Zhao Da

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."

Anja woke up in an interstellar empire where females were precious assets-and promptly got dumped by her arrogant fiancé. He waited for her to cry. She laughed in his face. With a single thumbprint, she dissolved the marriage, kicked him out with security drones, and walked straight to the government assessment center. The test revealed something impossible: an S-Class psionic rating, the highest in a century. Now five elite, beast-eared warriors are being dispatched to her estate. They're dangerous. Possessive. And genetically engineered to worship her. But Anja doesn't just want protection. She wants power. Every corrupted warrior she purifies makes her stronger. Every Hive Core she absorbs pushes her abilities further. And every Consort she claims adds a new weapon to her arsenal. Her ex wanted her to be nothing. Too bad for him-she's about to become everything.

On the night of our fifth anniversary, I wasn't drinking champagne. I was standing in the shadows of my husband's study, clutching an encrypted drive I found taped behind our wedding photo. It contained the blueprints to a life Dante was building with another woman—Sofia Ricci, the daughter of our sworn enemy. He wasn't just cheating on me. He was using the Port Redevelopment project I had spent two years designing to launder the money he needed to run away with her. When I confronted him, Dante didn't beg for forgiveness. He looked at me with the cold indifference of a Capo and told me to fix my face for dinner. The humiliation didn't stop there. He forced me to share a car with his mistress while my ankle was swollen and throbbing from a fall. He fussed over Sofia’s "delicate" motion sickness while ignoring my pain completely. "Elena is sturdy," he dismissed. Sturdy. Like a mule. Like a table he owned. He even stripped me of my rank, handing my multi-million dollar operation to Sofia simply because she had a "vision" for glass walls. He thought I was just a compliant wife, a placeholder to keep his books clean while he played house with his true love. He forgot that while he was the muscle, I was the architect. So, at the Family Gala, wearing a backless revenge dress, I didn't just ask for a separation. I threw a glass of champagne in his face and announced to the entire underworld that the accounts were empty. I didn't just leave him. I took the encryption keys, the money, and his entire future with me.

I woke up with a splitting headache, only to realize I had transmigrated into the body of a despised, "Dragonless" noble daughter. Before I could even process my new reality, I was dragged out of bed and shoved into a plain black carriage, sent off as a disposable pawn to marry a crippled, violent prince. My half-sister, glittering in dragon scales, mocked me publicly, boasting that she was now free to marry my former crush. My father had abandoned me to a certain death. When I arrived at the grim palace, the prince's guards blocked the gates. He refused to even see his new bride, leaving me to freeze outside. I was a family joke, discarded by my own bloodline and left to die at a stranger's door. I didn't understand why this girl was treated worse than dirt, or why I, a top modern surgeon, had to suffer for their sick political games. I refused to let my life end as collateral damage in a world that deemed me worthless. Just as my vision blurred, a familiar blue screen flickered to life in my mind—my medical system. I looked at the hostile guards, my voice ringing clear in the empty courtyard. "Go tell your prince that I am not here to marry him. I am here to cure his poison." This time, I would carve out my own survival.

I was the beloved daughter of the Stonecrest Pack's Alpha, deeply in love with my destined mate, Everet. But in the freezing snowy forest, the man who had sworn to protect me shot a silver arrow straight through my chest. As I choked on my own blood, he looked at me not with concern, but with the detached appraisal of a butcher examining meat. "You and your precious pack are a gift," he smiled coldly. "My offering to Prince Damien." Because of my naive trust, my father was framed and executed, my loyal pack was slaughtered, and my reputation was dragged through the mud. Everet ruthlessly twisted my wrist, mocking me as a weak 'Trophy Daughter,' before his men fired the final arrow into my heart. As I fell into the bottomless darkness, my soul burned with agonizing hatred. Why did the mate I loved become the monster who destroyed my entire world? Why did our trusted royal ally orchestrate our ruin? I cursed them with my dying breath, swearing that if I had another chance, I would tear their schemes apart. Opening my eyes again, I wasn't in the afterlife. I was sitting in my childhood bedroom. I had returned to six years ago, on the very day of the Harvest Moon Gala—the exact night my tragic downfall began. Looking at my young face in the mirror, a flame of cold hatred ignited in my eyes. This time, there would be no weak Trophy Daughter. I would make everyone who betrayed my family pay in blood.

