Contos sobre Plot Twists e Romances com Bias e Awakening

I was in the parking garage of my Beverly Hills high-rise. And I backed my car into my neighbor's Ferrari. On purpose. I got out, a half-empty bottle of tequila in my hand, right in front of her. "Are you blind? Do you know how much this car costs? Can you even afford to fix it?" She was furious, her face turning red as she whipped out her phone to call 911. I just smirked. "You should probably call them. Get the LAPD down here to arrest me. I'll wait." The first time around, I was the fall guy for my fiancé, Grant, and his sister, Blair. They got high at some Hollywood party, went joyriding, and killed an innocent valet. But the car was my Porsche. And they swore I was the one driving. I rotted in a California state prison for ten years. The shock killed my mom. A heart attack. When I got out, they weren't done. They forged offshore debts to drain my trust fund and drove me to suicide. I woke up 24 hours before it all happened again.

While strolling around the mall, I bend down to tie my shoelaces. When I lift my head again, my boyfriend, Lucas Carter, and my best friend, Kimberly Wendell, are already over 30 feet away. Just as I am about to catch up with them, I notice that the spot that should've been mine is slowly vanishing as the two walk closer and closer. Eventually, they are shoulder to shoulder as they talk about topics that I can't join in on. It's as though a third person was never there. During our university years, Lucas and Kimberly were known as the the school’s most promising “twin stars”. This continued even after we graduated, with them becoming the youngest chief physicians at the hospital. Meanwhile, no matter how hard I work, I can only trail behind them as an ordinary nurse. Lucas is always patting my head, saying, "You're cute, even when you're a little slow sometimes." Then he turns around and works seamlessly with Kimberly to perform one complex surgery after another. As I stare at their backs, I suddenly feel utterly exhausted. I no longer want to continue down this road, forever chasing after Lucas.

When I was six, a car crash wiped out most of my memory. My foster parents told me my parents had died that night. They said they had taken me in, given me their name, their home, and the protection of one of New York's most powerful families. So I spent twelve years proving I deserved to stay. I cleaned up my younger sister Bianca's messes, handed her the credit for my work, and locked every trophy I earned in a wooden archive box because my success made the family's real daughter uncomfortable. Then, at eighteen, I ordered a certified birth record for my student visa. The clerk looked at me and said, "Your parents have always been Vittorio and Elena Romano. There's no adoption on file." I had never been an orphan. Bianca knew. My relatives knew. The family attorney knew. Even the old butler who carried me home from the hospital knew. For twelve years, everyone had played a part in the same lie. So I hid the birth certificate and kept playing the grateful adopted daughter. I fixed Bianca's speech, prepared her heir's gala, and smiled while my family erased my name one last time. They had no idea I'd already booked a one-way flight out of their lives.

After our coming-of-age awakening ceremony, my entire family gathered to choose a mate for my twin sister, Celeste. Adrian placed the list of North America's most powerful Alpha heirs in front of her. "Only the best is worthy of Celeste." Then Ryan stepped forward with a courtship application. The same Ryan who had once slipped a black onyx ring onto my finger and promised that, after our awakening, he would ask me to become his mate. Now he offered that future to my sister. "Choose me, Celeste," he said. "No one will ever know you better than I do." My parents smiled as if this were exactly how things were supposed to be. Only after they had planned Celeste's engagement did they remember that I needed a mate too. Dad barely looked at me. "Your abilities are average. Find a young Alpha from some ordinary pack and settle down." Adrian agreed. Ryan even warned me not to embarrass the family by expecting more than I deserved. None of them noticed the documents clenched in my hand. They hadn't read the Royal Talent results, either. If they had, they would have known that Celeste had ranked sixth. And I had ranked first. First in mental power. First in combat. First in royal mate compatibility. While my family was deciding which ordinary wolf might be willing to take me, the most powerful man in our world had already made his choice. I looked at Ryan's courtship application, then signed the contract bearing the royal seal. They could give Celeste every Alpha heir in the North. I would become Alpha King Ronan's Luna Queen.

