WILONA COOK

Cadence, a modern botanist, woke up to a glaring sun and massive, alien purple leaves blocking the sky. She was stranded in a terrifying, primal world. Before she could process the metallic smell of blood in the air, a white tiger the size of an SUV crushed a giant boar's neck right in front of her. The beast locked its piercing blue eyes on her hiding spot. But instead of tearing her throat out, a blinding flash of silver light erupted, and the monster transformed into a towering, heavily scarred naked man. He was Harlan, a shifter who immediately claimed her as his mate under tribal law. Dragged back to his primitive village, Cadence faced a brutal reality. Unbonded females were targets, and she was expected to take multiple mates just to survive. The tribal women mocked her fragile frame, calling her useless. To make matters worse, her foreign scent attracted a rogue serpent-shifter who violently ambushed her in the river. The icy shock of the serpent's attack plunged Cadence into a deadly, burning fever. The tribe's Shaman tried his healing magic, only to shake his head and abandon her. "She lacks primal fortitude. She will rely entirely on her own weak vitality. I can do nothing." As Harlan held her shivering body in despair, Cadence felt a deep sense of desperate injustice. Was she really going to die in a filthy stone hut in an unknown universe, killed by a simple cold? No. She remembered her grandfather's strict survival lessons. Forcing her heavy eyes open, she grabbed her terrified tiger mate's hand. She didn't need their failing magic; she had science. "I need specific plants to live. I need white willow bark. And a spicy, ginger-like root." She rasped, preparing to show this savage world the true power of a modern survivor.

I stood outside the mahogany doors, balancing a tray of espresso, when I heard my husband promise his sister that my reign as the Queen of Chicago was over. I thought being the Don's wife meant safety. I was wrong. In a warehouse reeking of rust, faced with an ultimatum from our enemies to choose who lives, Brennan made his choice. "Alyssa is strong," he justified, shielding his mistress, Debbi, who was faking a pregnancy. "She knows the life." He walked out into the sunlight with her, leaving me in the dark with a gun to my head. He abandoned me to be tortured and murdered by his rivals, weaponizing my resilience to absolve his guilt. He thought I died that day. He even mourned me after he eventually found out Debbi was a traitor. But he didn't know the new security guard was an undercover FBI agent who pulled me from the edge. Two years later, I've built a quiet life running a bistro in Maine under a new name. But then the bell above the door chimes during the lunch rush. I look up, and there he is. The husband who sacrificed me. He's looking at me not with guilt, but with a terrifying, obsessive hope. He says he burned down the world to fix his mistake. He says he won't let me go again. I smile, but my hand is already reaching for the wire the FBI gave me. I'm not a wife anymore, Brennan. I'm the executioner.

I am the head of the Bianco syndicate. I trusted my quiet, civilian husband, Simon, to guard my ancestral estate while I expanded our legitimate empire out of state. I rushed home after receiving an alert that my five-million-dollar property was sold, only to find Simon cradling a newborn baby with his mistress in my desecrated courtyard. The mistress, Rachel, smugly declared she now owned my house and my husband, using a forged divorce agreement and IDs Simon had secretly stolen from my private safe. "Simon divorcing you was an escape from misery, because no real man wants a cold machine in his bed." They played the victims for the live-streaming neighbors, and Rachel tossed my late father's sacred mafia relics into the mud, stomping on his photograph and laughing about melting his legacy for scrap metal. I stared at the pathetic coward I had married, sickened and bewildered that the man who once vowed to protect my home could steal my inheritance and casually destroy my bloodline's honor for a cheap affair. As the local police tried to arrest me for defending my father's memory, my syndicate's armored convoy suddenly barricaded the street, and I prepared to leave the traitors nothing but ashes.

