Trapped By The Phantom: His Little Lamb
I woke up to the screech of a megaphone and realized I had transmigrated into a YA novel called *Roses Under Thorns*.
I wasn't the beloved heroine. I was Chloe Carrillo, a disposable scholarship student whose only purpose was to die in a tragic car crash to advance the plot.
Desperate to survive, I tried to become invisible. But fate played a sick joke, making me the roommate of the female lead and drawing the suffocating, obsessive attention of her powerful brother, Dean Gibbs.
While desperately avoiding Dean's controlling grasp, my nightmare worsened. An untraceable cyberstalker began hunting me.
He called me "Little Lamb." He left a burner phone in my secret library hideout, sent photos of me taken from ceiling vents, and texted me the moment I stepped out of the dorm shower.
"The water looks warm. Enjoy your shower."
The police couldn't help, and asking Dean meant trading one terrifying cage for another. I didn't understand why this was happening. I was supposed to be a nobody, yet I was trapped in an invisible web, monitored every second of my life.
Refusing to be a victim, I tracked down the university's legendary phantom hacker, Ashton Bridges.
I handed him my devices, begging him to trace the stalker, thinking I had finally found a safe ally.
I didn't know that as soon as the lab door closed behind me, he pulled up a live camera feed of my bedroom, his lips curving into a predatory smile.
"Little Lamb, you walked right into my arms."
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Chapter 10
My voice echoed in the damp air of the basement. The humming from inside the lab was the only reply. Hannah squeezed my arm, her eyes wide.
"Maybe he's not here," she whispered.
But I had to know. This was my only option. I pushed the door all the way open and stepped inside.
The lab was vast, but cramped. Server racks lined the walls from floor to ceiling, their blue and green lights blinking in the dim room. Cables snaked across the floor like vines. The air was frigid, a stark contrast to the humid hallway, and smelled of ozone and cold metal.
In the center of the room, a figure sat with his back to us. He was wearing a gray hoodie, the hood pulled up. His fingers flew across a keyboard, the clicking sound the only indication of movement.
He didn't turn around.
"Ashton Bridges?" I asked, my voice shaking slightly as I stepped closer to the glow of his monitors.
The clicking stopped. For a long moment, there was only the hum of the servers. Then, the chair swiveled around with a soft squeak.
The face looking back at me was sharp and clean. He had high cheekbones, pale skin, and eyes that were an unnerving shade of gray. They were devoid of warmth, scanning us with a clinical detachment.
"Your devices are compromised, Chloe Carrillo," Ashton Bridges said, his voice flat and mechanical. "The intrusion is sloppy, but effective. You're being watched."
It was a logical deduction, but hearing him say my name, confirming my worst fears so calmly, made my skin prickle. He hadn't been expecting me; he had simply observed the data and drawn a conclusion.
"You know about the stalker?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
"I know someone is bouncing signals off your network," he said, gesturing to a screen filled with scrolling lines of code. "Show me the messages."
I pulled out my shattered phone. "I broke it."
Ashton didn't even flinch. "Smart. But useless. He's already in your cloud data. He has everything."
Hannah stepped forward, pulling out her phone. "I took screenshots ," she said, her voice surprisingly steady. "Just in case."
She handed the phone to Ashton. He plugged it into a dock and his fingers flew across the keyboard again. The code on his screens shifted and re-formed. He studied it for a few minutes, his expression unreadable.
"He's using a rotating proxy," he said finally. "It masks his IP address. It makes him untraceable to the police. But not to me."
"Can you find him?" I asked, my voice desperate.
Ashton turned his chair to face me. His gray eyes locked onto mine. "I can. But I don't work for free, and I don't work for the police."
"I have savings," I started, but he cut me off.
"I don't want your money, Chloe." He leaned forward, his gaze intense. "I want the puzzle. This guy is good. But he's not me. Finding him, exposing him... that's the payment."
It was a strange request, but I didn't care. He was offering me a way out. A way that didn't involve Dean Gibbs.
"Do it," I said. "Find him."