"You don’t deserve to be a member of the Donaldson family. Get out!" Having returned as the long-lost biological daughter, Fiona Donaldson was detested by everyone in her household. Her fiancé cheated on her with her fake younger sister; her elder brothers berated her as shameless; even her birth father cared nothing for her life or death. To make matters worse, she had crossed paths with Ewart Blake—the ruthless, cold-blooded head of the Blake family, and also her fiancé’s maternal uncle. "Let’s pretend nothing happened last night," Fiona intended to cut all ties and go separate ways. Yet this overbearing man insisted she take responsibility for him. He threatened to expose her secret identities—the miracle doctor with unparalleled medical skills, a bestselling screenwriter, and the hidden owner of a top-tier design firm—if she refused to marry him. When Ewart Blake was young, he was tasked with safeguarding a certain girl. Years later, they met again when she was framed and ended up in his bed. He originally planned to fulfill his old promise and shelter her under his protection, only to discover this woman was far less fragile than she appeared, and instead full of clever schemes…

I survived ten years in the apocalypse, only to transmigrate into the body of the most despised woman in the Galactic Empire. When I opened my eyes, I was holding a bloody whip, straddling a beastman husband the original owner had just tortured. The mechanical system in my head immediately issued a death sentence. "In two months, your trial marriage ends. Your six abused husbands will be legally permitted to tear you apart." The original host was an absolute monster. She beat them, starved them, stole their meager military stipends for luxury goods, and even sent two of them to a deadly alien warzone just to impress her high-society friends. Now, I was left with her massive debts, a blocked power core, and the terrifying reality of six powerful, vengeful beastmen plotting my murder in the basement. I inherited all her sickening sins, and the crushing weight of their justifiable hatred felt like a suffocating nightmare. How was I supposed to survive when the people I lived with were just waiting for the legal countdown to snap my neck? But an apocalypse survivor doesn't just roll over and die. I pawned the original's useless designer bags, bought the highest-grade nutrient solutions, and called my would-be murderers into the living room. "I know you hate me, and you have every right to," I told them calmly. "We are getting a divorce."

Josie woke up gasping in a ransacked 1970s living room, trapped in the body of a notoriously vain, gold-digging wife. The opulent Sterling family was officially bankrupt and politically dead. The original host's grand plan was to use her unborn child to extort a massive divorce settlement from her terrifying military husband, Donovan. But fragmented memories showed Josie the grim reality of that choice: she was destined to be conned, dying penniless and alone in a freezing gutter. Now, Donovan stood towering before her, his dark eyes filled with absolute disgust. He tossed a thick envelope of divorce papers onto the glass table. "Sign them. You leave the child alone, and you walk away." The ruined family watched with bated breath, fully expecting the spoiled socialite to take their last hidden funds and abandon them to a brutal exile in a Pennsylvania rust-belt factory town. Josie knew the cold truth. A meager settlement couldn't protect a pregnant woman from DC's ruthless political vultures. She refused to let that miserable, lonely death become her reality. Staring directly into Donovan's hostile eyes, Josie picked up the heavy legal documents. With a sharp, deliberate motion, she tore the divorce papers cleanly in half. "I'm not getting an abortion, and I am staying as your wife." She was going to rewrite this destiny, but before they boarded the train to the rust-belt, she had one last score to settle. She would use her formidable husband to terrorize her hypocritical biological family and take back every penny they stole.

