eight minutes past six. But Asher didn't pay any attention, he drove on instead.
"I said you should stop the car!" I commanded fiercely, hitting his hand, but it seemed to have no effect on him. "Stop the car this instant, Bennie!" I yelled at the top of my voice.
Again, that did it.
He pulled the car to a stop, parking by the roadside as he killed the engine. The whole area looked totally deserted, save for an empty self-service gas station by the corner. I could hardly see a soul around, nor did I have any idea where we were.
"Where are we?"
"Your money. I need to buy some gas."
I opened my purse and handed it to him without any fuss.
"Where are we?" I asked again.
He didn't respond. He stepped out instead and walked around to open my door.
"Get out."
I frowned. "What? I just paid you already. This is not my destination. I don't..."
He dragged me out before I could finish talking. I was so stunned and scared.
"Asher?"
I watched him head to the backseat where my shopping bags were. He flung them out one after the other, save for one or two I managed to catch. Some of the contents spilled out in the process, leaving things like the fresh tomatoes and bananas partially ruined.
I was deeply pained.
Did he really intend to dump me here after collecting the last dime I had? The money my aunt gave me had barely been enough, so I had managed as best as I could and had almost nothing left.
"Are you acting out just because I called you Bennie?" I demanded as he slammed the back door shut after throwing out the last bag.
He gave me a hateful stare. "If I hear that name from you again, I swear I'm gonna hit your head hard against this car till you bleed."
His voice was filled with venom.
"Then tell your grandma to stop calling you Bennie if that's not your name or if you hate it so much!" I retorted, fueled by anger.
He made a sudden dash toward me, but I leaped out of his way and darted off. Fortunately, he let me be.
I only returned to my bags after he got into his car. Then he poked his head out the window. "This is for ignoring my texts and then talking shit to my face, rather than apologizing. As you wish, I'll deliver the bill tomorrow, and you're expected to pay before the week runs out."
I watched the car until it drove out of sight.
Then realization dawned on me.
I've just been ditched in the middle of nowhere.
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9.1
Waking up with a cold, scaly hand wrapped around my throat wasn't the worst part.
The worst part was realizing I'd transmigrated into the body of Terra Mason—the most despised woman in the entire Enclave. She drugged high-level beast-men and forced them into life-binding bio-contracts. She locked an aquatic warrior in a dry basement until his organs failed. She treated the most lethal males in the city like broken toys.
Zev, the Level 6 serpent who's currently choking me, would rather blow up his own heart than spend another day as my slave. His affection metric? Negative ninety. His trust? Zero.
Then my system activates: the Kore AI. It gives me exactly 500 credits, a medical nano-gel, and a recipe for neutralizing the radioactive poison in mutant meat. Real food. In this world, that's worth more than gold.
I save Rhys, the dying aquatic male everyone left for dead. I season a slab of purple mutant steak until Sam, a battle-scarred grizzly shifter, groans at the taste—and his trust points finally tick above zero. When my backstabbing ex-best friend tries to steal my males and destroy me, I don't scream or throw a tantrum like the old Terra. I dismantle her with the truth.
But earning their trust means more than grilling meat. A scorpion swarm ambushes us at midnight. Sam throws himself between me and a stinger the size of my arm. As he stands over the corpse, fur receding from his claws, he stares at me and whispers, "You were testing me."
Yes. I was. Because in this world, the weak don't survive. And I refuse to be weak again.
Four beast-men. Four contracts. One system. And a whole lot of steak. Let this dystopian wasteland know—I'm not the monster they remember. I'm worse. I'm the one who's going to feed them until they'd kill for me.
8.3
Angel was slammed onto the freezing stone slabs of the central square, surrounded by the deafening, mocking laughter of her clan.
Her own sister, Jasmine, stood over her with a look of pure malice, loudly and falsely accusing Angel of sneaking into the Chief's tent to seduce him.
Then, Al Stein, the man who had sworn to be her mate, stepped out of the crowd with a twisted face of disgust.
"You're a genetic reject. You can't give me children. You're useless."
He threw their bone mate ring hard at her face, cutting her cheek, as the crowd roared for her blood.
Without a trial, the High Oracle stripped her of her citizenship and sentenced her to eternal exile in the deadly wasteland.
To make her punishment a complete joke, the guards dragged out a comatose, dying outcast named Kain, slicing Angel's finger to force a mate bond between the two defects.
They were tossed out into the raging blizzard like discarded corpses, the heavy steel gates slamming shut behind them, cutting off all light and warmth.
