Vows of Vengeance: A Bride Reborn
She thought she was happily married - until she was diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer.
Then came the truth: her "devoted" husband Lucien had been poisoning her for years, all to avenge a dead lover.
On her deathbed, Calliope made a vow:
If life gave her one more chance, she'd rewrite every ending-starting with his.
Now reborn seven years earlier, she tears off the wedding dress and walks away from Lucien's lies.
To protect her family and reclaim her stolen legacy, Calliope proposes a marriage of convenience to Conrad: a cold, enigmatic firefighter with more power-and more secrets-than anyone realizes.
But Lucien is also reborn. And just as cruel.
But this time, she's not the naïve bride.
She's a tech genius. A business queen. A woman with nothing to lose.
And Conrad?
He's not just fire and steel-he's the weapon she never knew she needed.
They're not here to survive.
They're here to win.
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Chapter 5
Watching her mother, Eleanor, get humiliated to the point her face went pale, Calliope felt like something had clenched her heart in a death grip.
Without thinking, she stepped forward, grabbed her mother's icy arm, and protectively pulled her to stand behind her. Lifting her chin, her gaze locked onto Lucien-he looked calm, but she knew he was the one pulling all the strings.
"Lucien," she said, voice sharp as a blade, "does it feel good? Throwing away your fiancée who gave you seven years of her life, dragging her family's dignity through the mud, all just to play out your epic love story with Miss Miller? Real classy move."
Lucien felt a strange jolt under that cold stare-something uneasy stirred in him.
The Calliope standing in front of him was nothing like the sweet, dependent girl he used to know.
"Calliope! Hate me if you must, curse me all you want. But don't take it out on Angie. This... all of this was my choice. I messed up. If you need to blame someone, it should be me."
When she heard that, Calliope actually laughed-it was cold, sharp, and completely void of warmth. "Wow. You really think you're that important, huh? Honestly, I just feel gross. Gross that I was ever blind enough to think you were someone I could trust with my life. Let me be crystal clear-Lucien, even if none of this drama went down today, I wouldn't have gone through with that wedding anyway."
"What?" Lucien completely froze. The grief and guilt he'd carefully rehearsed were instantly wiped from his face, replaced by shock.
He had imagined her crying, yelling, maybe even losing it. But this? This calm, indifferent coldness? This wasn't part of the script.
An absurd, intrusive thought hit him like a truck.
Did Calliope... come back in time, too?
No way. That's ridiculous. And yet-if not, how else could she seem like a totally different person?
Lucien stared at her, searching her face, desperate for any sign that could explain this unrecognizable version of her.
Right then, Angelina, who had been hiding behind Lucien the entire time, finally stepped forward, like she'd barely mustered the courage.
Her eyes welled up with tears in an instant, her voice choked as she said, "Calliope... I'm so sorry. It's all my fault, I know. I get that you probably don't want to hear a word from me right now, but I really value the bond we had like sisters. I never wanted to hurt you... really."
She reached out a hand, trying to grab Calliope's, her posture pitiful and full of guilt.
But Calliope didn't even bat an eye-completely acting like Angelina didn't exist.
That kind of cold shoulder hurt more than any insult. Angelina's hand froze awkwardly mid-air as her face flushed and paled over and over.
"Calliope!" Jonathan finally snapped, his temper flaring again the moment he saw his beloved Angelina being ignored. "How could you be so rude?! She's apologizing to you out of kindness-you call this a proper attitude? Is this what I've taught you?!"
"That's enough, Jonathan!"
Eleanor moved immediately, stepping in front of her daughter protectively. Her back straightened, gaze sharp as a blade, locking directly onto her husband.
"My daughter doesn't need your discipline-especially not for the sake of someone who isn't even family. I've heard enough of your crap today. She doesn't belong here. Not in my home. Not around my daughter. Not while I'm still breathing."