Karmen lived suffocating under a tight chest binder and a grotesque silicone scar, forced to disguise herself as her degenerate twin brother, Kem. Her only job was to maintain a fake corporate engagement with the ruthless billionaire Earl Calderon. But her abusive father suddenly escalated his demands. He ordered her to steal Earl's revolutionary AI patents, threatening to cut off her mother's life-saving medical trust and abandon the real Kem in a locked Swiss psych ward if she failed. The task was a death sentence. Earl absolutely despised "Kem." He treated her like a repulsive parasite, constantly threatening to break her neck. When he accidentally caught her without her wig, he mistook her for a deranged cross-dresser, forcing her to glue the dirty fake scar back onto her raw, inflamed face in sheer disgust. At home, her father hurled glass ashtrays at her, violently yanking her collar. "Do whatever you have to do in that bedroom, Kem. I don't care how disgusting it is. Just get the signature." Trapped between a fiancé who loathed her very existence and a father ready to sacrifice their family for greed, Karmen endured the agonizing physical pain of her disguise. She was exhausted, terrified, and running out of time as her brother's life hung by a thread. But they all underestimated her. When the Calderon matriarch forced Earl to link his ultra-secure private phone with "Kem" to fake their romance, she unwittingly handed over the master key. Karmen wasn't just a helpless victim; she was the elite hacker Nyx, and she was going to tear their empire apart from the inside.

I was the secret lover of my CEO, Kristofer Gordon. He called me his "Starlight," and I, a brilliant but naive software engineer, believed him. Then he publicly chose his fragile childhood friend, Elenor, revealing I was nothing more than a disposable secret. The cruelty didn't stop there. He bought my late mother's necklace for Elenor, who taunted me by putting it on a stray dog. When I snapped and attacked her, Kristofer had me arrested and beaten in jail. Lying in a hospital bed, I learned the final truth from a gloating Elenor: Kristofer had secretly filmed every intimate moment we ever shared, holding the tapes as blackmail. He wanted to break me. He wanted me to suffer. But the woman he thought he destroyed died that day. I walked out, set his mansion on fire, and disappeared. This time, I would be the one in control.

"We' re done, Ava." Ethan' s words hit me like a physical blow, shattering the future we' d planned. He stood in the penthouse doorway, a stranger, offering me a bizarre payoff: the absurdly luxurious apartment, a sports car, and ten million dollars. A "thank you for the past four years," he mumbled, avoiding my eyes, before dropping the bombshell: he was getting married, an arranged family alliance that had "nothing to do with me." Just last night, he' d whispered my name with desperate passion in my small, cheap apartment, making love to me in what I thought was a new beginning. But this morning, he was gone, replaced by a lawyer, delivering "gifts" from "Mr. Hayes." My four years of love, reduced to a transaction. He thought money could fix this, buy my silence. The irony was crushing. He called me a poor, smart girl, working my way through college on scholarships, having no clue his ten million was pocket change. He didn't know I was Ava Riley, the sole heir to Riley Tech. Why would the Ethan I knew, the man who despised the arrogance of the rich, agree to a forced marriage? Something was terribly wrong. I stared at the keys in my hand, then at my phone. The heartbroken girl was gone. "Noah," I said, my voice cold and steady. "I need you to find someone for me. Ethan Hayes. I want to know everything. Especially who he' s engaged to."

My wedding day. It was supposed to be the happiest day of my life, standing side-by-side with my best friend, Sophia, marrying into the powerful Beaumont family. But then, a scream cut through the music. Isabella Stone, a family friend, pointed a trembling finger at our fathers, accusing them of unspeakable acts. Just minutes into our new lives, Liam and Ethan Beaumont, our new husbands, turned to monsters. They let their security beat our fathers mercilessly on the cold stone patio, ignoring our pleas, their faces devoid of the love we thought we shared. The sounds of fists hitting flesh, their grunts of pain – it was agonizing. Then Isabella whispered to us, her voice filled with chilling glee, that our fathers were still alive when they were left to bleed out. Liam and Ethan had actively prevented the ambulance from reaching them, sealing their gruesome fate. My world shattered. My kind, gentle father, dead. All because of a monstrous lie. In the sterile hospital waiting room, as Sophia and I grappled with the unspeakable truth that our fathers were truly gone, we overheard Liam and Ethan. Their every word dismissed our pain, their only concern being for Isabella, the architect of our devastation. It was then I knew: the love I thought was real was a delusion. Grief turned to icy rage. A catering assistant, a terrified teenager, offered us a video, undeniable proof of Isabella' s calculated performance. The truth was finally within our grasp. It was time to fight back.

