Nuella Chimezie

My mate rejected me yesterday. This morning, I married the monster who killed his wives. The wedding gown was never mine-it was made for my sister, Paige. So was the groom. When the Hound of War demanded the Alpha's daughter, my parents spent one week scheming behind a locked door, and the way out they found was simple: feed him the worthless one. The wolfless one. Me. Jax, the man I loved for two years, is sitting in the second row right now. Beside my sister. Their hands are touching in the shadow between their seats. Everyone in this chapel believes Paige is under my veil. No one knows the truth-just like no one has ever known the other truth about me: I was born with an extraordinary healing power. Wounds close on my body without leaving a mark. And in this whole world, I am the only one who knows it. They all think they've sent a lamb to the slaughter. But there's a dagger hidden in my bouquet-and a secret hidden in my blood. Let's see which one of us the monster kills first.

They bred me to be sold--a doll, a bargain, a tool with a crown. When they gave me to Alric, the werewolf Alpha every soldier fears, I expected chains. Instead, he saw me. Chose me. Made me feel, for the first time in twenty years, like I was worth something more than my price. Then my father showed me what he truly is--eyes burning red, hands that can stop a heart between one breath and the next. Savage. Inhuman. Utterly beyond anything I was ever prepared for. He saved me. I don't doubt that. But he is a wolf. I am human. No amount of tenderness changes what lives underneath his skin--or the fact that the moon goddess never made us for each other. He reaches for me like I'm something worth keeping. I'm just not sure I'm brave enough to believe it. Because what do you do when the only person who ever made you feel alive is the one person you were never meant to love?

"No wolf. No family. Harmless. Useful. The second I am done with her, the Luna title is yours." Eira Crawford heard those words through her husband's office door. For four years, she had been Sebastian Vale's hidden mate. She managed his household, entertained his relatives, cleaned up his messes, and lived on the three thousand dollars he gave her each month like charity. Even buying a new coat required an explanation. But for his first love, he casually prepared three hundred thousand dollars in research funding. To Sebastian, Eira was nothing more than a wolfless Omega from an orphanage. A quiet, obedient wife with no pack, no power, and no value beyond being useful. He had never introduced her publicly as his Luna. His family treated her like a servant. His sweetheart mocked her as a woman who could only survive by clinging to an Alpha. So Eira stopped crying. She recorded the affair, filed for mate dissolution, and placed the divorce papers in front of Sebastian. Even then, he thought she was throwing a tantrum. He signed without hesitation, certain she would come crawling back once she realized no one else would want a discarded, wolfless Omega. He was wrong. The woman he left at home washing dishes was a Stanford-trained electrical engineer. The "useless" wife he ignored was the hidden chief engineer behind a national self-developed chip project. Her movements were classified. Her disappearance could alert the federal authorities. Her name, once revealed, was enough to shake the entire scientific community. And Sebastian knew nothing. After walking out of his house with nothing but her freedom, Eira crossed paths with Killian Sterling, the coldest and most powerful Alpha in the north. He did not know her name yet, but his wolf recognized something in her that everyone else had missed. Meanwhile, Sebastian finally realized that Eira was not bluffing. He searched the entire city like a madman. For the first time in four years, he publicly called her his wife. He demanded she return. He begged for another chance. But by then, Eira was no longer waiting in his house. She was seated at the Sterling Pack's dinner table, dressed with quiet confidence, while the most feared Alpha in North America stood beside her. In front of everyone, Killian Sterling placed his hand at her back and said coldly, "Eira is not anyone's discarded Omega." "She is my Luna."