Ashton reached into a drawer and pulled out a small, black flash drive. He held it out to me. "Install this on your laptop and your new phone. It's a monitoring program. It will track any incoming data and trace it back to the source. It will also act as a firewall, blocking his access."
I took the drive. It was cold in my hand. "That's it?"
"For now," he said, turning back to his screens. "I'll contact you when I have something. Don't contact me. And don't tell anyone about this. Especially not the Gibbs family. They have a tendency to... complicate things."
I nodded, clutching the drive like a lifeline. I turned to leave.
"Hannah," I said, my voice low as we reached the door. "You can't tell your brother about this."
She looked at me, her eyes conflicted. "Chloe..."
"Please," I begged. "Ashton is the expert. If Dean finds out, he'll take over. He'll make it a Gibbs family project, and I'll be right back in the cage. I need to handle this on my own. Promise me."
Hannah bit her lip, glancing between me and the silent figure of Ashton. Finally, she sighed. "Okay. I promise. I won't tell him."
We left the lab and climbed the stairs back to the surface. The afternoon sun hit my face, warming my cold skin. I took a deep breath of fresh air. For the first time in days, the tightness in my chest eased slightly. I had a weapon now. I had a plan.
I didn't look back at the basement door. If I had, I wouldn't have seen anything. But I also wouldn't have known that behind that heavy, sealed door, the gray-eyed boy had turned his chair back to his main monitor. On it was a live feed from a tiny camera hidden in the ventilation grate above my desk at home. His lips, which had been a flat line, were now curved into a slow, predatory smile.
"Little Lamb," he whispered to the empty, humming room. "You walked right into my arms."
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9.3
Content: (Warning! + 18 Sexual elements, Alpha Wolf, Witch, Cursed Love, Small Town, Young Wolf, War, Age Gap, Passion, Consensual Fantasy, Psychological Elements, Strong Female Lead, Drama, Romance)
Bound by blood, sealed by magic. You have finally come, Rose's daughter...
Eva Rose is the last and most powerful heir of a sacred witch bloodline.
Kael is a cursed Crimson Alpha King.
Centuries ago, on the night they discovered they were fated mates and were about to be married, their enemies attacked to destroy them both. To save Kael, Eva made a desperate choice , she trapped him in a magical sleep for 200 years. The price was her own life.
But their love was so powerful that Eva did not truly die , she was reborn. Through her own bloodline, she returned to the world as the same woman, with the same soul, the same heart.
Now, who is friend and who is enemy? And why does this man feel so strangely familiar? How can you escape someone who even visits your dreams?. 📌📚🔥
9.7
Some chains are forged in iron.
Others in desire.
Sebastian Kol has existed for six centuries. Cursed to burn alive in his own skin every night he transforms into a beast even he cannot control. He wants one thing. Freedom. And after five centuries of searching, a prophecy finally gives it a name.
Leilani Ravenwood.
She carries the mark of the moon goddess on her skin and a prophecy that brands her as his salvation. Her blood silences his beast, and her touch sets him on fire.
In the worst possible way. And in the best possible way.
Furious at the hold she has over him, Sebastian takes her, strips her of everything, and bends her world until it breaks, determined to own what the goddess dared to use against him. What follows is dark and consuming. A monster who has never met his match, and a woman who proves to be it.
But Leilani Ravenwood does not break easily. And somewhere between the hatred and the hunger, the punishment and the pull, the ancient beast begins to suspect the terrible truth.
The woman born to be his salvation may already be his undoing, his poison and cure wearing the same skin.
And he is running out of reasons to care.
9.5
As a highborn succubus, I somehow managed to starve myself to death-thanks to my obsessive cleanliness and ridiculously picky appetite.
When I opened my eyes again, I had transmigrated into Vivian Hartwell-the long-lost "real" daughter with a tragically cursed fate.
I had barely been taken back into the Hartwell family before they forced me to attend a so-called "death matchmaking" event in Kingsford-on behalf of Natalie Hartwell, the fake heiress-to meet Damian Blackwood, the infamous "living reaper."
Rumor had it Damian was brutal and bloodthirsty-every woman who'd ever been involved with him either ended up dead or driven insane.
