Victoria

The fluorescent lights of my bedroom ceiling seared my eyes, but it was the calendar that truly paralyzed me. Today' s date. The exact date I swore I' d never live through again. The day Tiffany Evans, with her carefully crafted mask of vulnerability, first asked to stay over. My heart hammered, a frantic drumbeat against my ribs. Because I remembered. With chilling, vivid clarity, I remembered every agonizing detail. Tiffany. Her insidious lies. The false accusation of sexual assault that exploded like a bomb, obliterating my brother David's D1 scholarship, his reputation, his entire future. I watched our golden boy, the star quarterback, turn into a ghost haunting our home. Then came the tragic street race, his desperate escape that led only to death. Mom and Dad, their love and lives stolen by grief, followed soon after. My own end? A blur of white-hot rage, a final, bloody confrontation with Tiffany that claimed both our lives. I' d pitied her once. That pity cost us everything. This time, the familiar scent of my mom' s laundry detergent on my sheets felt like a cruel joke. The betrayal of Mark Jenkins, David's jealous best friend and Tiffany's willing accomplice, still stung like a fresh wound. How could I have been so blind? But then, it clicked. The shock, the jolt of pure adrenaline. I was back. A second chance. A terrifying, incredible gift. No pity this time. No room for error. I knew Tiffany's game. And this time, I wouldn't be a pawn. I would be the ultimate player, ready to rewrite our fate.

I came home early with a fresh blueberry cake to celebrate my four-year anniversary with my fiancé, Finley. Instead, I found him in our engagement bed, desperately tangled with my supposed best friend, Falon. When I caught them, Finley didn't even apologize. He pulled the sheets up, his eyes flashing with pathetic hostility. "If you weren't so cold and boring, do you think I'd ever look at another woman? You're a nobody from a common bloodline. What can you offer me?" Falon mocked me from the pillows, boasting that her executive father could give Finley the promotion and territory resources I never could. They both knew my twenty-fourth birthday was tomorrow. Under strict pack law, if I didn't present a registered mate by the deadline, the elders would forcibly assign me to an older, widowed wolf for breeding duty. They thought they had me perfectly cornered. Four years of loyalty, sold out for a corporate title. Looking at the two parasites, my suffocating pain suddenly turned into ice-cold clarity. I threw the house key straight at Finley's bleeding face, walked out into the freezing midnight downpour, and grabbed the first terrifying, scarred Rogue wolf I saw standing in the shadows. "Walk inside the Pack Registry with me right now. I will pay you a hefty fee to sign a marriage contract." I thought I was just buying a nameless stray to dodge my arranged mating. I had no idea I had just bound myself to an absolute apex Alpha who could crush my ex's entire existence with a single word.

On my tenth wedding anniversary, I prepared a perfect dinner and waited for my husband to come home. Instead, he walked in reeking of alcohol, threw a harsh divorce agreement on the table, and told me he was leaving me with nothing. He said our marriage was just for business, and now that his company was going public, he didn't need me anymore. The woman he truly loved and was cheating with was my own younger sister, Megan. When I rushed to my mother for help, she coldly sipped her tea and admitted she had known for months. She ordered me to turn a blind eye and beg for his forgiveness, because our family's company relied entirely on his investments. "Are you going to drag down your own family now?" She told me to accept being a wife in name only, or I wouldn't get a single penny from the family. Ten years of my youth were treated as a cheap transaction, and my own flesh and blood threw me away like a worthless pawn just to keep their funding. I finally realized that in this family, I had never been loved. I didn't cry, and I certainly didn't beg. Instead, I tore up his cruel prenuptial agreement right in front of them. Using his upcoming IPO as leverage, I forced him to hand over two luxury properties and half a million dollars in cash. Then, I dusted off my hidden certifications and dialed the number for a top-tier headhunting firm.