I was waiting at the Registry Hall to formalize my mate bond with Gabe, my childhood sweetheart and the Alpha of our pack. He was thirty-two minutes late. When I finally found him in a private VIP lounge, his hands were buried in my cousin's hair, their lips locked together. Hailee was supposed to be my maid of honor. Instead of apologizing, Gabe looked me dead in the eye and used his Alpha authority to publicly reject me. The severing of our ten-year bond tore my soul apart, but the nightmare didn't stop there. My grandfather immediately called, demanding I clean up a mess Hailee had made. When I refused, he disowned me on the spot, froze every single one of my bank accounts, and stripped me of my family name. Within hours, my entire pack erased my existence, gleefully announcing Hailee as their new Luna. I had given my entire life to a family and a man who discarded me like worthless trash the second I became inconvenient. I was left broken, humiliated, and utterly penniless in the blink of an eye. But as I stumbled out of that sterile hall, a terrifyingly beautiful stranger stepped out of the shadows, radiating a primal power that made my knees weak. He was Caden Sinclair, the ruthless Lycan King, and he was dodging a forced political union of his own. "You need a shield. I need a wife. Marry me." Without hesitation, I signed the Eternal Vow.

"This is Virella, my wife." Three years. And that was all Alpha Kaelen gave me. No welcome. No touch. No recognition. Just another woman at his side, carrying his child. While I ruled in his absence, I was nothing more than a placeholder. A Luna he never chose. So I gave up. And I left. One rejection was all it took to break the bond. When I returned, I wasn't the Luna he abandoned. I was untouchable, respected, and feared. And no longer his to claim. Now he watches me like a man drowning... Because the woman he discarded came back as something far beyond his reach. And this time, I didn't come alone. The Alpha of Ebonmoon stands beside me, his presence crushing, and his hand firm on my waist... "Careful, Kaelen," his voice drops, dark with warning. "Rowena isn't yours anymore." His lips brush my temple, possessively. "She's mine. If you try to take her, I'll end you."

During the party for her second wedding anniversary, Kylie stood quietly to one side and watched her Alpha kiss his childhood sweetheart. Her life felt like a trap. She had relinquished her Alpha blood for him, and that was what she got. Yet fate wasn't finished with her. An encounter with Alpha Logan gave her a way out she hadn't expected. As the Alpha of a powerful pack, he could help her get even with her cheating mate. There was just one catch. Kylie would have to spend a year as his Luna. Accepting his offer would be a dangerous gamble, but Kylie struggled to resist her attraction to the Alpha she couldn't quite figure out. Could she bring herself to agree to his terms? What would she do if her feelings for him grew too strong to push aside?

I was the wolfless disgrace of the pack, traded like cattle to a dying monster. When a royal decree stripped away my engagement, my own father gave my fiancé to my cruel sister, Charly. My punishment for being born without a wolf? A forced marriage to Demetri Contreras—the crippled, disgraced Alpha left to rot from silver poison. They threw me into a frozen, forgotten estate, waiting for my new husband to die so I could be buried as a silent widow. Charly laughed as she stole my life, my mate, and my future. My family discarded me, just like they murdered my mother years ago. They thought this exile would break me. They thought I was a helpless pawn. They didn't know that inside this fragile body lived the soul of the top interstellar miracle surgeon. Looking at the ruined, festering Alpha bleeding on my wedding bed, I didn't see a corpse. I saw the deadliest weapon in the realm. The fallen Alpha needs a miracle to survive. Lucky for him, I am the miracle. I will drag this monster back from the gates of hell—and together, we will burn my enemies to ash.

Emilia Taylor was the most unwanted daughter of the Frostridge Pack. She had no wolf, no status, and no one who truly loved her. After failing to awaken at the age of twenty-two, she was betrayed by her lover, abandoned by her family, and finally sent by her father to the Silver Moon Pack-to become Sebastian Simons' seventh bride. Sebastian was the Alpha everyone feared. Rumor had it that none of his first six wives had met a good end, and every woman who married him eventually became another name on the list of the dead. Everyone was waiting for Emilia to die. But they did not know that her failed awakening had not left her with nothing. Instead, she had gained the ability to read minds. She could hear the malice and lies hidden behind every smile. Everyone's thoughts were open to her. Except Sebastian's. She could not hear his mind, nor could she see through his secrets. When a wolfless girl abandoned by everyone meets a cold-blooded Alpha haunted by the mystery of six dead wives, will she become his next victim-or the only one who can break the curse?