I went to the airport to pick up my fiancé after two months apart. Instead of a happy reunion, I found his fogged-up car in the dim parking garage.In the car, he is betraying me with my own sister. I calmly called airport security to report them for public indecency. But when my family found out, I was the one put on trial. My father, the Alpha of our pack, furiously berated me for embarrassing the family. Without a second thought, he coldly announced my engagement was cancelled and transferred to my sister to maintain their precious business alliance. My mother and my ex-fiancé shamelessly defended the affair, blaming me for being jealous. After years of being the unloved, obedient daughter, the sheer injustice of being thrown away like garbage made my blood run cold. They actually believed they could strip away my future, hand it to my cheating sister, and I would just quietly accept it. I packed my bags and walked out of that toxic house forever. To get my ultimate revenge, I approached the most feared and powerful Alpha in the city-my ex-fiancé's ruthless uncle, Alaric Charles. I proposed a contract marriage to become their aunt and take back what was mine. He agreed surprisingly fast, but right after we signed the papers at City Hall, he dropped a terrifying bombshell. "You will begin your primary duty as my wife today. You will take care of my daughter."

For three years, I acted as a substitute for my twin sister, married to the most powerful Alpha on the East Coast. To the world, I was Isabella, the spoiled princess. To my husband, Donovan, I was a nuisance he couldn't wait to divorce. I counted down the seconds until the contract expired so I could take my money and disappear. But three days before my freedom, his mistress was kidnapped. The rogues demanded a trade: the wife for the mistress. Donovan didn't hesitate. He dragged me to the warehouse and threw me to the wolves. To prove he didn't care about me, the rogue handed him a silver dagger. Donovan looked me in the eye and drove the blade into my thigh. As I screamed in agony, the smell of burning flesh filling the air, he stepped over my bleeding body to carry his mistress to safety. He left me there to die on the cold concrete, convinced he was punishing a cruel woman. He didn't know I was the one who had secretly given my rare blood to save that same mistress just a week prior. He didn't know I wasn't Isabella. He didn't know he had just tortured Ava—his true Fated Mate hiding in plain sight. When the real Isabella returned to claim the fortune, Donovan finally realized the woman in his house smelled wrong. He tore the world apart to find me, eventually falling to his knees in the rain to beg for a second chance. But I just looked at him, my hand resting in the grip of a new, kinder Alpha, and whispered: "I reject you."

My husband, Andre Grimes, was a newly-elected senator, and I was a celebrated chef pregnant with our first child. On the night of his victory, our world was supposed to be perfect. Instead, I watched him on live TV, his arm around his pregnant mistress, as he announced their relationship to the world. He then looked into the camera and called my own pregnancy a lie, a fabrication to create a scandal. His powerful family, along with my own adoptive parents, locked me in our home. They moved his mistress into my bedroom and planned to force me to have an abortion to protect his career. His mother looked at me with cold eyes. "It's for the best, Kyra. No loose ends." I was trapped, betrayed by everyone, facing the murder of my unborn child. But they made one mistake: they gave me back my phone. With trembling hands, I found a long-forgotten number and dialed. A man's voice answered. "My name is Kyra Moore," I choked out. "I think you might be my father. They're going to take my baby."

My best friend is pregnant with my husband's child. An hour ago, she stood in my living room, holding a positive pregnancy test and a grainy ultrasound photo that felt like a death sentence to my world. But the true nightmare began when my mother-in-law swept in, praised my friend for "doing the family a great service," and moved her into our home to care for the "Patton heir." My husband, the man who swore my infertility didn't matter, called her a mere "vessel" for our family. He then orchestrated an "accident" that shattered my hand, ending my career as a cardiothoracic surgeon. He didn't stop there. He sacrificed my father's life-saving heart transplant for my friend's brother and left me for dead in a landfill when I discovered the truth. I was a brilliant surgeon who could hold a life in my hands, yet I was blind to the fact that my own life was being systematically destroyed by the two people I trusted most. After faking my death and disappearing for two years, I've built a new life, a new face, and a new love. But now, he's found me. And this time, he's not just trying to control me-he's trying to bury me.