My husband, Lucien Moretti, had some last-minute trouble at the docks to deal with, so I had to attend the underground auction alone. I didn't expect to run into my ex, Damon Vesper—the man I was supposed to marry five years ago. The man who chose the woman who put my mother in a coma over me. The moment I raised my paddle for my mother's emerald brooch, he raised his against mine. The room laughed, whispered, sneered. They thought I was the same desperate fool chasing a man who'd never loved me. But I wasn't there for him. I was there for the truth—the truth hidden inside that brooch. The truth that would expose the accident that destroyed my family as the murder it always was. And when his fiancée Serena had me dragged to the basement, Damon let it happen. He stood there and watched as they beat me, humiliated me, and threatened to carve up my face. Silent. The way he always had. But he had no idea who he was really messing with. They thought they could break me again, just like before. Too bad. I'm not that girl anymore.

My six-year-old son fed me the cake that triggered my allergy and killed his unborn sister. He was smiling when he confessed, as if he had done something wonderful. “Aunt Vivienne said the baby would go back to the Moon Goddess. Then you and Daddy could break your mate bond, and she could stay with us instead. That way, Aunt Vivienne would have more time to play with me!” My heart clenched. I couldn't hold back anymore. “But Mommy and your sister can play with you, too. Can't we?” “Yeah, but…” He hesitated, searching for the right words. “But it's boring when I'm with you, Mommy. Daddy and I have more fun with Aunt Vivienne.” The words hit me like a blow. For a long moment, I couldn't say a word. My mate, Adrian, stripped Finn of his heir badge, suspended his Alpha training, and sent him to a pack therapist. But when I asked him to investigate the adult who had given our son the cake and taught him how to deceive me, Adrian stepped between us. “Vivienne chose her words poorly. She couldn't have known Finn would actually do it.” Our six-year-old son was old enough to be punished. My sister was too innocent to be questioned. That was when I finally saw the favoritism Adrian himself didn't even realize he was showing. So I stopped asking him to choose me. I removed my Luna signet, left behind divorce and mate-rejection papers, surrendered custody of Finn, and accepted an assignment outside Blackwood Territory. By the time Adrian and Finn understood what it truly meant to lose me, they were already begging me to come back. Only this time, I was the one who no longer wanted to return.

A lie. That’s all it took. They locked me in the clan’s Sunken Church. For five years, the sun-torture burned away every last scrap of my pureblood pride. But when my sentence ended, I walked out and straight back into the same nightmare. My mate looks at me like I’m filth. Disgusting trash. My once-best friend is curled in his arms. She’s wearing my dead mother’s robes. She has stolen my life. Even my own son glares at me with pure hate. He says a traitor like me should have died in that cage. They all call me a monster. The one who murdered her own parents. A disgrace to the pureblood name. But I remember the truth. This time, I won’t go silently into silver chains. I won’t let them break me. I will not beg. When Owen flaunted my “best friend” in front of me again, trying to provoke me, to see that old spark of jealousy… my heart was stone. I found another man. The Prince who always warned me to leave Owen, the one who watched me from the shadows. “I see everything clearly now,” I told him. “Is your offer still good? I’m done with this trash.”

My husband Christian Messina's assistant has been blowing through my money like it's water. At the underground auction, she laughed in my face and called me a useless trophy wife. So I cut her access. She got humiliated at checkout, and the club's security locked her up for a full day and night. When Christian found out, he froze my card on my birthday. Told me I'd better figure out how to pay, or I'd be stripping down and crawling out on all fours in front of every mob higher-up in New York. What he doesn't know? I'm the heiress to the biggest mafia empire in the country. The Moretti name? That's mine. And everything he has right now—every turf, every dollar, every scrap of power? I put it all in his hands. Quietly. Behind his back.

