Thought
Rejected by My Family, Claimed by the Galactic Commander
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.
Chapter 1
A sharp scraping of metal on metal sliced through the fog in Janae's mind.
A second earlier, she was still in deep darkness, feeling death slowly erase her consciousness; but now she woke up again, though not in her original body—the body of another Janae.
A blinding headache—another Janae's dying scream still rattling inside her skull.
Then memories—not hers, but another Janae's—flooded in.
The Bennett estate.
Marble floors.
A ceiling so high it could swallow the sky.
"From today, you are no longer a Bennett."
Another Janae's father—Preston—sat on the highest seat.
He didn't look at another Janae. Like she was a defective product he was finally discarding.
"Father—" another Janae began. "I can prove myself."
"It's too late." Camilla was there. Leaning against the sofa, smiling. The smile she always wore when she had already won. "Janae, you still don't understand, do you? Your ability rank determines your value. D-Class. Even having you as my sister is embarrassing now."
The memory shifted.
A colder one.
Donnell.
Another Janae's fiancé.
The man she had given everything to.
"The engagement is canceled." He didn't hesitate. "I can't marry a failure."
He said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "I need a mate who can awaken her beast-soul, Janae. Not someone who barely flickers."
He threw the betrothal token at her feet. It shattered against the marble. "Don't beg. It's pathetic."
The memory broke apart.
Janae opened her eyes.
The sky was wrong.
Not the high, clear sky of the Bennett estate.
A bruised, festering gray, choked with smog.
The air was thick with rust and oil and something rotting.
She was lying on a pile of debris.
Broken metal.
Corroded wiring.
The ground beneath her was soft, gray-black dust that smelled of sulfur.
She tried to sit up.
Pain lanced through her ribs.
Her hands were scraped raw.
Her clothes—what was she wearing?
Rags.
Someone else's clothes.
She looked inward.
The vast, forest-like dimension of her personal storage space—gone.
A dead, silent void.
She tried to summon the life-giving energy that had once made emperors kneel—a pathetic trickle.
Weak as a dying ember.
Cold panic seized her.
She was nothing.
Less than nothing.
A shadow fell over her.
She looked up.
A man stood there.
Skeletal.
Ragged.
His eyes gleamed with a hungry, knowing light.
In his hand, a rusted metal pipe.
He grinned.
Yellowed teeth.
Filthy fangs.
"Fresh meat," he rasped. "I know your type the moment I see you." He circled her slowly, pipe tapping against his palm. "Soft skin. Clean neck. No scar on your face."
He laughed. "A noble. Clan-born. Some little princess who got flushed down the Imperium's toilet."
She said nothing.
"Let me guess," he continued. "Daddy kicked you out? Or was it a fiancé who couldn't wait to trade you in for a better model?"
The words hit like a physical blow.
Janae's jaw tightened.
He leaned closer.
"I've seen that look before. The 'I used to matter' look. You know what happens to people like you here? Nothing. You just die slower than the rest."
"You're wrong," she said.
Her voice came out rough, unfamiliar.
"Am I?" He laughed. "This place doesn't care whose daughter you were. On the Ashfall Peninsula, there's only one law: you're either holding the pipe, or you're getting your skull caved in."
The Ashfall Peninsula.
The name triggered something.
A memory from another Janae.
The Imperium's dumping ground.
Where they sent the broken.
The disgraced.
The unwanted.
She was here because of them.
Because of Camilla.
Because of Donnell.
Because of every person who had decided she was worthless and thrown her away.
Jed crouched down, bringing his face close to hers. "You can scream if you want. No one's coming. The Imperium doesn't patrol here. Doesn't send rescue. They dump their garbage, and we clean up the scraps."
Something inside her snapped.
Not fear.
Not despair.
Anger.
She remembered Donnell's cold voice.
"I can't marry a failure."
She remembered Camilla's smile.
"Even having you as my sister is embarrassing now."
She remembered another Janae's father's face.
Like she was nothing.
Like she had always been nothing.
"You don't know anything about me," she whispered.
Jed chuckled. "I know enough. I know you're going to die here. I know you're going to cry. I know—"
She moved.
Not away.
Not to run.
Forward.
She saw a piece of sheet metal.
Sharp.
Jagged.
She grabbed it as she rolled, the edge biting into her palm.
Jed raised the pipe.
It whistled down toward her skull.
She threw herself sideways.
The pipe slammed into the ground where her head had been.
Gray dust exploded.
"Still fighting?" He lunged. Kicked her in the ribs.
Pain.
White-hot.
Her organs felt like they were rearranging themselves.
The copper taste of blood filled her mouth.
But she didn't fall.
She didn't cry.
She thought of Donnell.
She thought of Camilla.
She thought of every moment they had made her feel small.