At the event, over a hundred socialites were trembling on their knees, silently praying they wouldn't be the one chosen.
Just as Damian let out a cold smirk and reached to pick his unlucky victim, I took a deep breath from the back of the crowd.
The scent emanating from him was a rare, potent masculine essence-something encountered perhaps once in ten millennia.
For a painfully picky succubus like me, this was nothing short of salvation.
I kicked aside the girl blocking my way, my eyes practically glowing as I threw both hands up. "Pick me! Hurry, pick me!"
7.2
The Royal Pack’s glowing moonstone token rested in my palm.
Before I could even process the miracle of my rebirth, my half-sister Alyssa snatched it right out of my hand.
"This destiny is mine, little sister. Enjoy your cursed Alpha," she sneered.
My family easily caved to her whining. They forced me to take her place and marry Alpha Kaelen, a man they called an insane, crippled monster with three feral adopted sons. They laughed, expecting his beast to tear me apart before the honeymoon was over.
Alyssa thought she was stealing my crown. She didn't know she had just stolen my death sentence.
In my previous life, that exact token had made me the Alpha King’s Luna. But I was just a convenient, disposable meat shield for his true human mate. I died agonizingly, choking on poison meant for her, while the King didn't even blink.
I lowered my head, forcing my shoulders to tremble as if holding back terrified sobs. I played the part of the pathetic, wolfless Omega they all believed me to be.
But beneath my fake tears, I felt a profound relief.
I remembered the Kaelen from my past life. He wasn't a monster. He was powerful, agonizingly lonely, and slowly destroyed by a dark magic no one understood.
I wisely accepted the marriage pact and walked right into his freezing manor.
I know exactly who cursed him. And this time, I will save him, protect his boys, and make his entire pack mine.
7.7
I trusted the wrong people in my past life.
My supposed lover and my sweet sister conspired against me, locking me inside a burning warehouse to die.
But the man I had spent my life hating, my ruthless captor Damien Sterling, rushed straight into that inferno and burned alive just to try and save me.
In my past life, I was utterly blind. I believed Julian's forged documents and Scarlett's fake affection. I even tried to assassinate Damien with a silver dagger they provided, breaking the heart of the only man who truly loved me. I died choking on thick ash, realizing too late who the real monsters were.
Why was I so incredibly foolish? Why did I let their vicious manipulation turn me into a weapon against the one person who would sacrifice absolutely everything for me?
Opening my eyes again, the phantom smell of smoke vanished.
I was sitting in the bloody water of Damien's bathtub, right after my staged suicide attempt.
When my sister sneaked into my penthouse suite and handed me the dagger to kill him again, I didn't hesitate.
I grabbed her hand tightly and plunged the sharp blade directly into my own shoulder.
"Please don't kill me, Scarlett!"
This time, I will ruthlessly ruin them both, and I will never let Damien go.
7.0
I was the fated mate of Ryker Blackwood, the future Alpha, but my lack of an awakened wolf made me a pathetic joke to his pack.
Instead of protecting me, he publicly rejected me, chose the manipulative Lilith Vane as his Luna, and locked me in a freezing dungeon.
While the entire pack cheered for their final mating ceremony above, I rotted in heavy chains below.
When a rogue attack killed our unborn pups, I reached out to him in agony, but his voice through our fading bond was like splintered ice.
"Our pups are dead. Don't bother me again."
He didn't care at all. The casual dismissal shattered my inner wolf, and I died in that filthy cell, suffocating on my own despair and a hatred so potent it burned through my last breath.
Until my last moment, I couldn't understand why my absolute devotion was met with such cruel betrayal, and why my fated mate let our children die without a second thought.
Opening my eyes again, I wasn't in the dungeon.
I was back in my seventeenth year, choking on the icy water of the lake Lilith had just pushed me into.
Seeing Ryker's arrogant sneer and Lilith's fake concern on the shore, I didn't cry or beg for his attention like I did in my past life.
This time, I would publicly sever our sacred bond, awaken my true Alpha bloodline, and make them pay for every drop of my blood.