For three years, Chloe existed as a quiet, submissive fixture in her billionaire husband Julian's gilded cage. When she finally handed him the signed divorce papers, he just laughed, assuming she was throwing a tantrum over his blatant affair. He didn't know her real reason was a desperate secret: she was hiding their three-year-old twins in a cramped Queens apartment to protect them from his ruthless family. Julian refused the divorce, and his obsessive need for control drove him to investigate her every move. When his surveillance team uncovered the children calling her "Mommy," his arrogance twisted into a murderous rage. Assuming she had betrayed him with another man, he trapped her in their penthouse and violently cornered her. During a brutal struggle, he forcefully ripped a strand of hair from her scalp under the guise of a punishing kiss. Chloe was left trembling and humiliated, unable to understand why a man who openly flaunted his mistress would go to such terrifying lengths to keep a wife he never loved. She had sacrificed everything to keep her babies safe, yet an invisible net was already suffocating her. Fleeing the apartment, Chloe thought she had finally bought enough time to escape the city with her children. She had no idea Julian was already staring at a text message that would detonate her entire world. "Preliminary DNA results are in."

One night. One mistake. One man who refuses to let her forget it. Caitlin Knight was once the girl who had everything-a wealthy father, a future in design, and a secret crush on the quiet boy in the back of calculus class. Ten years later, she is broke, invisible, and drowning in her mother's medical bills. When she shows up to a charity gala wearing a three-year-old Zara dress, she expects pity. She doesn't expect Isaac Harrell. The boy who once sat three rows behind her is now a billionaire CEO-cold, untouchable, and staring directly at her. He takes her home. She tells herself it's a mistake. He tells her to forget it. But Isaac doesn't forget anything. When Caitlin is forced to deliver a proposal to Zenith Tower, she finds herself standing in his lobby-and he walks past her like she doesn't exist. But when her mother's sanatorium bill maxes out her credit card, and a predatory executive named Donnie Hicks demands she attend a private dinner, Caitlin realizes she is trapped between two men: one who owns the city, and one who wants to own her. But Isaac Harrell has never been good at sharing. A story of survival, secrets, and a love that refuses to stay in the past.

Anissa is the perfect, lifeless wife of powerful D.C. politician Julian Sinclair. She endures this suffocating marriage solely to protect the vital funding for her Navajo tribe. But after sneaking out for a brief moment of freedom, she returns to find herself viciously framed. Julian's favorite mistress, Cecily, faked a severe allergic reaction and accused Anissa of poisoning her dessert. Julian violently grabs Anissa's arm, his eyes burning with cold fury. "I will trigger the punitive clauses in our prenuptial agreement." That single threat would instantly cut off her people's survival money. To bury the PR scandal, the family matriarch forces Anissa to swallow her pride. Under the mocking eyes of the household staff, Anissa is forced to fall to her knees beside the mistress's lounge, presenting a massive Cartier diamond bracelet to beg for forgiveness. "Please forgive me for the kitchen mix-up. I am so sorry." A camera flash captures her ultimate humiliation, yet Julian still glares at her defeated posture with inexplicable disgust. Anissa's heart burns with deep, suffocating rage. Why must she be a prisoner to this cruel family? And who was the deadly man she met in the alley tonight? The stranger who effortlessly overpowered her bodyguard and spoke of Arizona sandstorms, triggering blinding flashes of a past she can't remember. Grinding her teeth as she walks away from the suite, Anissa makes a silent vow. She will call that mysterious man, uncover her stolen memories, and tear this gilded cage apart.

The heavy oak doors of the Crane estate splintered under the battering ram. Annetta was just putting her five-year-old daughter to sleep when the SWAT team stormed the nursery. They told her that her husband, Major Alek Crane, was killed in action overseas. But instead of a hero's funeral, he was branded a national traitor, and the feds were seizing every penny of their wealth. Lead investigator Issac Rocha dragged Alek's charred remains into the grand hall just to mock him. He stripped Annetta of her wedding band, confiscated her winter coat, and officially exiled her, her daughter, and her hostile mother-in-law to a freezing Appalachian death zone. In the federal holding cell, the extended family turned on Annetta, calling her a cheap commoner and leaving her to shiver on the concrete floor. They were dumped in an abandoned mining town with nothing but canvas jumpsuits to die in the snow. Annetta knew Alek was framed in a ruthless political hit. Issac Rocha wanted them to rot in the mud and freeze to death, completely forgotten by the world. "We are going to live, and we are going to burn Issac Rocha to the ground." But Issac made one fatal mistake. He didn't know the quiet, submissive daughter-in-law had spent the last three years secretly building a military-grade doomsday bunker right in the heart of that very mountain. Stepping past the freezing mud, Annetta initiated the biometric scan, and the massive steel blast doors slowly swung open.

