The Rose Luna
I thought I was just a broke college girl with a traumatic past and too many cigarettes. I didn't know I was born to lead a pack. I didn't know I was being hunted.
On the night of my twenty-fourth birthday, everything changed. One second I was at a club, pretending life didn't suck. The next, I was being dragged out by a stranger with ocean-blue eyes, thrown into a black SUV, and told I was a werewolf.
Apparently, I'm not just any werewolf-I'm the heir to a powerful bloodline, the only survivor of a massacre, and the center of a prophecy that could bring down one of the darkest witches in history.
Now I'm stuck in a mansion full of secrets, locked behind doors I didn't ask for, and shadowed by an Alpha who looks at me like I'm everything he's ever wanted-and everything he's not allowed to have.
They say I belong here.
They say I have power.
But I didn't ask for a bond I don't understand, a fate I don't believe in, or a love that might just break me.
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Chapter 3
Nathaniel and I chatted as we nursed our drinks, one after the other. I've always had a good tolerance, and Nathaniel liked to joke that I drank booze like fish drink water. His words made me smirk, though my mind drifted back to the stranger who'd been watching me earlier. His intense gaze had stuck with me, sending a shiver down my spine that I couldn't shake.
Just as Nathaniel leaned in to ask me how I'd done on our last test, a scream pierced through the loud music, making both of us freeze. The club seemed to fall into an uneasy silence for a split second before the noise returned, and everyone ran. I glanced toward the entrance, and my heart dropped when I saw the stranger approaching, his face tight with urgency.
"Nate, did you see something?" he demanded, his voice sharp as his eyes flicked from Nathaniel to me.
Nathaniel sighed, rolling his eyes. "Ethan, how many times have I told you not to call me Nate? You know I hate that."
"That's highly irrelevant right now!" Ethan snapped, barely sparing Nathaniel a glance before grabbing my arm. His grip was firm, and before I could protest, he started pulling me toward the staircase.
"Hey! Let go of me!" I shouted, trying to pull my arm free. Panic flared in my chest as I glanced back at Nathaniel, who was following us without hesitation. "Who the hell are you?" I yelled at Ethan, struggling to keep up as he led me down a dark corridor on the second floor.
Ethan didn't answer, his pace relentless as he dragged me to an office at the end of the hallway. My breath came in shallow gasps, fear swirling in my stomach. He shoved me inside, and Nathaniel quickly followed, closing the door behind us.
"Nate, go sweep the club. Clear everyone outside," Ethan barked at Nathaniel, his tone leaving no room for argument.
"Yes, sir!" Nathaniel replied without missing a beat, turning on his heel and rushing out of the room.
I stood there, staring at Ethan, trying to make sense of what was happening. He calmly walked to the door and locked it with a soft click, and my heart raced.
"Why are you locking the door? Who the fuck are you?" I demanded, my voice trembling with a mix of fear and anger.
Ethan turned toward me, his expression softening slightly. "Calm down," he said, his voice smooth and steady. "My name is Ethan. Nice to meet you." He stepped closer and reached for my hand, bringing it to his lips in a brief, polite kiss.
I yanked my hand away, glaring at him. "Enough with the formalities. Just tell me what the hell is going on," I said, my voice quieter now, exhaustion creeping in.
Ethan sighed and glanced at his phone. "We'll wait for Nathaniel to get back, and then I'll explain everything," he said, his eyes shifting to the door.
I didn't answer. Instead, I studied him, my mind racing as I tried to piece together what was happening. Ethan was tall, around 6'3", his dark raven hair slightly tousled, framing a chiseled face that could've been straight out of a magazine. His eyes were a deep, almost unnerving shade of blue, and the way his shirt stretched over his broad shoulders made it clear he wasn't just a pretty face. Under different circumstances, I might have admired him, but I was too freaked out to care right now.
Minutes felt like hours as I sat there in silence, my mind whirling with questions. What did they want with me? And why did Nathaniel seem so different?
Finally, there was a knock at the door. Ethan walked over and cracked it open slightly before letting Nathaniel back inside.
"Did you find anything?" Ethan asked, his tone all business.
Nathaniel shook his head, looking frustrated. "No. Nothing. I couldn't find her, but I smelled one of her minions nearby."
Her? Who were they talking about?
Ethan's jaw tightened. "Then it's time. We need to take her to the pack."
Nathaniel's face faltered. "She's not ready yet."