I was the wolfless twin. The rejected bride. The daughter marked for death. They didn't realize they weren't killing a girl-they were breaking a seal. ​On my wedding day, my fated mate didn't say "I do." He said, "I reject you." ​Luke Blackwood didn't want a Luna without a wolf, so he chose my twin sister instead. Humiliated and hunted by my own father, I was forced to flee into the territory of the one man my pack feared most: Aiden Stormrider, the ruthless Alpha King and billionaire CEO of Crescent ​Aiden thinks I'm a pawn to be used against my father. He thinks I'm a weak Omega seeking refuge. ​He's wrong. ​Deep inside me, something ancient is waking up. It's not just one wolf-it's five. Five fractured personalities, each with their own deadly powers, born from a prophecy that says I will end the age of Alphas. ​As the Dragon Wolf rises, I will reclaim my throne. My sister wants my legacy? She can have the ashes. My mate wants my forgiveness? He can beg while I burn his world down. ​Aiden Stormrider wants my heart... but he'll have to survive the five monsters living inside it first. ​They wanted a sacrifice. They got a Queen.

I was three months pregnant when the car hit me. Lying there, barely hanging on, I called my husband-Alpha Ethan-over and over. No answer. When I finally woke up from the pain, I saw a post from his first love, Ivy. "Thank you, Alpha, for knowing how scared I am of the dark and staying with me all night. He even cleared his whole schedule today to take me to the auction, just to give me the best gift in the world. I'm so happy!" Right then, it hit me. While I was fighting to protect our child, he was with another she-wolf. I calmly liked her post and put my phone away. Since he chose his first love, I chose to let go. Seven days from now, I'd leave his world for good-with our child.

I was born a wolfless cripple in the Richmond Pack, but by royal decree, I was engaged to the kingdom's Champion Knight, Emory. During the winter banquet, my half-sister Dessie suddenly tilted backward into the royal ice pond, screaming that I pushed her. In my previous life, I reached out in panic to save her, only to be dragged down and framed for attempted murder. When Emory dove into the freezing water, he swam right past my sinking body to rescue her instead. Once ashore, my own father and my betrothed ignored my desperate pleas. They branded me a vicious, jealous traitor. Emory publicly broke our engagement to marry Dessie, while my father threw me to the executioner to wash away the family's shame with my blood. Until my head was on the chopping block, I didn't understand. Why did my own family want me dead just because I had no inner wolf? Why did the knight who swore to protect me conspire with my illegitimate sister to destroy my life? Opening my eyes again, I was back on the snow-dusted terrace, right as Dessie was setting up the exact same trap. "A wolfless cripple like you should crawl back to the gutter," she whispered, falling backward. This time, I didn't flinch or beg for help. Instead, my fingers shot out like iron clamps, grabbing her wrist, and I dragged her into the freezing depths with me.

I sold my innocence to the ruthless billionaire Alpha, Eben Burnett, just to get the $300,000 antidote money to save my dying mother. But when I rushed to the hospital, the nurse told me my father hadn't paid a single cent. Instead, I looked up at the lobby television and saw my identical twin sister, Emilee. She was wearing the exact coat I had left in the hotel suite, flashing a fake mark on her neck to the cameras, and proudly announcing her engagement to the Alpha after their "passionate night." My father threatened to let my mother die of silver poison if I dared to expose the truth and ruin his precious pack alliance. He told me I was just a disgraced Omega, born only to be Emilee's worthless shadow. Even my frail mother, completely unaware that I had sold my body for her medicine, sobbed in her hospital bed because her "noble" Emilee was too busy with the engagement to visit her. I was forced to swallow my blood and tears, watching my twin steal my night, my credit, and the man whose inner wolf had actually roared for me as his true fated mate. Why did she get to steal every good thing in life while I suffered in the dark to keep our mother alive? When I saw the live post that Emilee had booked out a Michelin-starred restaurant to host a lavish bridal tea party with her rich friends, my patience finally shattered. This time, I wasn't going to be the silent shadow. I grabbed my jacket and headed straight downtown to tear off her fake mask face to face.