To the world, I was Delia Fitzgerald, the spoiled, vacuous daughter of the South's wealthiest family. But behind the practiced pout and expensive stilettos, I was a sleeper agent, a shadow trained for war. The mask cracked the night my fiancé, Ansel Gibson, dumped me in the rain. He didn't just break the engagement; he recoiled in physical disgust, claiming that the very sight of me made him physically ill. When I returned home, I expected my father to be furious about the failed business merger. Instead, I found him paralyzed by a primal terror I had never seen. It wasn't about the money; it was about a "blood debt" and a mysterious parchment that held our family's lives in the balance. "You will go to the Gibsons and beg for forgiveness," my father rasped, his hands shaking uncontrollably. "If this contract is broken, there will be blood." My own brothers, men who usually ruled the city, could only watch in grim silence. I realized then that I wasn't a daughter to them-I was currency, a lamb being led to the slaughter to pay for a secret I didn't even know existed. I didn't understand why the Gibsons were so obsessed with me, or why Killian Gibson-the family's true monster-was suddenly tracking my every move with a predatory smile. He traced the callouses on my hands, marks from thousands of rounds of gunfire that no debutante should have, and whispered that he wanted me where he could see me. If they wanted a pawn, they picked the wrong girl. I decided to stop running and walked straight into the lion's den, accepting a job as Killian's "Chief Special Assistant." I was going to find that parchment and tear their world apart from the inside. The game had officially begun, and this time, the "Baby Girl" was the one holding the knife.

My step-brother and his girlfriend ambushed me in my own penthouse, their eyes burning with a hatred I' d never seen. They called me a thief, a whore, and accused me of trying to steal their inheritance with the "bastard child" I was carrying. Their fists and stilettos rained down on me. A final, vicious kick to my stomach ended everything. I felt the life inside me slip away, a crimson tide staining the marble floor. They celebrated, believing they had protected their "family honor." My desperate pleas that the baby's father was the powerful Jerimiah Mcpherson were met with scornful laughter. "That old man can' t have kids!" they sneered. As they bound my hands and threw me into the pool to finish the job, the door exploded inward. It was him. Jerimiah. My husband. The look on his face as he saw me, bleeding and broken, and understood what they had done to our child, was not just rage. It was the promise of a slow, agonizing hell they had just unleashed upon themselves.

For five years, I poured my soul into my career and my secret lover, my boss Hudson. But for the fifth time, he gave the promotion I bled for to my incompetent rival, Kaitlyn. My world shattered when I overheard him callously admitting our entire relationship was just a "cost-effective strategy" to keep me motivated without the director's salary. The humiliation didn't end there. He physically forced me into a deeper bow before Kaitlyn, re-injuring my back. When I finally quit, his revenge was swift: an assignment to a notoriously dangerous remote site. That night, I was brutally attacked. My desperate emergency call to Hudson went straight to voicemail. A notification later revealed why: he was on stage at a company party, singing a love duet with Kaitlyn while I was fighting for my life. The man I loved had left me to die. After I cut all ties and finally started to heal, he showed up at my parents' door, begging for forgiveness. This time, I wouldn't just walk away. I would make him face every lie he ever told.