Eleanor turned her eyes on Angelina, whose face had gone ghostly pale. Though her fingers trembled, they pointed firmly toward the door. "Angelina, our home's too small to accommodate someone like you. Out of respect for your mother's memory, I'm giving you a shred of dignity-leave. Now."
With that, she didn't even glance at Jonathan, whose face had gone completely dark. Instead, she called out in a commanding tone to the maids standing in the living room corner: "Dorothy! Lisa! Go pack Miss Miller's things. Show her the door!"
"Eleanor, don't you dare!" Jonathan yelled, trying to stop her.
Eleanor stared straight back, full of defiance. "I've been your wife for twenty-three years. Raised your child, kept this home, never once let you down or disrespected the Godfrey name. And what do I get today? This? You humiliate me and hurt our daughter. If we no longer matter to you, then I don't owe you any more loyalty or face."
When she finished, she never looked at Jonathan again. Her eyes stayed fixed on the staff, her voice snapping like a whip. "Dorothy, go now. And I dare anyone here to get in my way."
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7.2
Genevieve woke up choking on her own blood, a fatal gash tearing through her abdomen. The memories of a primitive world crashed into her mind—she had transmigrated into the body of a sadistic beastman Mistress.
But the five powerful beastmen "mates" standing over her hadn't come to her rescue. They had come to watch their tormentor die.
"We should just leave her," Kameron sneered coldly. "The scavengers will clean up the mess."
Gilberto spat in disgust, while Angelo, a silver-scaled snake-man, trembled in pure terror at the sight of her. The original owner had whipped them, humiliated them, and driven another mate to suicide. Now, they were letting her bleed out in the mud, their eyes filled with undisguised loathing and satisfaction.
She was a top-tier apocalyptic survival expert, yet here she was, paying the ultimate price for a stranger's monstrous sins. It was a bitter, unacceptable irony to die helplessly in the dirt while her supposed protectors waited for her corpse to rot.
She refused to accept this ending.
Forcing a chaotic surge of energy through their shared Biological Link, she brought all five men to their knees in agonizing pain, commanding them to carry her back. In the dark cave, without a single scream, she plunged her bare hands into a fire and brutally cauterized her own gaping wound with searing ash. As the beastmen stared in horrified awe at the unbreakable soul now occupying the tyrant's body, Genevieve wiped the blood from her face and began to rewrite her fate.
7.2
Clifton, the god of esports, was secretly battling a career-ending wrist injury to protect his team.
A year ago, he kissed his duo partner, Justice, only to be met with violent disgust. Justice shoved him away and dry-heaved in the rain, looking at him like a monster.
Humiliated by the straight man's raw revulsion, Clifton cut him out of his life.
But now, Justice suddenly appeared at Clifton's club as a rookie tryout.
Instead of an ambitious climber, Justice played the perfect, pathetic victim. He cowered, trembled, and acted terrified whenever Clifton was near.
He even signed a bloodsucking contract with a toxic teammate, sparking rumors he was brought in to replace Clifton as captain.
During a scrimmage, Clifton hesitated to shoot because he remembered Justice had just severely burned his hand.
Justice showed no mercy. He ruthlessly gunned Clifton down, humiliating the captain in front of the entire coaching staff.
Clifton was consumed by blinding rage and betrayal.
If Justice was so disgusted by him, why did he fake his devotion for six months just to use him?
Why was he acting like helpless prey now, after trampling all over Clifton's pride?
Determined to rip off the liar's disguise, Clifton dragged Justice into a live stream in front of sixty thousand viewers.
"He's asking if you are in love with me."
Clifton smiled cruelly, waiting for the public execution. But just as the trap snapped shut, a choked, terrified gasp came through the headset.
7.8
On my fifth wedding anniversary, I wasn't arranging flowers; I was staging my own death.
My husband, Graham, treated me like a prized accessory, but the antique watch on his nightstand revealed the brutal truth.
It was engraved "Forever, Elia"-proof that his heart belonged to his business partner, not me.
So I vanished into the ocean, letting the world believe I had drowned.