Angel crawled through the snow, her vision blurring from extreme starvation and the biting wind, suffocating under the weight of their lies.
Why did her own blood frame her? Why did her mate throw her away to die in the ice?
Just as the freezing shadow of death wrapped around her, a sharp, mechanical voice exploded in her mind.
[Genetic Evolution Codex activated. Host Status: Legendary Kitsune Prime.]
The despair evaporated from her chest, replaced by a burning vow to survive and make every single one of them pay.
9.4
My retirement was finally approved, and I was supposed to be sipping drinks on a sunny beach.
Instead, a cold system voice forced me into a nightmare scenario: "Cursed Mates Who Want Me Dead." I woke up in a stinking cave, trapped in the body of a psychopathic tribal princess.
The memories that flooded my brain made me sick. The original owner of this body had forcibly marked seven of the continent's most powerful beast-men and reduced them to tortured pets. She had ripped the shimmering scales off Jordi the Merfolk prince, gouged out a proud wolf-man's power crystal, and snapped an eagle-man's magnificent wings.
Now, Jordi was a mutilated, terrified mess hiding in a corner. He was so traumatized that he tried to slit his own throat just to escape me. His sister was actively trying to assassinate me.
To make matters worse, the system warned me that if I didn't heal these seven ticking time bombs, my soul would be erased. Yet the future timeline clearly showed that these men would eventually unite, burn my tribe to the ground, and dismember me alive.
I was paying for a monster's sins. Every time I tried to show mercy, they thought it was a sick new torture method. Words were useless, and my very presence was a trigger.
But I am a Tier-S operative, and I don't play the victim. I forced the system to unlock my powers and strapped on my tactical gear.
"Stay here and don't starve."
I left the trembling Merfolk behind and walked into the deadly primitive forest, heading straight for the powerful Oasis Tribe to take back his stolen scales by force.
7.0
They mocked him.
They humiliated him.
They thought he was just the worthless son-in-law who couldn't lift his head at the dinner table.
Leon Gray was invisible to everyone around him-his proud wife, his ruthless in-laws, the world that only measured worth by wealth and power. To them, he was nothing but a burden, a joke, a man doomed to live and die in obscurity.
But Leon had a secret.
Behind his silence was strength. Behind his shame was an empire no one dared to imagine. Every insult, every slap, every cruel laugh only fueled the system he carried within him-a mysterious force that rewarded his patience and built his hidden kingdom brick by brick.
The Collins family believed they had crushed him.
What they didn't know was that they had just created their greatest enemy.
Now the silent son-in-law is done waiting.
The tables are about to turn.
The man they trampled will rise-not as their equal, but as their ruler.
This is not just a tale of revenge.
This is the legend of the forgotten man who became untouchable.
The silent king.
The son-in-law who owns everything.
9.3
Grace finally decided to end her toxic, one-sided relationship with Adelbert, the arrogant heir to a global empire, by texting him to terminate their family trust.
His response was a single, freezing word: "Done."
When they accidentally bumped into each other in a law firm elevator, Adelbert looked right through her.
"I don't know her," he stated coldly to his frat brothers, treating her like invisible trash.
Humiliated and completely exhausted, Grace sought an escape in a brutal shooter game called PUBG.
But by a sick twist of fate, the random matchmaking threw her into a squad with Adelbert's frat brothers and a god-tier, toxic player named 'Ø'.
'Ø' relentlessly mocked her terrible skills, humiliating her and calling her a "pig" over the voice chat.
Yet, during the final shootout, this ruthless player suddenly threw his character in front of hers, taking a fatal barrage of bullets just to keep her alive.
Grace soon uncovered the terrifying truth: the top-ranked 'Ø' was actually Adelbert himself.
She was utterly confused and furious.
Why would the untouchable billionaire who ignored her legal texts and publicly humiliated her suddenly sacrifice himself for her in a cheap video game?
Refusing to swallow her pride in both the real and digital worlds, Grace sent a direct challenge to his gaming profile.
"I'll prove I'm not a pig."
Across the city, Adelbert stared at the notification, a dark smirk curling his lips, and clicked accept.
8.9
After dying in an accident, Alex awakens in another world in the body of a poor student who was betrayed by both his girlfriend and his best friend, then beaten to death in a dark alley. A mysterious stone that followed him across worlds awakens the Superstar System, turning effort and discipline into growth. Carrying two lives' worth of regret and one unfinished dream, Alex steps onto the path of fame, determined to rise from nothing and reach the stage that once felt impossible.