My husband, Cleve, built a world-class research center for me. He was my knight in shining armor, the man who saved me after my family went bankrupt. But when my brother died tragically under my care, my husband didn't comfort me. Instead, he began grooming a replacement-a young protégé named Ivanna, funding her transformation until she became a younger, softer version of me. He gave her my jewelry and the keys to our private lake house. He publicly undermined my life's work at the center he built, calling my proven methods "old paradigms." He told our friends I was unstable, that my grief was making me "aggressive." The final blow came when he stumbled into my room, drunk and desperate. He tried to kiss me, to reclaim me, but the name he whispered was hers. "Ivanna." When she appeared in the doorway, he didn't hesitate. He took her side, looked at me with cold disgust, and threw me out of my own home. Lying in a hotel room, sick with a fever born from a long walk in the cold rain, I finally understood. My life had been a lie. He hadn't just replaced me; he had tried to erase me. But my escape wasn't just about survival. It was about the evidence I found before I left-a receipt showing that the drug that killed my brother was paid for by Ivanna, using Cleve's corporate credit card. I didn't just run away. I left him to discover he'd been protecting a murderer.

Today is my fifth wedding anniversary. It's also the day my husband, Ethan, asked me for a divorce for the 38th time. He does this for Ilene, his childhood friend. The woman who crashed her car on our wedding day, leaving her unable to have children. Ever since, he's been repaying a debt of guilt, and I've been the price. For five years, I endured the cycle of divorce and remarriage. But this time was different. Ilene pushed me down a flight of stairs. Ethan found me bleeding and promised me justice. He swore he would make her pay. But days later, the police called. The security footage of the incident had been mysteriously erased. There was no evidence, no case. That night, Ilene had me kidnapped. As her men tore at my clothes in the back of a van, I managed to call Ethan. He rejected my call. I jumped from the moving van. And as I ran for my life, bleeding on the cold asphalt, I made a vow. This time, there would be no 39th remarriage. This time, I would disappear.

The air in Harmony Creek always smelled of lavender and lies. My mother-in-law, Deborah Hayes, was hailed as a spiritual savior, but her serenity was a suffocating shroud over my life, especially after my daughter, Lily, drowned in a pool with a broken latch-a latch my husband, Tom, Deborah' s "blessed son," had repeatedly promised to fix. Instead of grief, Lily' s death was declared a "spiritual transition" by Deborah, a "blessing" echoed by Tom and the entire town. When I screamed that she had drowned because of neglect, they dismissed my pain as "low-frequency energy," even performing a brutal "cleansing" ritual to beat the "dark entity" out of me. Now, as they celebrated my dead child, something inside me snapped; if I wanted justice for Lily, I would have to take it myself, piece by fraudulent piece, from the heart of Deborah' s empire.

For five years, I counted the cracks in my prison cell ceiling, believing each one represented a promise from David Chen: "Five years, Sarah. Just five years, and we' ll have the world." I took the fall for him, choosing his future-our future-over mine. The day I walked free, I expected to step into the empire we' d built. Instead, I walked into a betrayal. David, the man I' d loved, had replaced me with Ashley Peterson, his new lover, and rebranded my company, Miller Logistics, as Chen Enterprises. He greeted my return with cold indifference, dismissing my sacrifice even as he paraded Ashley like a trophy. I saw my loyal right-hand man, Mark, beaten and broken in a hidden basement room, a brutal reminder of David's ruthlessness and Ashley's complicity. All new faces filled my old company, all loyal to David. My heart shattered as David physically attacked me, screaming that I had ruined everything. He dragged me to a staged kidnapping recovery, where Ashley publicly accused me of plotting against her, David defending her. Then, David ordered his men to humiliate me, demanding I kneel and apologize to Ashley. How could the man I loved, the man I sacrificed everything for, become such a monster? How could he betray me so completely? Amidst the chaos, a calm voice cut through the darkness. Liam Hayes, a powerful and mysterious businessman, stepped in, revealing David's treachery and saving me from further harm. This was my chance. I wouldn' t just survive; I would make them pay for every tear, every scar, every broken promise.