For fifteen years, I was Isabella Moretti, the perfect wife to the city's most powerful Don. We were a power couple, a carefully curated masterpiece of influence and affection. Our life was flawless. That masterpiece shattered on our anniversary when a burner phone lit up with a picture of his assistant’s hand on my husband's thigh. Soon, I found his second phone and discovered the full scope of his betrayal. His mistress, Sofia, was pregnant. He lied to my face about "work emergencies" while she began a campaign of terror, sending me photos of them together, a grainy ultrasound, and a video of her parading in my silk robe, bragging about becoming the new Mrs. Moretti. I was supposed to endure it in silence. That's the rule for a Don's wife. But all the pain hollowed out, leaving only a cold, chilling certainty. He truly believed I was nothing without him. "Where would you go, Bella?" he'd once laughed, his voice dripping with condescension. "Everything you have, everything you are, is because of me. You wouldn't last a week." He thought it was a game. "I'll take that bet," he'd said. So while he was away on a final "business trip" with her, I made my move. I liquidated our assets and hired movers to strip our mansion bare, erasing every trace of my existence. I walked out forever, but not before leaving two gifts on the empty mattress where we once slept: the signed divorce papers, and the melted, grotesque slug of gold that used to be my wedding ring.

The Miller family living room, usually a hub of quiet prestige, hummed with a different kind of energy. My adoptive father, Mr. Miller, beamed, the air thick with anticipation for the grand unveiling. Lined up before him were the five men he had raised alongside me: Ethan Hayes, Justin Bell, Ryan Stone, Kevin White. And me, Chloe Miller, the prize in a twisted game I was forced to play. "Chloe, my dear," Mr. Miller' s voice, warm and loving, cut through the tension. "Who do you choose?" Ethan, the man I had tragically chosen in another life, smiled. A perfect, practiced mask of devotion. This time, his smile felt like a cruel joke. I remembered the cheers, the naive happiness of that last life. He' d been the perfect husband, the perfect son-in-law. Until my father' s funeral. That night, he handed me divorce papers, his voice stripped of all warmth. "Now that your father is gone, there' s no need to continue this." Confusion turned to horror as he confessed: our marriage was an act of gratitude. A pact. A lottery among the boys to see who would "care for me" while they waited for Sophia, my sweet, innocent adoptive sister, to come of age. Every love letter, every tender touch, every whispered promise, now tainted. I was a pawn. A well-behaved doll. Then came the final, devastating blow: he left me to drown in a flooded subway tunnel for Sophia' s sprained ankle. But then, impossibly, I woke up. Back in my bedroom, on the very day I was supposed to choose. This time, my choice would not be a game. It would be my freedom. "I choose Liam Black," I declared, my voice ringing clear and steady in the stunned silence. A quiet, stoic Navy SEAL, an outsider. My escape. The shock on their faces was a masterpiece of disbelief. Their carefully constructed world shattered by a single, powerful truth. And I was just getting started.

For six years, our life together with Ashley was a perfectly curated social media feed: beautiful, aspirational, and utterly fake. I, Ethan Miller, the indie filmmaker, thought we were finally building something real, meticulously picking out wedding invitations with my social media influencer fiancée. Then, a bombshell. "I need to postpone the wedding," Ashley announced, tears welling up in a performance worthy of an Oscar. Her childhood friend Liam' s dying mother, she claimed, had one last wish: to see Ashley marry her son. Not only did she steal the wedding rings I designed for us to marry Liam, but Ashley-the woman I was supposed to spend my life with-also callously mocked my own dying mother for being too desperate to get married. The betrayal clawed at me, but the horror deepened when I returned home to find Liam and Ashley cozy on our couch, with my belongings being boxed up by her bodyguards. I was a prisoner in my own home, a "harmless" man she could discard at will. When I tried to leave, Liam's hired thugs abducted me in my own lobby, while Ashley' s bodyguards stood by, watching. I woke up to Ashley and Liam staging a sick charade, falsely accusing me of assaulting Liam' s "dying" mother. "You monster! How could you?" Ashley screamed, before violently slapping me. Then, with a chillingly calm expression, she grabbed my wrist and twisted. I screamed as I heard the sickening crack. My wrist was broken. "Don't ever get in my way again," she hissed, leaving me broken and alone. She even tried to buy my silence, threatening to ruin my career if I ever spoke the truth. But her theatrical sorrow, the stolen rings, the staged kidnapping, the deliberate injury-it all solidified into a cold, hard resolve within me. I was done playing her game. "Can you find me a new bride?" I asked my sister, and then, a name from my past surfaced: Chloe Peterson.