I spent three decades by Marcus Thorne's side, his loyal companion, the quiet force behind his empire. My life was a gilded cage, filled with whispered promises and the subtle comfort of being cherished. Then, at the annual gala, he shattered it all. On stage, he introduced "Isabelle Vance" as his "true love," casting me aside like forgotten debris. He ripped the silk gown he'd designed for me, a brutal symbol of his sudden, chilling contempt. My fall was instant and brutal. From Thorne Tower's mistress, I became a servant, enduring Isabelle's sadistic whims and Marcus's cold indifference. They subjected me to "mental recalibration," a systematic torture designed to erase my very memories of affection, pushing me into the abyss of Thorne City's dreaded Rehabilitation Center and ultimately, Section Zero. How could a man I gave 30 years of my life to so readily condemn me to hell? Was every memory a lie? The injustice burned, fueling a tiny, desperate flame within me even as they tried to break my spirit. Just when all hope seemed lost, a defiant prisoner named Elias offered an unexpected escape. Now, as the truth about Marcus's manipulative "true love" finally shatters his world, he desperately seeks my forgiveness. But I am no longer the woman he discarded; my fight for freedom has truly begun, and this time, it's on my terms.

For seven long years, I, Ava Chen, willingly served as a human blood bank for Chloe Vance, the sickly heiress beloved by Ethan Cole, the man I secretly adored. My architectural dreams at Columbia were constantly sidelined, all for the unrequited hope that Ethan might one day see me. When Chloe desperately needed a life-threatening bone marrow transplant, I demanded Ethan marry me to agree, but during my near-death flatline, his callous words echoed: "If Ava doesn't make it, so be it." I jolted awake, not truly dead, yet Ethan's chilling indifference had irrevocably shattered my foolish, wasted devotion. Later, I was brutally beaten by Chloe and her clique, left for dead, and even then, Ethan ordered my critically injured body to be 'drained' for Chloe's blood. How could I have been so hopelessly deluded, so utterly blind to the callous man I loved, or the manipulative viper he protected? The stinging reality of his cruel pragmatism, repeated over years, finally pierced through my heartbreak, leaving only incandescent rage. In that moment of ultimate despair, a cold, unyielding resolve transformed me: no more sacrificing myself for them. I would reclaim my life, starting with a daring, unexpected act that would ensure Ethan truly received what he deserved, marking my definitive escape from their toxic grasp and a new dawn for myself.

Shirley lost her heart to the man she could never have. She knew it was a mistake but she had decided to stick to it till the end. He was like a deep quagmire and she was sinking fast with no way out. Even though she knew there was a bottomless abyss beneath her feet, she was willing to go all out and abandon everything for his sake. The man was none other than her uncle. Edmund also adored her. She assumed that she would be able to forget about him now that she left, but it was not going to be so easy to get over this forbidden love. Will Shirley continue pining endlessly for Edmund or will she move on?

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.