The first thing I felt was a single tear tracing a path down my temple. For ten years, my body had been a prison, a vessel for a consciousness trapped in a silent, black ocean. My fiancé, David Chen, stood over my bed, his face a mask of shock. "Sarah?" he whispered, his voice trembling, right before he confessed, "If it weren't for that accident... Emily would have been my fiancée. We wronged her." These words confirmed the haunting whisperings from my coma. I had felt everything: the burning dyes Emily tested on me for her "revolutionary" fabrics, my body becoming a roadmap of her cruelty. I heard David agree to it all, authorizing the transfer of my fortune to fund her reckless ventures. He had called her his true love on a stage lit by my money, while I lay in a managed care facility, a footnote in my own story. Now, he looked at me with false sincerity, "Just one more treatment, Sarah... After this, I promise, I'll love you. I'll take care of you forever." His belated affection was worthless, his promises ash. Why was he suddenly trying to mend things? Why claim he loved me now, after a decade of betrayal? Another tear escaped, not for sorrow, but for a cold, hard fury that had simmered for a decade. It was the last tear I would ever shed for him. That night, a fire started in Emily Miller's celebrated design studio. It wasn't an accident. It was a message.

The roar of my ' 69 Mustang Mach 1, a Candy Apple Red masterpiece, was the most beautiful sound in the world; it was finally home, the culmination of years of meticulous restoration. But that perfect moment shattered when my wife, Gabby, and her shady "cousin" Wesley - a man I always distrusted, who secretly had two DUIs - took my dream car for a joyride. Then came the news alert: "Serious multi-car pile-up on the Dallas North Tollway. A vintage red Ford Mustang reportedly fled the scene." They framed me for the hit-and-run, a cold, calculated betrayal to protect Wesley, turning my life upside down in an instant as Gabby performed a tearful act for the cameras, solidifying my public guilt. Now, as the police sirens wailed at my mansion, and with my name dragged through the mud, I face a choice: let the woman I loved destroy me for a man who doesn't deserve it, or fight back and uncover the truth that could cost them everything.

For three years, I lived as a ghost in my own home, erased from my husband, Congressman Ethan Lester' s, memory after a convenient bout of amnesia. He remembered only his high school sweetheart, Sabrina, who promptly moved into our house, our bed. I was demoted from his brilliant political strategist to a forgotten caregiver, ignored by his staff, pitied by the press. The breaking point wasn't my humiliation, though. It was our son, Leo. When Leo got gravely sick, I begged Ethan to pull strings for a specialist at Johns Hopkins. He looked me straight in the eye, adjusted the tie Sabrina bought him, and chillingly declared, "I don't have a son. I don't know you." Leo died two days later. But then, I overheard Ethan on the phone. "Leo's death? It cements my image. The tragic, sympathetic figure. The voters will eat it up. The VP endorsement is a lock now." He let our son die. For a Senate seat. My grief didn' t just break, it sharpened into a weapon. He was a monster, and I was going to destroy him. That night, Maria Lester disappeared. But Maria Chavez was just beginning.

I thought I had it all. A brilliant tech genius husband, Ethan Caldwell, a New York penthouse, and a baby on the way. My life felt like a perfect dream. Then Ethan announced a "catastrophic business failure," plunging us into poverty in a cramped Queens apartment. Five years later, working a Gala, I saw him again. A celebrated "miracle benefactor," he presented the very diamond bracelet he'd promised me to Victoria Vanderbilt—the woman he'd secretly always loved. All my sacrifices, Leo's quiet deprivations—they were an elaborate lie. He'd been building an empire for *her*. The betrayal escalated: Ethan demanded Leo be a kidney donor for Victoria's son. Later, Victoria orchestrated a kidnapping, and Ethan, dismissing my desperate pleas, coldly told the abductors to "teach me a lesson" and hung up. How could the man I loved, Leo's father, be such a monstrous, heartless betrayer? His casual disregard for our very lives, his ultimate abandonment during our terror, left me shattered. Was our entire marriage truly just a cruel, convenient sham for him? Watching my son suffer due to his father's depravity, something inside me ignited. Not broken, but fiercely resolved. I would escape his toxic world, protect Leo, and build a real, peaceful life for us, whatever it took. We were leaving. For good.