For the past ten years, all of Boston society had been guessing whether I would end up marrying Alexander Grant, Nathan Cole, or Julian Vale. One of them took care of every problem that came my way. One remembered every allergy I had. One built me an observatory with a view of the whole city. I never once doubted that I was loved. I had always been the spoiled little princess everyone doted on. Then my mother found her older daughter, Vivian Ashford, who had been missing for twenty-two years. Vivian was the one expected to marry into Black Harbor for the Ashford family. To make up for the life she had lost, the three men started asking me to give up a little at a time. Alexander missed the fitting he had promised to come to, because Vivian needed the practice in front of the cameras more than I did. Nathan canceled the follow-up on my old injury because Vivian had a panic attack when she heard about the medical exam before the wedding. Julian booked the entire observatory to make up for my birthday, then, while I sat there alone until closing, sent me a text that read, "You're the sensible one. Go home by yourself tonight." When I got back to the estate, I asked them why none of them had told me beforehand. But Vivian cried and said she didn't want to be the reason they lost me. So Alexander stepped in front of her, Nathan told me to stop upsetting her, and Julian said I shouldn't be using one broken promise to test whether they loved me. As I turned to leave, I heard them making a pact in that room. "Until the engagement is settled, no more coddling Evelyn." "She'll be angry." "She'll sulk for a few days and get over it. She could never bring herself to leave us for real." They weren't wrong. Back then, I really couldn't bring myself to leave. What they didn't know was that I had already let go, and I was never coming back.

When Lilith Sterling showed up, I realized the years I'd spent being coddled by my three childhood friends had been nothing but a lie. My Alpha King father, though, still had no idea. He honestly believed I'd end up choosing one of the three. That's why, at the Pack gathering, he announced in front of everyone: "Aurora, whoever you want to bond with—your father will make it happen." Every pair of eyes turned to the three boys who'd once loved and protected me—Kael Blackwood, Orion Whitethorn, and Zephyr Stormrider. We were perfectly matched in status, had grown up together, shared years of deep affection. But when my father threw out that hint, the three of them acted like they hadn't heard a thing. Kael was draping his coat over Lilith's shoulders. Orion was massaging her feet. Zephyr was busy fighting through the crowd to snatch a gift for her. The silence was suffocating. My father's face went rigid with humiliation. I quickly spoke up: "Father, my future mate hasn't made it back yet. Once he returns, I'll bring him straight to you." The three of them scoffed at that, smirking like they'd just heard the best joke of the night. They thought I was lying. Everyone there assumed I'd have to pick one of the three. But the one I'd already chosen had nothing to do with any of them.

My mate's first love was in the maternity ward with me. We gave birth to two baby boys on the very same day. My son inherited my pure-blood Alpha lineage—the heir everyone expected to one day inherit everything I had. I spent decades loving him, protecting him, and giving him everything a mother could. But as he grew older, something never seemed right. He was painfully ordinary. No powerful wolf. No signs of an Alpha awakening. Not even the strength expected of a pure-blood heir. I blamed myself for years, wondering if something had gone wrong with his bloodline. It wasn't until the day I was dying that I learned the truth. The son I had loved and raised for decades wasn't my biological child at all. On the very day the babies were born, my mate, Ryan, had conspired with Isabella to switch them. They wanted Isabella's ordinary kid to take the place of my pure-blood Alpha heir. Meanwhile, my real son was abused by Isabella for years. She was even planning to stage an "accident" and kill him before his wolf awakening. After I died, my soul refused to move on. I watched with my own eyes as the fake son ran into Isabella's arms and called her Mom. I watched Ryan marry her. I watched the three of them live a life of luxury and privilege. Meanwhile, my real son had already been killed by them. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day the two babies were born. When I saw the two newborns the nurse brought in, I didn't hesitate for even a second. The first thing I did was take my real son back.

Three minutes before the college application deadline, I receive a video from the future. The person in it is me from 15 years later. "Macey changed your college applications to the local community college. She and Eric had already been dating for a long time. "She only did it because Eric told her he didn't want you hanging around her anymore. "Even though you worked your ass off and eventually got a graduate degree, you still never got the chance to work in aerospace." I sit frozen on the couch, clenching my phone as I stare at the man on the screen. "But you could've made it up there. You were supposed to make it up there." When the video ends, I rush back to my bedroom, fingers trembling as I open the college application portal. My applications had really been changed to that community college. I close my eyes for a moment. Then, I change my application to the National Institute of Defense Engineering.