The first sign was a receipt, a flimsy piece of paper I found in my husband Julian' s coat pocket. It was for an obscure art supply store, in a part of the city he had no business being. My husband, the CEO of the world' s most powerful tech firm, saw art as a frivolous asset. My heart went cold. Five years I' d spent as the perfect wife to a man more machine than human, managing his life with detached efficiency. I believed he was incapable of emotion, of passion. I was wrong. The private investigator' s report came back a week later. Pictures. Julian, my ruthless Julian, with a young artist named Lily Chen. The look on his face wasn' t love. It was absolute possession. He followed her, bought her groceries, paid her student loans. He streamed her security cameras directly to his private server, watching her relentlessly. The man who forgot my birthday had memorized a stranger' s life. My confrontation at the Zenith Tech Gala was a mistake. "Julian Vance," I announced, taking a spare microphone on stage. "Innovator. Husband. Adulterer." I held up photos of his obsession for the world to see. He didn' t flinch. His eyes, cold and dark, locked onto mine. "My wife is unwell," he told the stunned crowd, before having security escort me off stage. That night, he slid divorce papers across the marble island in our kitchen. "Sign them," he commanded. The settlement was obscenely generous. "No," I said. "Don' t be a fool, Scarlett. Take the deal. It' s more than you deserve." "I want an apology. I want you to admit what you did." He laughed, a short, ugly sound. "Sign the papers." "Never." The next day, my family' s AI firm was hit with a hostile takeover. Julian was dismantling my life, piece by piece. "Stop it," I pleaded. "You can have the divorce. I' ll sign. Just leave my family alone." "It' s too late for that," he said, then hung up. Two days later, my parents disappeared. "I have them, Scarlett. In a safe place," he said that night, my mother crying in the background. "What do you want?" I whispered. "The papers are on your desk. Sign them, and bring them to me. Your parents will be home by morning." "And if I don' t?" The silence was terrifying. "Don' t test me, Scarlett. You have one hour." I found the papers. My hand shook as I signed, surrendering everything. He met me at an abandoned warehouse. My parents were there, tied to chairs, hooded. "Mom? Dad?" He removed their hoods. Bruised and terrified, my father screamed, "Scarlett, run!" "I promised they would be home by morning," Julian said to me, his eyes never leaving mine. "I never said they' d be alive." He nodded to his men. The gunshots were deafening. My parents, executed in front of me. The world went black. I awoke with a gasp, in my bed, in the sterile mansion. The date was the day I found the receipt. The day my world began to end. This time, it would be his end. I knew the monster I was married to. No confrontation. No public scenes. No desperate pleas. This time, I would disappear. And I would watch him descend into the madness he deserved.

I was scrolling through an anonymous forum, a niche corner of the internet, when a thread titled "The Grand Escape Plan" caught my eye. My husband David, the man I' d loved for five years, came home that very moment, beaming. He announced he' d found a private orphanage, and we were finally going to adopt, a dream we' d chased through years of medical treatments and mounting strain. But as he spoke, his words chillingly echoed the forum post I'd just read, a detailed, grotesque plan by a user "Wanderer77" to adopt a child, leave it with his "barren" wife, fake his death, and disappear with his "true love" and their "little surprise." Suddenly, his excited talk of adoption and "a real family" twisted into something sinister. The man I' d married transformed into Wanderer77 before my eyes, and a wave of nausea, more than just shock, washed over me – a premonition of a truth I was too terrified to confirm. That night, my trembling hands held a pregnancy test: two bright pink lines. I was pregnant, but my husband didn't know, and he was already plotting my abandonment, leaving me with another woman's child. The love for him evaporated, replaced by cold resolve. He thought he was setting a trap for me, but the game had just begun; he was about to walk into his own.