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 gave Kaelen Sterling everything. My fortune. My family's trust. Even the military secrets that should never have left my father's hands. He swore he loved me. Then he used me to destroy my entire family. My father was beheaded for treason. My brothers died on the battlefield. My sick mother coughed up blood until her final breath. And the fortune my mother had saved for me became the stepping stone Kaelen and his precious "savior," Jacqueline Byrd, used to climb into the highest circles of the kingdom. When there was nothing left to steal, Kaelen locked me inside an abandoned manor and set it on fire. Through the flames, I saw him holding Jacqueline in his arms. She was pregnant with his child. And she was wearing silk bought with my mother's dowry. "Burn it all," Kaelen said coldly. "Leave no trace." I died screaming his name. Then I opened my eyes. I was twenty again. Kaelen had just returned from the battlefield after being declared dead for two years—and standing beside him was Jacqueline, looking fragile and innocent as ever. "She saved my life," he told me. "You will accept her." In my last life, I did. This time, I slapped him across the face. Then I burned our marriage contract. They all thought grief had driven me mad. They had no idea I remembered everything. Every betrayal. Every secret. Every scandal that had not happened yet. I knew which noble houses would fall. I knew which princes would rise. I knew the hidden weaknesses of the people who would one day control the Dragon Court. And they had forgotten something else. I was never just a wealthy heiress. I knew herbs. I knew alchemy. I knew how to survive a royal court where one wrong move could cost an entire family its head. Kaelen wanted my fortune. Jacqueline wanted my place. My stepmother wanted my mother's power. And the men above them wanted to use House Croft as another piece on their board. Let them try. I died once as their pawn. This life, I will take back my family, my fortune, and every drop of blood they owe me. And when I am finished, I won't just survive the Dragon Court. I will rule it.

On my wedding day, I caught my fiancé in my stepsister's arms. She was pregnant with his child. And instead of begging for forgiveness, Damian Harrison laughed in my face. He admitted he had always planned to marry me, dump me in some forgotten country estate, and keep my stepsister as the woman he truly loved. So I burned my wedding veil in front of the entire Harrison family and walked away. That should have been the end of it. Instead, Damian's mother sent armed men after me. Why? Because I was a Dragonless nobody from the borderlands, and in her eyes, humiliating a Harrison was a crime worse than her son's betrayal. I had no dragon blood. No powerful family willing to protect me. Not even my own father would risk offending the Harrisons for my sake. If I wanted to survive, I needed someone they feared more than they hated me. So I returned to the Harrison estate and made an outrageous demand. I would marry Damian's uncle. Gideon Harrison-the legendary Dragon Lord, the kingdom's greatest war hero... and a man everyone believed was dead. Perfect. As his widow, I would outrank the man who betrayed me, become his aunt by marriage, and gain enough power to make every Harrison who humiliated me regret it. I signed the marriage pact without hesitation. Then a knight burst into the ancestral hall with impossible news. Gideon Harrison was alive. My dead husband wasn't dead. He was being brought home.

After working herself to death, Hannah woke inside a werecreature novel as a doomed villainess with five mates her father had captured and forced into bonds. Worse, the original Hannah had abused them so badly they were destined to rebel and destroy her. Determined to survive, she planned to flee to her father, sever every bond, hoard supplies, and start over. But her escape took an impossible turn. The serpent, merman, lion, fox, and icy priest who should have hated her suddenly refused to let her go-each claiming her as his. Hannah could only stare. Weren't they supposed to want freedom instead of her?

Lyra endured a level-eight gene-tearing labor entirely alone in a cold, sterile medical pod. Her legal partner, the revered S-grade Commander Kaelen Vane, was nowhere to be found. Instead, the room's holographic screen broadcasted him spending ten million star coins to buy a smile from her adopted sister. As Lyra nearly died draining her mental energy to save their newborn cub, the nurses openly mocked her as a useless E-grade piece of trash. Kaelen had never touched her, treating her very existence with absolute disgust. When he finally called, it was only to throw money at her and demand she stop throwing a tantrum. "Without my protection, do you think you and that half-beast mutt will survive three days?" For a year, she had swallowed his psychological abuse, believing she was just an unwanted orphan. But why should she endure this pathetic, one-sided marriage just to be treated like dirt? When a routine blood test shattered the lab's max-level analyzer, the truth was revealed: she wasn't an E-grade failure, but the universe's only SSS-grade Starfall Princess. As her ultra-powerful royal family blockaded the planet with a fleet of star destroyers, Lyra took the divorce papers and her newly assigned S-grade dragon fiancé to the tribunal. It was time to make Kaelen watch his precious empire burn to ash.

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."

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 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.