Lillian woke in a werecreature universe as a total loser. Good news was that women ruled here and could take multiple mates, yet she still ended up as the one everyone looked down on. Compared to her talented sister at every turn, she watched her first match get stolen and her next four mates reject her without mercy. The first mate was the King of Succubine himself. On their very first meeting, he warned Lillian that he was only staying long enough to recover from his injuries-and that there could never be anything between them. The second mate was a merman. He took one look at her and said he had no interest in a loser like her, tossing her some cash so she could break off their bond herself. The third mate was the progenitor vampire-over a thousand years old. He admitted to admiring her sister instead and made it clear he had no interest in a layabout like Lillian. Lillian cut every bond and chose her own path instead. But as she rose higher and higher, those same men returned, full of regret and begging her to look at them again. The fourth mate was a werewolf Lillian had rescued from an underground fighting ring. She thought he might actually stay-until he revealed himself as royalty. And of course, he wanted to break their bond for more power.

I knelt on the cold stone of the Dragon God Altar, waiting to marry Lord Harper Carney. It was my only chance to escape the gilded cage of my family. But when Harper finally arrived, he wasn't alone. His arm was wrapped tightly around my cousin, Hettie. Right in front of the entire court, he coldly announced that our marriage was a mistake. Hettie leaned into his embrace, wearing a triumphant smile while playing the innocent victim. The assembled nobles openly jeered at me. They mocked my greatest failing—that I was a worthless "Dragonless" born without the inner fire. My own father was furious, not at them, but at me. He demanded I go to Hettie's estate and beg for her forgiveness. When I refused, he threatened to cut off all my funds and revoke my only job at the Royal Scribes' Office. I was publicly abandoned, stripped of my dignity, and left with absolutely nothing. I didn't cry, and I didn't scream. Why should I be the one to apologize when they were the ones who betrayed me? For years, I had endured their abuse, treated like a pawn to be sacrificed at will. But looking at their smug faces, my despair turned into cold resolve. I took off my betrothal coronet and dropped it at Harper's feet, publicly nullifying the contract myself. I thought I would have to face the ruin alone, until a mysterious, powerful man with burning golden eyes stepped out of the shadows. "Marry me," he said. "I will be your shield, and we will crush them together."

I woke up to the stench of rust and rotting flesh, no longer a master botanist who commanded life itself, but a D-class exile dumped on a wasteland planet. Memories that weren't mine flooded in. I was framed by my stepsister, betrayed by my fiancé, and banished by my own family to the Ashfall Peninsula to die. The original girl actually starved to death in despair. The moment I opened my eyes, a scavenger tried to smash my skull with a rusty pipe just to eat me. After I killed him to survive, I discovered a harsher truth: in this universe, plant seeds are classified as A-level strategic resources, completely monopolized by the Imperium. But the universe had a sick sense of humor. A mandatory background scan suddenly triggered a galactic broadcast: I, the exiled trash, was a perfect genetic match for the Imperium's top war hero, General Alexander Orr. The family that ruthlessly erased my existence instantly saw me as a golden ticket. My cheating ex-fiancé was dispatched to drag me back, furious that his "property" was matched with someone else. They all thought I was still that weak, naive girl they could manipulate. But as I held the pure, glowing Life Source Crystals I had secretly extracted from the scrap heap, a cold smile crept onto my face. "I didn't come here to die. I came here to build an empire." I turned my back on the galactic broadcast and stepped into the deadly wilderness.