Kael had one rule he never broke. Every piece of pack business, big or small, personal or official, he handled in strict order of priority. Never missed a beat. I'm Ella, his promised mate. I'd teased him about it more times than I could count. One evening, I tossed out the same question I'd asked a hundred times before: "Our Moon Vow ceremony has to be at the top of your list by now, right?" Every time I asked, he'd change the subject. There was always something more important. I could never figure out what could possibly matter more than bonding with me. Until the night I accidentally drank wine laced with wolfsbane at a banquet. The pain was unbearable. Kael scooped me up and drove straight for the healing cottage. I was starting to feel safe. Then a message came in and he turned the car around. "Lysandra's wolf spirit lost control. She cut her own palm. I have to go." Lysandra was my close friend. She'd just awakened her wolf, and Kael had been personally training her to manage her power. I could feel my wolf spirit going dormant. I begged him to take me to the healer first. But he ran into Lysandra's quarters without looking back. That's when his phone, which had slipped off his lap and landed beside me, lit up. His priority list. Over two hundred entries about Lysandra. All matters concerning Lysandra: highest priority. Apply to the Elder Council for a new residence for her. Pay off Lysandra's debts. Commission a custom moonstone pendant for Lysandra. I scrolled to the very bottom. That's where I finally found my name. Tucked beneath everything else, in smaller text than the rest: Moon Vow ceremony. The thing I'd been waiting for my whole life was dead last on his list. With what little strength I had left, I lifted my finger and deleted that line from the screen. Like it had never been there. If the Moon Vow meant that little to him, then it didn't need to happen at all.

My younger sister, Arianna Valenti, is engaged to Dario Lancieri, heir of the Lancieri family. But after drinking a glass of spiked champagne, I end up sleeping with Dario. To preserve the alliance between our families, my Madre decides that I will marry Dario in Arianna's place. I marry the man Arianna loves, while she is sent away to marry the gravely ill elderly Don of the Bellini family as part of a political alliance. On her wedding day, Arianna is ambushed and killed by a rival faction. From that moment on, Dario hates me with all his heart. Our marriage lasts for more than 20 years, filled with nothing but indifference and humiliation. On the day I finally succumb to my illness, Dario doesn't even come to see me. He only sends someone to deliver a single message. "Vera, stay the hell away from me in your next life." … When I open my eyes again, I'm back at the exact moment I receive the spiked champagne. Before I can even react, Dario snatches the glass from my hand and smashes it against the floor. I look at the way he gazes at Arianna, and suddenly, I understand. He has been reborn as well. In front of both our parents, he takes Arianna's hand and announces, "Arianna and I are getting married this month. As for Vera… she can fulfill the arranged marriage instead." Memories of my death flash through my mind. This time, I'll give him exactly what he wants. "Fine. I agree."

On the night of the final showcase for the three-year designer development program, my parents weren't in the family seats reserved for me. They were sitting at the VIP table with Sophie, my foster sister. My boyfriend, Adrian Cole, was giving interviews in a silver-gray outfit that matched hers. A reporter smiled and asked, "You're both headed to New York, and tonight you're even dressed as a couple. Did the two of you plan that?" The people around them whooped. Adrian only smiled. "We've known each other for years. We have similar taste." No one knew that the dress Sophie was wearing was mine. I'd drafted the pattern and sewn the dress myself, and Adrian and I had planned our matching outfits around it. When I found her wearing it that morning, all my mother said was, "The gown her sponsor sent is ruined. You're the designer. Just wear something else." Adrian frowned at me, too. "There's a lot of press here today. Don't embarrass Sophie over a dress." So I threw on a black suit at the last minute and stood alone outside the interview area, watching an entire room assume the two of them were a couple. The bigger joke was that they all assumed I'd lost. Adrian had lined up an assistant position for me at a second-tier studio, and my parents thought I should stay in Boston and apply again next year. Only my mentor knew the truth: I was the sole winner of this year's Grand Fellowship. My contract already guaranteed me a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in grant money and an eighteen-month independent residency in San Francisco. After the showcase, she asked me, "You're really going to San Francisco?" I looked over at my family, still gathered around Sophie and talking about apartments in New York, and for the first time, I felt no guilt at all. "I am." I wasn't going to let anybody else decide my life again.