For two years, I lived as "Anna," finding peace in a small coastal town and rediscovering my art.
But the past has a way of clawing its way back.
Elia tracked me down, storming into my pottery studio with a weapon, screaming that my "death" had ruined Graham.
She lunged, and I took the blow to protect a child.
That' s when the door burst open.
Graham stood there, frozen, staring at his "late" wife bleeding on the floor.
He fell to his knees, sobbing, begging to destroy his empire just to have me back.
I looked at the man I once worshipped and felt nothing but cold indifference.
"I loved the man you pretended to be," I told him.
"But that man never existed."
7.5
For seven years, I hid my identity as a wealthy heiress to be with my boyfriend, Ewing. I followed him across the country and made myself small so he could feel big.
On Thanksgiving, he ditched our celebration for his first love, Bree, who supposedly had a "burst pipe."
Later, she posted an intimate selfie with him, calling him her "hero."
Then she sent me a video of him at a bar, laughing with his friends.
"She's just being dramatic," he slurred, smirking at the camera. "A new necklace and she'll forget all about it. She's easy."
Easy. Seven years of my life, my love, my sacrifice-all reduced to that one word. I realized I was never his partner. I was just a placeholder.
I didn't cry. I packed my bags, booked a one-way flight to New York, and sent him one final text before blocking his number.
"Don't bother coming home. I'm getting married."
7.2
I went to the bank to set up a trust fund for my twins, only to have the manager look at me with pity.
"Mrs. Dunlap, the trust requires the *biological* mother's signature."
I froze. I *was* their mother. Or so I thought.
That day, I learned my husband, the most powerful Mafia Don on the coast, had used his ex-lover’s frozen eggs.
For six years, I wasn't his wife. I was just the incubator.
When his "true love," Iliana, returned from exile, my life disintegrated.
My children, poisoned by her lies, pushed me down the stairs and called me "just the nanny."
Gavyn didn't help me up. He stepped over my bleeding body to take his "real family" out for ice cream.
But the ultimate betrayal happened on a windswept cliff.
Staged by Iliana, we were both tied up, allegedly rigged to explode.
Forced to choose who to save, Gavyn didn't hesitate.
He cut Iliana loose.
"You did this to yourself, Alex," he said, driving away with the children, leaving me to die.
He thought he was leaving behind a corpse.
He didn't know I had skimmed ten million dollars from the household accounts.
"Cut me loose," I told the hitman, transferring the money. "And tell him the ocean took me."
Two years later, the Don is on his knees in my garden, begging for a second chance.
Too bad he has to get through my new fiancé first—the head of the rival cartel.
8.6
"Her blood type is a match. It’s the only option."
I froze outside the conference room door, the quarterly reports digging into my ribs.
I knew that voice. It was Ben, my husband’s best friend and doctor. But the next voice, cold and devoid of warmth, shattered my world.
"Then we do it," my husband Ethan said. "Chloe cannot wait any longer. If Ava is the match, then Ava is the solution."
For the past month, Ethan had been obsessed with my health, insisting on daily "vitamins" and endless checkups. He called it love.
Standing in that hallway, I realized he was actually shopping for spare parts.
"She is your wife, Ethan," Ben argued weakly. "You can't just harvest her like a crop."
"She became my wife because she was useful," Ethan replied, his indifference cutting deeper than any scalpel. "Now, she can be useful for this."
The realization hit me with the force of a physical blow. The nausea I’d been feeling wasn't stress.
I was pregnant.
And those "vitamins" he fed me every morning? They weren't supplements. They were poisons designed to ensure I remained a viable donor.
He was killing his own child to save his mistress.
To him, I wasn't a partner. I was livestock. An asset to be liquidated for parts.
I didn't burst into the room. I didn't scream.
I walked away in silence, my hand hovering over my stomach.
He wanted my kidney? He wanted to carve me up?
I decided right then. I wouldn't just leave.
I would terminate the pregnancy, fake my death, and burn his entire world to the ground.