I am the Dragonless Queen, married to the Dragon King for five years, trying to warm his icy heart. But on my twenty-fifth birthday, he canceled our private dinner to spend it with my half-sister, Lyra. Through the cracked door, I watched him smile at Lyra with a warmth he never gave me, praising her sacred dragonfire. "Auntie Lyra is amazing!" my four-year-old daughter squealed. "Mom never knows how to make these!" My husband didn't even look up when I finally entered, coldly telling me not to make an issue out of a quiet family evening. Looking at the three of them framed by the hearth-the formidable king, the holy maiden of flame, and the adoring royal daughter-they formed a picture of unassailable perfection. I was just a cold-blooded intruder in my own home, a decorative fixture tolerated only for political peace. Five years of silent endurance evaporated into a freezing void. Why did I bury my true self, believing devotion could fill the empty spaces? Why did I let them treat me like a shameful defect? I didn't scream or cry. I calmly drafted a formal Declaration of Severance, left it on his desk, and walked out of the palace forever. My husband assumed I was just throwing a domestic tantrum and would come crawling back once my coin ran out. He had no idea that his useless, Dragonless wife was actually the shadowy founder of Aether Forge-the premier military syndicate his entire empire desperately relied on to survive. Keep your throne, Kaelen. I am taking back my life.

My engagement to Kile, the heir of House Golden, was witnessed by the Duke himself. I thought my days as a helpless orphan were over. But right before our wedding, he coldly informed me that my status was being revoked. I was to enter his family as a lesser consort. The title of primary wife was being given to his lover, Journey. She hid behind Kile, wearing a spotless white dress and trembling like a fragile lotus. "Cassie, please don't blame him, I can live without a title," she cried, playing the perfect victim. Kile shielded her, glaring at me with pure disgust, shouting that I was being completely unreasonable. The next day, the entire Elder Council cornered me in their grand hall. They told me that as a "Dragonless" nobody, I should be immensely grateful for any scrap they threw my way. They all stared at me, waiting for me to swallow my pride and accept a lifetime of humiliation. They thought I was entirely broken. They thought I had no backing and no choice but to bow down to their cruelty. Instead, I looked straight at the Chief Elder and smiled. "I refuse to be a lesser consort," I announced clearly, watching Kile's smug expression freeze. "But to preserve our families' dignity, I will fulfill the contract." I looked right into Kile's shocked eyes. "I will marry your dead older brother, Lord Ayden."

On my eighteenth birthday, I expected the Federal Matchmaking Bureau to give me the same answer it always had. No Match Found. For years, I had survived as the Greer family's defective male Omega-an embarrassment with no detectable pheromones, no beast-mark potential, and no chance of producing the powerful Alpha heir my father wanted. A failed test meant freedom. It would unlock my late mother's fortune and let me disappear for good. Then the machine demanded a blood sample. The next second, the entire Bureau went into lockdown. Duncan Cain, the Empire's youngest war general. Hollis Beaumont, the crown prince of our enemy empire. A pirate lord, a king, the Alliance's chief diplomat... Six of the most powerful Alphas in the galaxy. All matched to me at 100%. My father, who had treated me like a worthless stray for eighteen years, suddenly seized my arm with greedy eyes. "Ansel, you're going to make this family untouchable." My stepsister watched in horror as the Bureau declared me a Shared Treasure of Humanity. Armed guards surrounded me. The Empire decided my body, my future, and six Alpha suitors all belonged to them now. They had no idea I was never the weak, obedient Omega they thought I was. I was an ace mech pilot, the secret heir to a fortune large enough to buy my freedom, and I had spent years preparing one perfect escape. So while my father dreamed of selling me to the highest bidder, I opened my terminal and sent a single encrypted message. They thought they had trapped a helpless Omega. Instead, they had just started my contingency plan.

Caryn lay trapped beneath concrete slabs in the apocalyptic ruins, a steel rebar pinning her down, the pressure unbearable. Her fiancé, Ford, knelt in the narrow gap above her, completely unharmed. "Sorry, babe. It's a new world. Survival of the fittest." He sneered, twisting the cap off their last bottle of purified water. He drank it all, wiped his mouth with a clean hand, and told her she would just waste it. He had manipulated her into signing over her uncle's house-her only defensible shelter-just to sell it for cash. Now, as a violent aftershock made the rubble groan and shift, Ford scrambled away without a single backward glance. For five brutal years of starvation and injury, she had clung to him and her grandmother's antique locket, only to meet her end betrayed and full of agonizing regret. Why had she been so foolish to trade her survival for a lie? A gasp of frigid air flooded her lungs, and her eyes flew open to a smooth, white ceiling. She wasn't in the dusty ruins; she was in her pristine silk bed sheets. She grabbed her phone, her hands trembling as she stared at the date on the screen. It was exactly thirty days before the world would crack apart. She looked at the silver locket in her hand, a diamond-hard rage crystallizing in her chest. This time, she would activate its secret, and she would strip Ford and his family of everything before the apocalypse even began.