I stood frozen, trying to make sense of their conversation. Pack? Minions? None of this made any sense. I opened my mouth to ask what they were talking about, but Nathaniel turned to me, his expression serious, eyes pleading.
"Mer, I know you're freaking out right now," he said softly, taking a step toward me. "But I need you to trust me. Do you trust me?"
I hesitated, my heart pounding in my ears. The Nathaniel I knew, the one who'd been my friend for four years, who'd seen me through all my worst days, had never given me a reason to doubt him. But this? This was different.
"I don't know," I whispered, barely able to meet his eyes.
He took another step forward, his voice low. "You're going to have to trust me on this one."
After a long pause, I nodded. Whatever was going on, I had no choice but to follow him now. He never betrayed me before.
Nathaniel gently took my hand and led me out of the office. This time, we walked in silence, the tension thick between us. Outside, a black SUV waited. It wasn't Nathaniel's usual car, but he opened the back door for me as if nothing was out of the ordinary. I climbed inside, and Ethan slid in next to me, his presence looming in the small space.
Nathaniel got behind the wheel and pulled away from the curb. The city lights blurred past as we drove through the quiet streets.
I glanced at my phone - 2 a.m.
The night stretched on as I tried to keep my eyes open, but exhaustion finally took over. I leaned my head back against the seat, and before I knew it, the steady hum of the road lulled me into a restless sleep.
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7.1
The captain is dead to the world. And I'm the only one holding the kill switch.
Ethan Carter, the "Glacier of Silvercrest," was the most feared Alpha to ever step onto the ice. Now, he's nothing but a shell-a broken, comatose legend trapped in his own body.
My life? It was supposed to be simple. Graduate, survive the pack's bottom-tier status, and pay off my father's ruinous blood-debts. Instead, the pack elders handed me a contract soaked in cold, hard malice: I am the designated "Stabilizer." My only job is to touch him, scent him, and keep his wolf from flatlining.
I thought I was just a glorified nurse. I didn't realize the Alpha was listening.
When Ethan finally wakes, he isn't the hero the Kingdom of Valeria remembers. He's a starving predator with amber eyes that burn holes through my defenses and a temperament that makes the frost in the mansion seem warm. He hates the bargain, he hates the pack, and-most dangerously-he hates the way his scent turns wild whenever I'm near.
He wants me out of his sight. I want to be out of his reach.
But in a pack built on secrets, someone is still trying to finish the job they started on his life. Now, the man who wants me gone is the only one who can protect me. And as the rink turns into a battlefield, I'm realizing the most dangerous thing about the Alpha isn't his temper... it's the fact that once he claims a mate, he doesn't know how to let go.
Frozen hearts are meant to shatter. But in the fire of this pack, we're both going to burn.
7.2
I woke up in a lavish bedroom, only to find a man built like a god of war chained to my wall, glaring at me with pure, unadulterated hatred.
A glowing apparition appeared and told me I had died in a car crash and transmigrated into the body of Elara, a tyrant Luna. Worse, the chained man was Ryker, one of my six fated mates whom the original Elara had brutally tortured.
Because of her sadistic crimes-starving them, exiling them, and sending two of them on a suicide mission-my affinity with them was at negative five hundred. The apparition delivered my terrifying death sentence.
"In three days, at the Marking Ceremony, you will be killed by your six mates."
No matter what I did-freeing Ryker, sharing my food, or lifting their brother's exile-they viewed every act of kindness as a sick, twisted trap. They were just waiting for the punchline to my cruel joke, ready to expose me and end my life.
I was just a librarian who organized book clubs and paid my taxes. Why did the Goddess throw me into this doomed vessel to pay for a psychopath's blood debts? How was I supposed to survive when the men destined to love me were actively plotting to rip my throat out?
Cornered by their righteous fury, I realized playing defense wouldn't work. I grabbed a dagger, sliced my own palm over the ceremonial stone, and swore a blood oath to bring their missing brothers home-or initiate a soul-shattering Rejection Ceremony myself.
9.0
Isolde woke up in a freezing, ruined stone house with a splitting headache and only five percent of her life signs remaining.
Before she could even process the mechanical system voice in her head, a flood of violent memories slammed into her.
She had transmigrated into the body of a cruel noblewoman who mercilessly tortured her beastmen husbands with a barbed whip.
And right now, she was lying in a pool of her own blood, having been shoved against the stone floor by one of them.
Outside the rickety door, her husbands were coldly discussing her death.
"Just go in and finish her. One stab, and we're free."
"If she hit her head and died on her own, then it's an accident. We walk out of here as free males."
