Marigold

I'm the adopted daughter. To repay my adoptive mother, I've never had any contact with my biological parents. Even after they passed away, I didn't claim their inheritance, just to avoid hurting my adoptive mother. Then the high-temperature apocalypse arrived. My family found a folk remedy for Davina to ensure she would have a son. But Davina looked disgusted at the nasty remedy. I casually mentioned that this wasn't the right time to have a child. After hearing that, Davina secretly disposed of the remedy. Less than a week after the disaster struck, there was an artificial rain. My family thought the disaster was coming to an end. They all learned that Davina had discarded the remedy because of my advice. They blamed me for cutting off their offspring. They kicked me out of the house. Before long, I was left to die from the heat. In this new life, I inherited a large fortune, which I used to build a safe house. I want them to watch me enjoy the air conditioning while I feast. And I will watch them meet their demise.

Josie Watson asked for a divorce for the ninety-ninth time, but Laurence Andrews took a call from his first love and told her to get out of the car. "Go home and think it over. I hope this is the last time you make a fuss," he said. For Rosalie Harris, he abandoned Josie repeatedly, humiliating her. Laurence believed Josie couldn't survive without him. He didn't know Rosalie's brother was secretly encouraging Josie to divorce and leave the country.

After seven years in a dungeon for a crime I didn't commit, my fated mate, the Alpha who let them drag me away, finally opened my cell door. He announced I would take my place as his Luna, not out of love, but because the law demanded it. But the moment a frantic mind-link came through that his precious Seraphina-my adopted sister, the one who framed me-was having trouble breathing, he abandoned me without a second glance. That night, huddled in a dusty shack, I overheard my own parents' secret conversation. They were planning to have me exiled. Permanently. My return had upset Seraphina, and her "weak heart" couldn't take the shock. I lay there in the darkness, feeling nothing. Not surprise. Not even pain. Just a profound, empty coldness. They were casting me out. Again. But as they plotted my exile, a secret message arrived for me-an offer of escape. A new life in a sanctuary far to the north, where I could leave the Blackmoon Pack behind forever. They thought they were getting rid of me. Little did they know, I was already gone.

My husband was in the shower, the sound of water a familiar rhythm to our mornings. I was just placing a cup of coffee on his desk, a small ritual in our five years of what I thought was a perfect marriage. Then, an email notification flashed on his laptop: "You're invited to the Christening of Leo Thomas." Our last name. The sender: Hayden Cleveland, a social media influencer. An icy dread settled in. It was an invitation for his son, a son I didn't know existed. I went to the church, hidden in the shadows, and saw him holding a baby, a little boy with his dark hair and eyes. Hayden Cleveland, the mother, leaned on his shoulder, a picture of domestic bliss. They looked like a family. A perfect, happy family. My world crumbled. I remembered him refusing to have a baby with me, citing work pressure. All his business trips, the late nights-were they spent with them? The lie was so easy for him. How could I have been so blind? I called the Zurich Architectural Fellowship, a prestigious program I had deferred for him. "I' d like to accept the fellowship," I said, my voice eerily calm. "I can leave immediately."

I was the long-lost Donovan heiress, finally brought home after a childhood in foster care. My parents adored me, my husband cherished me, and the woman who tried to ruin my life, Kiera Reese, was locked away in a mental facility. I was safe. I was loved. On my birthday, I decided to surprise my husband, Ivan, at his office. But he wasn't there. I found him at a private art gallery across town. He was with Kiera. She wasn't in a facility. She was radiant, laughing as she stood beside my husband and their five-year-old son. I watched through the glass as Ivan kissed her, a familiar, loving gesture he’d used with me just that morning. I crept closer and overheard them. My birthday wish to go to the amusement park had been denied because he’d already promised the entire park to their son—whose birthday was the same day as mine. "She’s so grateful to have a family, she’d believe anything we tell her," Ivan said, his voice laced with a cruelty that stole my breath. "It's almost sad." My entire reality—my loving parents who funded this secret life, my devoted husband—was a five-year lie. I was just the fool they kept on stage. My phone buzzed. It was a text from Ivan, sent while he stood with his real family. "Just got out of the meeting. So exhausting. I miss you." The casual lie was the final blow. They thought I was a pathetic, grateful orphan they could control. They were about to find out just how wrong they were.

My fiancé, Richard Ahmed, had been unfaithful. His mistress, Eva Marsh, sent me a provocative video. In the video, Richard and Eva were passionately kissing, while his friends cheered loudly, "You two are perfect for each other. You should get married." Richard's parents were holding Eva's hand, saying, "You're the only one we see as part of the family." I let out a cold laugh and dialed the number of my father, the head of a criminal syndicate. "Get in touch with a team for me. I have a live stream event planned." "Alright. The condition is that you return to Zlomont and become the new head of the Brooks Group."

