The Dragon Prince's Branded Bride: From Family Shame to Imperial Throne

After being publicly rejected by my intended mate and abandoned by my own father, I got drunk and slept with a stranger. I thought he was just a Rogue for hire, a nameless body to help me forget the humiliation. But when I saw the black wolf sigil on his phone the next morning, my blood ran cold. He was Barron Winters, the legendary Lycan King, and my best friend's terrifying uncle. Desperate to escape, I tried to insult him by sending a $5,000 payoff note, treating him like a cheap gig. But my father froze my trust fund, and my emergency work advance was mysteriously denied. I had no money and nowhere to run. Then, the new CEO of my company was announced. It was him. He cornered me in his massive office, his suffocating Alpha scent wrapping around me. I panicked, begged, and used every modern excuse to push him away, claiming it was just a meaningless mistake. But he simply took off his shirt, revealing the deep, angry scratches I had left on his back. Marks that only a fated mate could ever inflict on an ancient Lycan. "I need a Luna." His possessive gaze locked onto me, stripping away all my defenses. Using the oldest, most absolute werewolf laws, the tyrant king gave me an ultimatum. Accept my destiny and move into his estate, or he would claim and mark me right there in the office.

I pushed open the door to my fiancé's private villa, only to find him twisting on the couch with a pregnant Omega. Instead of feeling guilty, he adjusted his collar and told me I could stay as his secret mistress since I was born "wolfless." I turned to my biological father, the Pack Alpha, for justice. "For a wolfless embarrassment like you to marry him is already a blessing, so do as he says." I smashed my engagement token and walked away. In retaliation, my family decided to sell me to a violent, low-life thug for five million. They needed to get rid of me so my adopted sister could take my place and marry the comatose billionaire Supreme Alpha, Constantine. On the morning of the wedding, my own mother spiked my soup with a paralyzing neurotoxin. She unlocked my bedroom window to let the thug climb in and ruin my body, planning to send my adopted sister to the billionaire's estate in my dress. They thought I was just a defective, powerless discard they could butcher at will. They had no idea I secretly carried the purest royal White Wolf bloodline, or that I had already made a deal with the Royal Dowager to change the bride's name on the marriage decree. I poured the poisoned soup away, bashed the thug's skull in with a paperweight, and walked down the grand staircase in my crimson Luna gown. Watching my treacherous family fall to their knees in terror, I smiled coldly. "From the moment I walk out these doors today, I sever all blood ties with the Cantrell Pack!" Today, I would become the untouchable Supreme Luna they could only look up to.

For five years, I gave up my career as a Columbia math genius to be Kenneth's devoted wife, enduring painful hormone treatments to carry his heir. But when I brought him soup in the freezing rain, I found him feeding grapes to his mistress. He publicly called me a "paid surrogate" and left me stranded in the storm while he drove her home. When I nearly miscarried from the cold, he didn't care. Instead, he forced me to sign a brutal agreement to give up my baby after birth. Later, to protect his mistress's friends, he framed me for a thirty-million-dollar embezzlement at his company. He even smashed a heavy steel binder into my head, leaving me bleeding, just to defend her fake tears. "Keep your disgusting charity. With this blow, the five years I gave you are paid in full." I looked at the cheap pearls his mistress threw at me in mock pity. I had swallowed every insult for five years, only to realize he just wanted a docile, pathetic shadow. Wiping the blood from my face, I calmly walked out of his skyscraper. I called my billionaire brother and accepted the top Wall Street executive job I had deferred. It was time for the Scott family heiress to take her life back.

After my parents died, my pureblood uncle threw a pouch of ten thousand gold coins onto his mahogany desk. He demanded I take my seven-year-old brother, drop out of the magic academy, and cross into the mortal slums forever. "Consider your connection to this house severed." He sneered, warning me never to tell a living soul we carried the Price blood. My cousin Isla smiled her fake, angelic smile while my uncle mocked that we would starve on our empty pride. We were thrown out, forced to hide in a damp, rat-infested attic in the lower districts. Even Damien Carlisle, the supreme pureblood commander of the magic council, looked at me through the rain with arrogant, dismissive pity. To him, I was just a pathetic, broke teenage mother dragging an illegitimate child through the mud. They all thought I was a helpless stray, a nobody they could easily crush with their endless wealth and elite status. They had no idea that I was "Silent," the ruthless, undefeated duelist of the underground rings. And they certainly didn't know I was the legendary "Saint Hand"—the exact master alchemist that Commander Carlisle was currently tearing the city apart to find to save his dying grandmother. I shoved the pouch of blood money back across the desk, took my little brother's hand, and walked out of the manor without looking back. If the high purebloods wanted to play games with our lives, I would gladly bankrupt them all.

Dumped by my boyfriend for a wealthy heiress and left with exactly $217 in my bank account, I couldn't afford the government's new mandatory Celibacy Tax. With no other choice, I entered the federal partner lottery, only to be matched with Dane Beaumont-the country's most ruthless, anti-marriage billionaire. I desperately tried to annul the match, but his legal team cornered me. They threatened to cut off my dying father's life-saving dialysis and kidney transplant channel if I didn't comply. Forced to accept a one-year sham marriage, I was cornered at a gas station by my ex and his new heiress wife, who publicly mocked me in the freezing rain for being a pathetic gold-digger. "Look at you," my ex sneered. "Like a drowned rat. I'm honestly embarrassed for you." But before the humiliation could completely break me, a warm suit jacket smelling of winter pine was draped over my shivering shoulders. Dane Beaumont, the cold-blooded titan who was supposed to despise this forced union, swept me into his arms and carried me to his hypercar, leaving my ex utterly paralyzed with shock. I didn't understand. Why did this terrifying man, who had the power to send me to federal prison rather than marry a nobody, suddenly choose to protect me? Sitting in my new gilded cage at the Beaumont estate, I looked at the ironclad contract that bound us. I calmly opened an encrypted app and messaged my agent. It was time to wake up my hidden identity as the genius composer "Dusk" and tear down the heiress who thought she had ruined my life. It is a story between vampires and mermaids.

I went to a luxury hotel for a blind date, hoping to finally move on from my past. But I opened the wrong door and stumbled right into my billionaire ex-husband, Damarcus. He was sitting in the dim suite with a beautiful socialite, watching me freeze like a beggar in my cheap dress. I fled, but he cornered me in the hallway restroom. He coldly mocked my family's crushing debt and implied I was selling myself to my date. I thought the humiliation was over, so I threw myself into my demanding corporate job to pay for my sick mother's care. The next night, my boss, Felix, took me to a high-stakes dinner with a major client. But Damarcus showed up there too. He walked right into our private room, dominating the space, and deliberately sabotaged me. He raised his glass and loudly toasted to my resilience, twisting the truth to make my boss think we were having a secret, scandalous affair. He wanted to destroy my reputation and strip away the only lifeline I had left. He had already ruined my life once, leaving me with nothing. Why was he hunting me down just to play these cruel games? I sat in my dark apartment, waiting in terror for Felix to fire me. Instead, my phone rang. "I believe you. I know what kind of man he is." Hearing my boss say those words, my fear finally burned into rage. This time, I wasn't going to run.