Jed bent down.
Grabbed her by the hair.
Yanked her up.
"See?" he said. "In the end, you're all the same. Just meat for the grinder."
His face was inches from hers.
She could smell his rotten breath.
See the veins in his bloodshot eyes.
"No," she said.
Then she struck.
The metal shard drove deep into his throat.
He froze.
Blood—dark, hot, arterial—gushed over her hands.
His eyes widened.
He made a sound, a wet gurgle.
She pulled the shard out.
He collapsed, clutching his neck.
His mouth opened and closed.
Like a fish gasping for air.
"Not meat," she said, her voice steady. "Never meat."
She watched him die.
His eyes stayed open.
Staring up at the gray, festering sky.
Janae fell back against a pile of old tires.
She was gasping.
Her ribs screamed.
Her hands were slick with blood.
She looked at the corpse beside her.
She didn't feel triumph.
She didn't feel horror.
She felt something else.
Cold.
She was alive.
That was all that mattered.
She forced herself up.
Checked her injuries.
Bruised ribs.
Scraped hands.
Nothing broken.
She would survive.
A howl echoed in the distance.
Some unseen beast, maybe miles away.
But it reminded her: danger was everywhere.
She needed shelter.
Food.
Information.
She needed to find the Reclamation Center.
The only settlement on the Peninsula.
The only place where she could trade, barter, survive.
She looked at Jed's corpse.
A cold, practical thought formed.
Even the dead were resources here.
She started searching his body.
One Night With Blaze
Blaze Arden Vaughn is an heir of a huge empire, an ace student of medical faculty, very handsome, sweet and nice. His name signifies fire but his heart is as cold as ice. Ace Daxton Anderson is a known 'one night stand' guy and a bi. A gang leader who won't back down from a gang fight and is not afraid to be bruised just to prove his point. They are both in the same university but they have their own territory and never knew each other's existence. Until the day that the Ice Prince fixed his cold gaze on the very hot gang leader on the field. "You want me that bad...that your eyes are screaming it out loud..." Blaze announced with his challenging tone and a calm smile, making Ace's jaw clenched while their gazes locked. "I can smell your desire even from afar..." Blaze continued with a very subtle smirk, making Ace grit his teeth. "Who would not...you are Blaze Arden Vaughn...the epitome of perfection...everybody's dream guy" Ace sarcastically responded, a smirk grazed his lips. His jaw clenching in annoyance not with Blaze but with himself. "So Ace Anderson, want to try, a Blaze Arden Vaughn for tonight?" Blaze smirked as he casually ask, making the grim face of the gang leader looked stunned and dumbfounded. A one night stand offered by the cold and distant Blaze Arden Vaughn, just one night of pleasure... one night of curiosity.
Forced Marriage With Adored Superstar
"From today onwards, you are my slave. Don't you dare try to escape from my hands. You will live in my control for the rest of your life." For Pearl, marriage was the greatest prison. She would be imprisoned for the rest of her life. But she may have forgotten that there are actually two people in this "prison". Forced to marry by a big star, she couldn't imagine what such a life would be like.
The Wife You Thought Was Gone
My perfect marriage shattered with an e-vite for my husband's son's first birthday-a son I never knew existed. The true nightmare unfolded at my own birthday party when his mistress, Hayden, had their son run to my husband, Chase, and call him "Daddy" in front of all our friends. In the ensuing chaos, Chase shoved me. I fell, hit my head, and miscarried the baby I had just discovered I was carrying. He left me bleeding on the floor to comfort his mistress and their child. But Hayden wasn't done. To eliminate me for good, she had me kidnapped and thrown off a cliff into a canal, whispering that Chase wanted me gone permanently. I survived. I faked my death and disappeared, channeling my pain into my work. Now, six months later, I'm accepting a prestigious award on international television. I see Chase in the crowd, a broken man rushing toward me, begging for forgiveness. This time, I'm the one who gets to walk away.
He Thought He Wrote My End
On the first anniversary of our reconciliation, I thought my tech mogul husband and I had finally turned a corner. Then I discovered our entire marriage was a spectator sport. It was a cruel, year-long revenge game orchestrated by him and his lover, and I was the punchline. For their amusement, I was poisoned with food contaminated with dog feces, publicly humiliated with a twenty-million-dollar auction scam, and beaten until my ribs broke by his family's private security. I endured it all, playing the part of the clueless, loving wife while they laughed about it in a group chat called "The Jillian Andrews Comedy Hour." But their grand finale was a step too far. I overheard him calmly planning to leave me to die in a remote cabin during a blizzard, a "tragic accident" that would finally set him free to be with his mistress. He thought he was writing the final chapter of my life. He didn't know I was about to use his murder plot as my own perfect escape. I faked my death, vanished into thin air, and left him to explain to the world how his beloved wife disappeared off the face of the earth.