The black Escalade pulled up to the Hughes family ranch, ready for me to finally claim my heritage as a country music star and the long-lost daughter of Howard Hughes. My agent was frantic, but I ignored him; this was where I' d been broken and driven to suicide in my past life. Then, Nicole Lester, the adopted daughter, emerged, mocking my "trashy" outfit and status, daring me to step foot on "their" property. In my previous life, her words, and Ethan' s subsequent career sabotage, had completely shattered me, leaving me desperate for their hollow approval. But this time, I wasn't the intimidated girl who'd fallen for their mind games or felt unworthy. I stepped out of the car, a chilling calm washing over me as I realized their cheap tactics wouldn't work on the woman who was reborn to burn their world to the ground.

The stale smell of forgotten dreams filled the New York yellow cab as rain blurred the city outside, a scene hauntingly familiar. In my last life, this exact ride took me straight to the Pulitzer jury, to the beginning of my catastrophic downfall. My own daughter, Gabrielle, systematically dismantled my life, using my name and reputation to peddle fake insider trading tips to desperate writers. When her scheme inevitably imploded, she seamlessly shifted blame onto me, painting me as a corrupt public figure, a "whistleblower" feeding lies to the hungry online mob. I lost everything: my esteemed career, my freedom, and ultimately, my life, succumbing to a stress-induced heart attack in a lonely apartment, hounded by strangers and forever disgraced. The betrayal was a cold, bitter knot in my stomach-how could the child I raised inflict such immense pain and ruin? But then, a jolt: I was back in this taxi, on this very day, with the chilling clarity of a second chance. This time, this ride wouldn't lead to my destruction; it would be the first step in my meticulous plan to save myself and dismantle her cruel charade.

I died in a federal prison, framed for corporate espionage. My last sight was the man who put me there, Ethan Scott, laughing on a TV screen, celebrating his new life with my stepsister, Stella Chadwick. He' d stolen my inheritance, my freedom, and my future, leaving me to rot for a crime I didn' t commit. Every breath I took in that cell was laced with a hatred so profound, it almost tasted metallic. But then, I gasped, sucking in the scent of expensive leather instead of stale concrete. I was back, seated at the head of the boardroom, staring at the corporate empire that was my birthright. Ethan Scott stood there, smug and charismatic, ready to play his old game. He even brought Stella, holding her hand, demanding a "triumvirate" for a company I inherited from my father. In my past life, I fell for his lies, his emotional blackmail, his manipulative performance. I was blinded by a warped sense of love and loyalty. But not this time. This time, I felt a cold, sharp clarity. Because I remembered everything.

I was three months pregnant when my Austin penthouse became my tomb. My boyfriend, Liam, pushed me from the balcony, a fall swift and final. My death was staged as a tragic suicide, a lie the news readily swallowed. They didn't know the real reason: Daisy, a coyote pup I'd rescued, could shift into a beautiful woman. Liam couldn't let that secret out, and now I watched my killers, my spirit haunting the home I' d paid for. He pulled Daisy into his arms, sharing a passionate kiss right where my lifeless body had fallen. "She's gone," Liam whispered, "It's all ours now." They slandered my name, seized my family' s oil fortune, and buried me in a cheap wooden box. Then, on my family ranch, over my desecrated grave, Liam confessed: "I only dated her to give you this life, Daisy. Chloe owed you this." I burned with a rage so consuming, it felt like my very soul was on fire. And then, I woke up, back in my Range Rover, the Texas storm roaring outside, faced with Daisy once more.