I was the adopted, "Dragonless" daughter of the Sterling family, bound by a prestigious marriage contract to my fiancé, Julian. But during the annual charity ball, I followed a secret note to a guest suite, only to catch him tangled on the sofa with my cousin, Isabelle. When I calmly called the Dragon Guard to expose their affair, my adoptive parents didn't comfort me. Instead, they furiously blamed me. "It was an emergency! Our kind Isabelle used her scent to save him, and you just tried to destroy him!" They praised her as a hero, officially handed my fiancé over to her, and decided to punish me for tarnishing the family name. Their revenge was a new marriage contract. They were going to sell me off to Lord Valerius, a cruel, elderly man notorious for outliving three wives. I stared at the death sentence in my hands, my blood running cold. I was the one betrayed, yet I was being discarded like useless trash to pave the way for my cousin's happiness. Why should I let them destroy my life just to protect their twisted, perfect image? I didn't cry, and I refused to be their sacrificial lamb. I drafted a cold, calculated business proposal, packed my bags, and walked out of that toxic house forever. I was going to propose to the most ruthless, powerful predator in the kingdom-Gideon Montgomery. If I had to step into a dragon's lair, I would be the one to choose it.

In the final days before the world collapsed, Ivy Brooks died... betrayed by the very people she trusted most. She had fought, struggled, and sacrificed everything just to survive the apocalypse only to be pushed into death along with her three daughters at the very end by her own husband. With her last breath, Ivy made a vow. If she could turn back time...she would never be weak again and of course protect her daughters. This time, she would stand at the top. When Ivy opened her eyes, she found herself back in time with her still rounded belly of her third baby.... Twenty days before the apocalypse. Armed with memories of the future and a mysterious system in her mind, Ivy moved without hesitation. She hoarded supplies, secured weapons, and took control of every resource she could get her hands on. While others laughed, doubted, and wasted time... Ivy was building her empire along with her daughters. In this life, she would not be prey but will be an hunter. With danger closing in and only twenty days to prepare, Ivy must outplay enemies both old and new, uncover the truth behind the system, and carve out her own kingdom in a collapsing world. Because this time...she wasn't just going to survive the apocalypse. She was going to rule it along with a man, a love interest from the past before her marriage collapse. He provided everything Ivy needed. Money especially in change of a marriage with her and when the apocalypse started too....he ruled it with her as well as her daughters.

I woke up in a freezing alley, my lungs burning and my body shattered. I wasn't just a dying Appalachian girl; I was an ancient soul trapped in a broken human shell, starving for life force. A bulletproof Maybach idled nearby, and the man inside, Cristofer Barrett, radiated an intoxicating wave of dark energy. Driven by primal survival, I lunged at him and forced a kiss, stealing his cursed power to knit my bones back together. But my nightmare was far from over. I was dragged into the Montoya estate, a den of vipers where my "family" viewed me as a disposable tool for a corporate merger. My sister, Jordin, orchestrated a vicious campaign to humiliate me, even sabotaging my dress to ensure my ruin at the upcoming Hubbard gala. I was treated like a stray dog, beaten, and mocked by those who claimed my blood. They didn't realize that the girl they were torturing had already seen through their lies, their secret assassinations, and their pathetic greed. They thought I was a fragile victim, but they had no idea who they were dealing with. I had the power of a legend, a mind for high-stakes manipulation, and an old score to settle. Tonight, at the gala, I wouldn't just show up—I would tear their perfect world apart.