To test if she was faking her sudden amnesia, the snake beastman Dangelo even ground his heavy military boot into her injured hand, waiting for her to snap so he could legally end her.
She was poisoned, freezing, and entirely at the mercy of the men who deeply despised her.
She was bearing the deadly consequences of a monster she never was, with a red system warning of imminent death flashing in her mind.
But they didn't know the new Isolde had awakened a survival system and Life Magic.
She swore a blood oath to the Beast God to buy herself three months of time.
Then, she turned her sights to the dying wolf beastman chained in the shed, deciding to pull him back from hell to become her very first shield.
9.5
I woke up gasping from a nightmare of flames devouring Chandler Finch's estate, my body wrapped in burning curtains as I died alone.
But my eyes opened to silk sheets in his penthouse master bedroom. He was alive beside me, his cedarwood scent real. This was my second chance—I'd been reborn.
His phone buzzed: Eugenia Stewart's "emergency." Her security detail reported her refusing meals, unstable. Chandler bolted without a glance, rushing to her side.
I signed the brutal cohabitation contract binding me to him, but Temperance had planted birth control pills in the trash—a trap to frame me. Chandler found them, exploded in jealous rage, crushing the pills to dust. "No child unless it's mine," he growled, possessive fire in his eyes.
Brett, Eugenia's lapdog, stormed in later, accusing me of manipulation. I fired back: Chandler demanded my womb for his heir. Brett paled, fled to tattle.
Then the storm hit—power outage, locked on the terrace in pouring rain, freezing as Eugenia faked an asthma attack on Chandler's line, stealing his focus again. I hung up, huddled with a stray puppy, nearly dying from hypothermia.
He'd never believed me before—Eugenia's lies always won, dooming me to isolation and fire. Why did her every whimper trump my screams? How could he be so blind?
This time, reborn weeks before the inferno, I wouldn't beg. I'd play his game, shatter Eugenia's web, and make Chandler mine—before the flames returned.
9.4
I was lying in a sterile hospital room, dying of cancer, with only a fake infertility report to keep me company.
Right before my heart monitor flatlined, a stranger walked in and handed me a medical file.
He told me that my fiancé, Garret, had zero sperm viability. The baby my adoptive sister, Beryl, was carrying wasn't his.
When Beryl got pregnant years ago, my adoptive parents forced me to break my engagement and take the blame for being barren.
I was discarded by Garret, mocked by Beryl's triumphant smiles, and kicked out of the house.
I was left to rot alone in a hospital bed while they lived the perfect life stolen from me.
My entire existence had been a cage built on a single, disgusting lie.
The anger burned away my despair. Why was I the only one who didn't know?
Why did I let them use me as a maid and a shield for their filthy secrets?
As the darkness swallowed me, I prayed for just one more chance.
I opened my eyes to the sound of my adoptive mother yelling my name.
The calendar on the wall read March 15, 2019—the exact day they forced me to give up Garret.
This time, I didn't cry or beg.
"You want Beryl to have Garret? Fine," I told my shocked adoptive parents. "But I want a cash buyout, and we are legally severing this adoption."
Then, I set my sights on Douglass Ward—the stranger from the hospital room.
9.7
I am the Luna of the Blackwood Pack, but my Alpha mate, Ryker, has spent the last six years treating me like a placeholder while publicly pining for his ex, Faye.
When Faye's friends cornered my wolfless daughter and called her a defective embarrassment, I finally used my Luna authority to kick them out.
But instead of defending our child, Ryker stormed in and used his Alpha Command on me.
He forced me to my knees with his raw power, ordering me to apologize to the bullies who had just humiliated our daughter.
When I fought his crushing command and refused, his retaliation was swift and brutal.
He and his mother stripped me of my family's sacred heritage, the Moonpetal Grove, and gifted it to Faye as a reward.
They even tried to force a quack doctor on my daughter, telling me to just accept that she was broken.
The entire pack watched me lose everything, mocking me as the useless, rejected mate.
I had endured his coldness for years, but watching him sacrifice our daughter's safety and my family's legacy for his mistress was the final straw.
How could the Moon Goddess tie me to a man who would so easily destroy his own flesh and blood?
Instead of crying, I pulled out my mother's ancient grimoire and drafted a formal rejection of our mate bond.
And when a terrifyingly powerful, cloaked stranger suddenly appeared to save my daughter's life, carrying a familiar scent of ancient power, I knew my fate was changing.
This time, I wouldn't just walk away. I was going to burn their world to the ground.