My engagement party to Preston Hawthorne III was meant to be the social event of the season, a strategic fusion of my family's political power and his corporate empire. The grand ballroom of the Four Seasons glittered with D.C.'s elite, all gathered to witness my seemingly perfect future. Then, a trashy tabloid reporter ambushed me, thrusting a phone displaying a dramatic suicide note from Chloe, Preston' s supposed "fragile" childhood friend. "Ellie, is it true Preston has been having an affair with his adopted sister?" the blinding camera flashes and relentless questions began. My fiancé, Preston, instead of defending me, rushed over only to stammer a pathetic excuse about Chloe needing him and fleeing the scene. He confirmed his betrayal and abandonment publicly, letting the vultures with their cameras feast on my humiliation. Left standing alone in the center of the storm, the hot wave of mortification threatened to drown me. How could the man I was to marry choose a manipulative girl over duty, honor, and our powerful alliance? I was Senator Vance's daughter, and this was more than embarrassment; it was a public declaration of war by a weak, spineless fool. His monumental mistake, however, wouldn't be my downfall. Just as I composed myself, Preston Hawthorne II, the true titan, proposed an unthinkable solution to salvage generations of power. "You will not marry Preston," he stated, "You will marry my other son, Caleb, a real man who understands duty." I would not be a discarded bride; I would turn this public humiliation into the ultimate display of strength. My only condition: "I want to meet him. Alone." This wasn't a setback; it was an unexpected and powerful upgrade.

It was the worst blind date Violet had ever been on. But instead of putting up with him, she rebuked him right back. Terence, the man at the table beside them, was intrigued by her attitude and subconsciously followed her to the bar. Their mutual attraction and the copious amount of alcohol led them to a night of pleasure. What should have been a one night stand, by a twist of fate, ended in marriage? Their parents blessed their union at the simple wedding ceremony.  Terence loved Violet ardently, which came as a shock to his friends because this was not at all like the indifferent Terence they had known all along. But with the return of Violet's ex-boyfriend, a secret that had been hidden for four years was now gradually being unveiled, threatening their sweet married life.

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.

Maya Cross woke up in a nightmare-trapped in the body of a sadistic villain who'd tortured five powerful beastmen into submission. Good news? She finally had the power to break their bonds and set them free. Bad news? They were stranded on a dying ship surrounded by Zerg swarms, with zero rescue coming. The first was Caleb, a snake beastman whose red eyes burned with pure hatred. Every time he looked at her, she saw the memory of chains and venom extraction. The second was Finn, an aquatic beastman whose scales she'd ripped off one by one. He could barely stand to be in the same room without his hands shaking with rage. The third was Sage, a griffin beastman she'd tormented so badly he barely went a day without fresh wounds. The fourth was Hunter, a lion beastman she'd mocked relentlessly, calling his beast form hideous and grotesque. The fifth was Jasper, a fox beastman whose face she'd scarred so badly he'd lost his consortium inheritance. "Protect me until I find my father," Maya told them, drawing her own blood, "and I'll give you what you need to break our bond." Caleb laughed bitterly. "Since when do you make deals instead of demands?" "Since we're all dead if we don't work together." But when survival depends on trust, can a torturer become a savior-or will her victims choose revenge over rescue?

After transmigrating into a doomed novel villainess in the werecreature universe, who was destined for exile and death, Ella refused to follow the script. Since the real heiress would return in two years, she prepared early-gathering money, allies, and powerful supporters. One by one, she rescued the discarded men of the heroine. There was the abandoned werewolf, half-dead in his cage. She claimed him without a second thought. Then came the broken healer-disfigured, depressed, his mind warped by years of family cruelty. She pulled him from the wreckage. And the poor little thing treated like a wallet by the heroine, a pawn by his own family. She took him in anyway. But things spiraled out of control. The "useless" princess everyone mocked awakened as the empire's only SSS-ranked female-and suddenly, every powerful werecreature wanted to stay by her side forever. When the real heiress finally came back, she was floored. Not one of the men she'd been eyeing could even come close to the mates of that so-called "useless" Ella. Surrounded by the mates she'd collected along the way, Ella let out a long, tired sigh. "I think I've bitten off way more than I can chew!"