Thought
"I can't tell what is real and what is a dream," I murmur, looking up to his silver eyes, glistening mist swirling within his irises. "But I know I can't hold myself back from you any longer. Luella has been having the same dreams every night involving two silver eyed men, who remain elusive durin
Thought-Culture
Though he typically wrote under the guise of anonymity, using an array of pseudonyms and pen names, author and thinker William Walker Atkinson was an enormously influential figure in the "New Thought" movement. In fact, he is often credited with being the original source of the ideas that later coal
The Thought of You
(18+. book contains mature scenes) In Joana's life, a complicated love story unfolds. Joana, a young woman scarred by a painful past, simply longs for love and affection. However, she finds herself stuck in a challenging situation, married to Fred Malcolm, a man with a girlfriend. Fred is determin
He Thought He Wrote My End
On the first anniversary of our reconciliation, I thought my tech mogul husband and I had finally turned a corner. Then I discovered our entire marriage was a spectator sport. It was a cruel, year-long revenge game orchestrated by him and his lover, and I was the punchline. For their amusement, I
I thought I didn't love you
He is a general, a famous businessman in the upper class. In the white world, he is a billionaire. In the black world, he is a notorious gangster boss. And she is just a small bodyguard. Not only that, she is also his fiancée's bodyguard. The day his fiancée left was also the day he and she got marr
The Wife You Thought Was Gone
My perfect marriage shattered with an e-vite for my husband's son's first birthday-a son I never knew existed. The true nightmare unfolded at my own birthday party when his mistress, Hayden, had their son run to my husband, Chase, and call him "Daddy" in front of all our friends. In the ensuing ch
The Woman They Thought Was Dead
I woke with the violent jolt of the plane landing, but it wasn't the impact that shocked me deeply; it was the chilling, immediate memory of icy black water filling my lungs as an anchor dragged me down. My husband, Captain Mark Vance, watched from the boat with eyes as blank as a winter sky-the la
The Woman He Thought He Broke
My life with Ethan, my architect husband, seemed perfect, a harmonious blend of shared dreams and urban aspirations. But that illusion shattered one terrifying weekend when I suffered a life-threatening allergic reaction, struggling to breathe as I collapsed before his eyes. Instead of rushing my
The Man She Thought She Owned
Tonight, under the spotlight at AuraConnect's 10th-anniversary gala, I was ready to make Jessica, my high school sweetheart and business partner, my wife. We had built a multi-billion-dollar empire from nothing. But as I knelt, ring in hand, her eyes weren't on me; they were glued to her phone, a
The Billionaire Who Thought I Was Nothing
At twenty-one, Aria Vale believed marriage would give her the family she had always dreamed of. Married to Lucien Blackwood-a wealthy, admired man who promised protection-she sacrificed her dreams, her independence, and her voice. One year later, with a newborn in her arms and no money to her name
He Thought I'd Stay: His Mistake
Today was my four-year anniversary with Chace. He told me to wear my white dress for a surprise he had planned. I spent all afternoon getting ready, practicing my "Yes," certain he was finally going to propose. But when I arrived at the hotel ballroom, the banner read, "Congratulations, Chace & Kar
He Thought I Would Silently Endure
On our fifth anniversary, I found my husband's secret USB drive. The password wasn't our wedding date or my birthday. It was his first love's. Inside was a digital shrine to another woman, a meticulous archive of a life he'd lived before me. I searched for my name. Zero results. In five years of ma
Poems of Progress and New Thought Pastels
Poems of Progress and New Thought Pastels by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
The Wife He Thought He Broke
My parents' living room, usually a haven, felt like a courtroom as I delivered my verdict. "The brownstone goes to Emily' s son, Leo." The silence cracked with my mother' s gasp, Lily' s heartbroken whisper, and my father' s stunned roar. They saw a monster, cold and unfeeling, sacrificing my
The Wife He Thought He Buried
The last thing Chloe Field saw before the darkness took her was her husband's face. Standing over the smoking wreckage of her car, Grey King wore a faint, chilling smile. Just three days earlier, he had told her he wished she were out of his life forever. As blood filled her throat, Chloe finally be
The Billionaire Thought I Aborted, Then He Met My Twins
I stood in the freezing New York rain, holding a massive umbrella over my husband's mistress while the downpour soaked me to the bone. Julian didn't even look at me; he just tucked Scarlett closer and told me to take a taxi home so they could have "privacy" in the Rolls Royce. When I finally made i
Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham
Trajectory presents classics of world literature with 21st century features! Our original-text editions include the following visual enhancements to foster a deeper understanding of the work: Word Clouds at the start of each chapter highlight important words. Word, sentence, paragraph counts, and re
