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 3
Over the next few days, I perfected the art of avoidance. I woke up at five-thirty in the morning, before Hannah's alarm, and showered in the communal bathroom down the hall. I left the dorm before she woke up and only returned after she was asleep. I spent my time in the library or the student union, hiding in the corners with a book.
It was exhausting. But it was necessary.
Hannah, however, was not easily deterred. She left sticky notes on my desk. Saw you left early! Have a good day! and Brought you back a cookie from the dining hall! and Movie night soon?
The guilt gnawed at me, but I pushed it down. I couldn't afford to get close to her. The closer I got, the closer I got to Dean, and the closer I got to the plot that would ruin my life.
Friday afternoon, I was sitting at my desk, headphones on, pretending to study. Hannah burst through the door, her cheeks flushed pink from the cold. She was talking loudly into her phone.
"Okay! See you soon!" She hung up and spun to face me, her eyes sparkling. "That was Dean! He's taking me to that new Italian place downtown tonight for dinner. The one with the truffle pasta? And you're coming!"
I pulled out one earbud. "I can't. I have a lot of reading to do."
"Chloe." Hannah's smile vanished. She walked over and stood in front of my desk, her arms crossed. "You've been avoiding me."
"I haven't," I lied, looking down at my textbook. "I'm just busy."
"You're never in the room. You don't eat with me. You barely talk to me." Her voice trembled slightly. "Did I do something wrong? Because if you hate me, you can just tell me. I'm a big girl."
I looked up. Her eyes were shining with unshed tears. Her bottom lip was sticking out in a pout that looked childish but completely genuine. She looked like a kicked puppy.
A sharp pang of guilt hit me square in the chest. I was hurting her. This fictional character, who had done nothing but try to be my friend, was hurting because of my paranoia.
"I don't hate you," I said softly. "I promise."
"Then come to dinner," she pleaded, her voice breaking. "Please? Just this once. Dean is paying, and I really don't want to sit in a fancy restaurant alone with my brother.That's strange, I need your help.
I was trapped. Again. The tears welling in her eyes were a weapon I had no defense against. I couldn't be cruel to her just to save myself. That wasn't who I was, even in a fictional world.
I sighed, dropping my pen. "Fine. I'll go."
Hannah let out a shriek of joy, pulling me out of my chair and into a bone-crushing hug. "Thank you, thank you, thank you! You're the best! Get dressed, he'll be here in twenty minutes!"
I changed into a simple black dress, the nicest thing I owned. It was still cheap compared to what Hannah was wearing, but it would have to do. I kept my makeup minimal, trying to look as invisible as possible.
At exactly seven, a sleek black sedan pulled up to the curb. Dean stepped out to open the door for us. He was wearing a dark suit this time, looking even more powerful than before. When I climbed into the back seat, I caught his eyes in the rearview mirror. He was watching me. His expression remained neutral, but his eyes held a glint of something intense I couldn't decipher before he looked away.
The restaurant was dimly lit, with white tablecloths and candles. It smelled like garlic and expensive wine. A hostess in a black dress greeted us at the door.
"Reservation for three," Dean said. "Under Crane."
My ears perked up. Crane? His last name was Gibbs. Why would he use a different name?
The hostess nodded, her demeanor instantly becoming more respectful. "Right this way, Mr. Crane."
I glanced at Hannah, but she was busy texting on her phone, completely unfazed. This was normal to her. My mind raced. Dean Gibbs was using an alias. That meant he was hiding. Or he was involved in something he didn't want traced back to the Gibbs name.
We sat down at a private booth in the back. Dean handed me a menu, his fingers brushing against mine. The contact sent a jolt of electricity up my arm. I pulled my hand back quickly.
"Order whatever you like," he said, his voice low. "Don't look at the prices."
I scanned the menu, the numbers blurring together. I settled on the cheapest pasta dish I could find. I wasn't here to enjoy the food. I was here to survive the evening.
Hannah did most of the talking, filling the silence with chatter about her classes and the cute guy in her English lit seminar. Dean listened patiently, nodding along, but his focus was clearly elsewhere.
"So, Chloe," he said, cutting into his steak. He didn't look up from his plate. "Hannah tells me you're from out of state. Where exactly is home for you?"
The question hung in the air, heavy and pointed. I took a sip of water, buying myself a second to think. This was the interrogation I had been dreading. He was digging into my background, looking for inconsistencies.
"Here and there," I said vaguely. "We moved around a lot."
"Your parents?" he pressed, finally meeting my eyes. "What do they do?"
My heart pounded in my ears. I had to lie. I had to make myself as boring and uninteresting as possible, so he would lose interest and leave me alone.
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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.