Elena died on the operating table, betrayed by her husband, her unborn child already gone. But death? Just her intermission. She woke up in a whole new world-a beastmen's world, where females are rarer than diamonds and the strongest males go mad without a woman's mark to calm them down. And her? Labelled the weakest female alive. An F-rank body with a joke of a status. But hidden inside? Unlimited mental power. Just as she's figuring out this mess, a system pops up with one hell of an offer: Complete the missions. Bond with assigned males. Save this world. Do all that, and you get a one-way ticket back home. for revenge. Sounds simple? Think again. A Wolf General, colder than a blizzard, who should have ended her-ended up letting her mark him. A Fox Prince, all charming smiles and secret schemes, who started playing games only to lose his own heart. A golden Dragon, sunshine-bright and fiercely possessive, who declares her his destined treasure. A shadowy Serpent, too patient and too dangerous, watching her every move from the dark. A Phoenix King, whose love burns so hot he'd reduce empires to cinders for her. They all need her mark. They all want her. And sharing? Not in their vocabulary. Too bad for them- She's not here for love stories. She's here to survive. To climb. To turn their legendary power into her own stepping stones. And one day. To go back and make her betrayers wish they were never born.

Halie woke up to a sharp pain and a terrifying reality. She was in a new body, her face covered in a hideous web of scars, and her spiritual power reduced to a pathetic D-Class. Before she could even process the memories of being framed, her bedroom doors were violently kicked open. Her sister Seraphina sauntered in with a venomous sneer, followed closely by Halie's S-Class fiancé, Jett. "Look at the disgrace of the Avila family. What a waste," Seraphina mocked, throwing a mirror at her bed. "I can't be tied to a cripple. As an S-Class, I have to break our engagement," Jett added, his gaze full of disgust. The nightmare didn't stop there. Her father called, screaming about how she had shamed the family name. He officially stripped her of her inheritance, froze all her accounts, and exiled her to the decaying Southern District to rot. To make matters worse, a cold, mechanical voice suddenly echoed in her skull, warning her of an impending genetic collapse. Without an immediate energy infusion, she would face total organ failure in thirty days. A ruined face, a treacherous family, a world that wanted her dead, and a literal death clock ticking in her brain. The original owner had died in absolute despair, a tragic victim of sheer cruelty. But if they thought she would just sit there and die, they were severely mistaken. Armed with a mysterious system and her brilliant scientist mind from her past life, Halie packed her bags. She chose the craziest survival quest: head to the slums, find the exiled, sterile S-Class "madman" Coleman, and cure him to harvest his life energy. It was time to start her counterattack.

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.

She died in the apocalypse-betrayed, abandoned, and torn apart by the infected. Then she woke up. Two months before the end of the world. Twenty-two years old again. And on her wrist, a wooden bracelet that her mother had left behind. The bracelet came with a system. A system that eats gold. With enough gold, she can unlock infinite storage for food, water, weapons-anything she needs to survive. The super-hurricane, the floods, the insect plagues, the volcanic winter, the scorching heat... she knows exactly what's coming. While the world sleeps, Joanna shops. She drains her aunt's bank account, maxes out every loan she can find, and buys out half the city. The apocalypse is coming. She'll be ready. But when the chaos begins, the wolves come crawling back-relatives who sold her, friends who betrayed her, a father who abandoned her. They want her food. Her water. Her mercy. Joanna has a different plan. "Why don't you decide who dies first?"

