How Does Coddiwomple End?

Lightning rips the sky open—then, darkness. The world shudders. On the edge. Endings taste like ash. Fate. Desire. Two strangers crash into each other as everything falls apart. Autumn Winters: heartbroken, haunted, hungry for something more. A name that doesn't fit her anymore. She runs from the ruins of her past, colliding with him. Bastion. A man with eyes like midnight storms. Dangerous. Beautiful. Not from here. His secrets coil around him, thick as the night. Chaos explodes. The city burns. Time turns lethal. Bastion offers survival—but at what cost? Autumn's trust is shattered glass, and every word he speaks slices deeper. Can she gamble her heart on a stranger when the world is ending? Or will she lose herself in the fire between them? Love is the last risk left. And it's everything.

On the day of my wedding, my fiance suddenly announced that he had already registered his marriage with my sister. The system declared my mission a failure and sentenced me to be erased in a car crash. Just as despair closed in, Wayne Kinsey threw himself in front of me to save my life—and lost the use of his legs because of it. Later, I was given another chance to choose a new target, and I accepted his proposal. But five years into our marriage, I overheard a conversation between him and a friend. "Wayne, your crush already has a husband and children. Your legs are healed too. Aren't you going to come clean with Arden?" "No. Arden will always be a risk. Only if she keeps feeling guilty will she stay away and let Naomi have her happiness." As his familiar but cold voice echoed in my ears, my tears fell like beads of a broken string, and that was when I finally realized the so-called salvation Wayne had given me had been nothing but a lie through and through. In that case, there was no reason for me to keep holding on to this sham of a marriage.

After five years of marrying into the Loween City in place of my sister, the Gambling King finally passed away. My son and my ex-husband—at long last—gave me permission to fake my death and return to them. But they laid down three conditions. First: kneel before Vivian Gray, apologize for framing her all those years ago, and surrender my place as Mrs. Hartwell. Second: work as a live-in maid for my own son for five years, and never show up at his school in my former identity as the reigning queen of the nightlife scene—lest I embarrass him. Third: drink an abortifacient to destroy my fertility forever, as recompense for the infertility I once caused Vivian. "My lady, you've endured five whole years just to earn your freedom—how dare they humiliate you like this?" My maid's eyes were red, burning with indignation on my behalf. But I just tipped my head back and swallowed the death-faking pill, letting the servants toss my "corpse" into the overgrown brambles beyond the city limits. Then, from the mud and weeds, I crawled back to the Hartwell mansion—one knee at a time. Day one, I knelt as ordered and signed over custody of my son without a fight. Day three, I locked myself in the storage closet and stopped showing up at school to pick my son up like I used to. I also stopped pestering him to call me "Mom." Even when Vivian—knowing full well I'm terrified of the dark—deliberately trapped me in the basement, I bore it in silence. By the time my ex-husband Nathan Hartwell saw me again, I was barely hanging on. For the first time, a flicker of panic crossed his face as he carried me out of that basement. But my son just sneered. "It's just another stunt to win our sympathy." When he caught the tears welling in Vivian's eyes, Nathan coldly dropped me to the ground. "Always scheming against Vivian with your dirty tricks—aren't you tired of it?" Right then, the system chimed in my ear: [Please proceed to the "disposable ex-wife death node" to complete the story line and return to your original world.] I let out a quiet laugh. "Not tired at all." And with that, I turned and dove straight into the swimming pool beside me.

I was a mermaid from the deep sea. Out of curiosity and playfulness, I was caught by a fisherman and endured unbearable torment. Just when I was on the brink of death, Trevon Chapman happened to pass by and saved me. So, I gave up my identity as a mermaid princess, left the ocean behind, and followed him into the human world. For five years after our marriage, Trevon granted my every wish and showered me with affection. I truly believed I had found a safe harbor I could depend on for the rest of my life—until fate struck with its cruelest blow. Trevon's childhood sweetheart had fallen gravely ill, and only a mermaid’s tail could save her. I begged him desperately, but he responded with chilling indifference. "You're only losing your legs. Corinne is losing her life. Are you really that heartless? You're just going to watch her die?" "Besides, you can’t return to the sea anymore. That tail means nothing to you now. From now on, I’ll be your legs." After the surgery, I sat in a wheelchair, running my hand over the empty fabric where my legs should have been, and calmly demanded a divorce. Trevon pulled Corinne into his arms, sneering. "You're neither human nor fish now—a monster. Without me, the only road left for you is death." Yet in the end, when I transformed back into a mermaid and leapt into the sea, his cries and desperate sobs echoed across the waves.

The day my fated mate, Blake, held his mating ceremony with the pack’s true princess, Morgana, I almost did it. I almost chugged a vial of rage serum, stormed the altar, and tore them both to shreds. A murder-suicide. A fitting end. But as my hand trembled around the vial, my phone rang. It was the doctor from the Alliance Medical Center. "Ma'am, you're pregnant..." The vial slipped from my fingers. I froze. Half an hour later, cheers erupted from the pack's Moonlight Altar. And just like that, I, the fake princess of the Crescent Moon pack, vanished from Silvercrest City. Just as everyone wanted. I fled a thousand miles to the Southern Alliance. I survived a rogue wolf riot and gave birth to my daughter. My own blood. My old life was completely gone. But four years later, they started showing up again, one by one. “Cora, we’ve been looking for you for years. You’re alive? Why didn’t you come home?”

Machines of Iron and guns of alchemy rule the battlefields. While a world faces the consequences of a Steam empire. Molag Broner, is a soldier of Remas. A member of the fabled Legion, he and his brothers have long served loyal Legionnaires in battle with the Persian Empire. For 300 years, Remas and Persia have been locked in an Eternal War. But that is about to end. Unbeknown to Molag and his brothers. Dark forces intend to reignite a new war. Throwing Rome and her Legions, into a new conflict