For my entire life, I believed my Alpha, Kaelen, was my fated mate. A sacred gift from the Moon Goddess. But on the eve of my eighteenth birthday, he presented another she-wolf, Seraphina, as his chosen Luna, using a borrowed pup in a cruel plot to crush my spirit. When Rogues attacked our pack, a silver chandelier fell towards us. Kaelen lunged past me without a glance, shielding Seraphina with his own body while I was left to be crushed. He never even looked back. Later, after falsely accusing me of hurting her, he dragged my injured body to an ice-cold hydrotherapy pool and shoved me under the water. As I struggled to breathe, he loomed over me, his voice a roar of command. "If you ever touch her again, I will strip you of your name and make you Rogue." Watching the man I loved try to kill me, the last of my hope finally turned to ash. That night, I accepted an offer to join the Silverwood Pack. Then, I walked to the forge and tossed every memento he'd ever given me into the flames, watching the girl who loved him burn away forever.

My world revolved around Jax Harding, my older brother's captivating rockstar friend. From sixteen, I adored him; at eighteen, I clung to his casual promise: "When you're 22, maybe I'll settle down." That offhand comment became my life's beacon, guiding every choice, meticulously planning my twenty-second birthday as our destiny. But on that pivotal day in a Lower East Side bar, clutching my gift, my dream exploded. I overheard Jax' s cold voice: "Can't believe Savvy's showing up. She' s still hung up on that stupid thing I said." Then the crushing plot: "We' re gonna tell Savvy I' m engaged to Chloe, maybe even hint she' s pregnant. That should scare her off." My gift, my future, slipped from my numb fingers. I fled into the cold New York rain, devastated by betrayal. Later, Jax introduced Chloe as his "fiancée" while his bandmates mocked my "adorable crush"-he did nothing. As an art installation fell, he saved Chloe, abandoning me to severe injury. In the hospital, he came for "damage control," then shockingly shoved me into a fountain, leaving me to bleed, calling me a "jealous psycho." How could the man I loved, who once saved me, become this cruel and publicly humiliate me? Why was my devotion seen as an annoyance to be brutally extinguished with lies and assault? Was I just a problem, my loyalty met with hatred? I would not be his victim. Injured and betrayed, I made an unshakeable vow: I was done. I blocked his number and everyone connected to him, severing ties. This was not an escape; this was my rebirth. Florence awaited, a new life on my terms, unburdened by broken promises.

Eighteen days after giving up on Brendan Maynard, Jayde Rosario cut off her waist-length hair and called her father, announcing her decision to move to California and attend UC Berkeley. Her father, surprised, asked about the sudden change, reminding her how she' d always insisted on staying with Brendan. Jayde forced a laugh, revealing the painful truth: Brendan was getting married, and she, his stepsister, could no longer cling to him. That night, she tried to tell Brendan about her college acceptance, but his fiancée, Chloie Ellis, interrupted with a bubbly call, and Brendan' s tender words to Chloie twisted a knife in Jayde' s heart. She remembered how his tenderness used to be hers alone, how he had protected her, and how she had poured out her heart to him in a diary and a love letter, only for him to explode, tearing the letter and yelling, "I'm your brother!" He had stormed out, leaving her to painstakingly tape the shredded pieces back together. Her love, however, didn't die, not even when he brought Chloie home and told her to call her "sister-in-law." Now, she understood. She had to put that fire out herself. She had to dig Brendan out of her heart.

For three years, I documented the slow death of my marriage in a black journal. It was my 100-point divorce plan: for every time my husband, Blake, chose his first love, Ariana, over me, I deducted points. When the score hit zero, I would leave. The final points vanished the night he left me bleeding out from a car crash. I was eight weeks pregnant with the child we had prayed for. In the ER, the nurses frantically called him-the star surgeon of the very hospital I was dying in. "Dr. Santos, we have a Jane Doe, O-negative, bleeding out. She's pregnant, and we're about to lose them both. We need you to authorize an emergency blood transfer." His voice came over the speaker, cold and impatient. "I can't. My priority is Miss Whitfield. Do what you can for the patient, but I can't divert anything right now." He hung up. He condemned his own child to death to ensure his ex-girlfriend had resources on standby after a minor procedure.

My husband's secret life walked into my office on my first day as Chief Resident: a four-year-old boy with his father's eyes and a rare hereditary allergy that I knew all too well. Emilio, the man I married, the brilliant rival who swore he couldn't live without me, had another family. At his company's anniversary gala, his son publicly called me a bad woman trying to steal his daddy. When I took a step toward the child, Emilio shoved me to the ground to protect him. I hit my head, and as the life of our unborn child bled out of me, he walked away without a second glance. He never visited me in the hospital. He left me to deal with the loss of our baby alone. That's when I knew the man I loved was truly gone, and our five years of marriage had been a lie. His mistress tried to finish the job, pushing me off a cliff into the sea. But I survived. And as the world mourned the death of Elana Thomas, I boarded a plane to Zurich, ready to begin my new life.