At a high-society gala, my wealthy fiancé shoved me hard onto the polished marble floor. "Get away from me, you worthless stalker," he hissed in front of hundreds of mocking elites. He publicly broke our engagement, calling me a genetic dead-end, a worthless "Psi-Null." My own cousin and my other co-fiancés immediately joined the betrayal, legally freezing my trust fund, repossessing my home, and leaving me completely penniless in the rain. As if that wasn't enough, the Federal matching system suddenly flashed red, assigning me five new mandatory partners. They weren't just anyone. They were five decommissioned SSS-class military legends. But they were all on the verge of terminal energy collapse, rapidly devolving into mindless, bloodthirsty beasts. I was instantly exiled to the Umbra Sanitarium, a high-security prison on a toxic wasteland planet. My cousin laughed hysterically, tossing a ten-credit coin into a puddle at my feet. "Not only are you shackled to five dying madmen, but you're being exiled to the galaxy's garbage dump!" Everyone expected me to cry, to beg, or to be torn apart as their final meal. They didn't know the pathetic, love-sick Hadley had died when her head hit that marble floor. My soul, forged in the fires of a dead, post-apocalyptic world, had taken over this body. I calmly picked up the coin, boarded the rusted cargo ship, and took the job as the prison's new Head Chef. Looking at the chaotic, deadly energy radiating from the five terrifying monsters in their cells, I smiled. They thought this was my tomb, but it was actually the perfect feeding ground to level up my dormant powers.

My retirement was finally approved, and I was supposed to be sipping drinks on a sunny beach. Instead, a cold system voice forced me into a nightmare scenario: "Cursed Mates Who Want Me Dead." I woke up in a stinking cave, trapped in the body of a psychopathic tribal princess. The memories that flooded my brain made me sick. The original owner of this body had forcibly marked seven of the continent's most powerful beast-men and reduced them to tortured pets. She had ripped the shimmering scales off Jordi the Merfolk prince, gouged out a proud wolf-man's power crystal, and snapped an eagle-man's magnificent wings. Now, Jordi was a mutilated, terrified mess hiding in a corner. He was so traumatized that he tried to slit his own throat just to escape me. His sister was actively trying to assassinate me. To make matters worse, the system warned me that if I didn't heal these seven ticking time bombs, my soul would be erased. Yet the future timeline clearly showed that these men would eventually unite, burn my tribe to the ground, and dismember me alive. I was paying for a monster's sins. Every time I tried to show mercy, they thought it was a sick new torture method. Words were useless, and my very presence was a trigger. But I am a Tier-S operative, and I don't play the victim. I forced the system to unlock my powers and strapped on my tactical gear. "Stay here and don't starve." I left the trembling Merfolk behind and walked into the deadly primitive forest, heading straight for the powerful Oasis Tribe to take back his stolen scales by force.

I died in the apocalypse, only to wake up as Kenzie Banks, a bankrupt high-society monster in an interstellar beast-world. But before I could even process my new reality, a cold AI voice informed me of my impending death. "Your contract beast-husbands possess the legal right to execute you at the end of the two-month trial period." I rushed to the basement and saw the horrific truth. The original Kenzie had starved them, whipped them with thermal blades, sent their brothers to die as cannon fodder, and framed the youngest to rot in a maximum-security prison. Now, these lethal, broken men were methodically planning to rip my organs out the second the contract dissolved. To make matters worse, she had squandered her fortune on a man who despised her, leaving me two million credits in debt and facing imminent exile to the deadly wastelands. I had survived rotting zombies on Earth, only to be trapped in a weak, universally hated body, doomed to be butchered by the very people I was supposed to call family. Why did I have to pay the ultimate price for a psychotic woman's deadly sins? I refused to just sit around and wait for my execution. Tapping into my apocalyptic subspace inventory, I hauled out military-grade rations, healed their bleeding wounds, and slammed a legally binding divorce contract on the table. If I wanted to survive this sixty-day countdown, I had to turn my executioners into my loyal allies-starting with breaking the husband she framed out of prison.