Contos e Romances de Defy Fate

The night before the Blood Moon, my Alpha, Kael was drugged with Silver Fern — an aphrodisiac so strong it sent him into an uncontrollable rut, his eyes burning red. I was his fiancée's younger sister, raised to be his "Shadow Luna." That night, he pinned me against the cold stone steps of the Moon Temple. I should have pushed him away. Instead, I melted into his heat. When I finally lifted my bloodied head, I saw his true Luna — my own sister — standing in the doorway in her moonstone bonding gown, tears in her eyes. Three days later, the patrol dragged a body from the Silver Lake. A woman in a bonding gown. She was carrying the Alpha's first heir. He married me anyway, to keep the pack stable. On our wedding night, he gripped my chin and sneered: "Are you satisfied now?" For thirty years after that, he never marked me, never gave me a Luna's power, never touched me again. On my deathbed, he leaned down and whispered, word by word: "I wish I had never met you." When I opened my eyes, I was back on that moonless night — the night he was drugged. This time, I clutched my collar shut, and pushed my sister into his room.

Cedric Thorne, Alpha of the Crescent Moon pack, had a nightmare. In the dream, at the full moon ceremony, he slept with an Omega he'd rescued. In the dream, I was going to break our mate bond and lead the werewolves from my pack back to my own territory. When Cedric woke up, he held me tight and swore he would never betray me. After that, he couldn't get enough of me. He wanted me several times a night. And every time he climaxed, he'd grip my waist and make me repeat the same words. "Cedric, I love you." Whenever I left the castle to patrol, he kept checking where I was through the mate bond. He couldn't stand to have me out of his sight. It made him feel insecure. I thought he was just afraid of losing me, and that was why he was so possessive. Then, at this year's full moon ceremony, the Omega he'd rescued went into heat. In front of the whole pack, Cedric picked her up and headed for our bedroom. I grabbed his arm and begged him not to go, but he shook me off. "Her heat could kill her. I can't let another male touch her!" So I had to lead the ceremony alone. Because of the mate bond, I could feel everything Cedric felt. I felt the low growl he let out when he climaxed, and the thrill that ran through every part of him. The whole pack heard them too. One by one, they lowered their heads. When the ceremony was over, I headed for the bedroom. Elena Marsh sat astride Cedric's lap, wearing the robe that marked me as Luna. And my mate was kissing her like he couldn't get enough.

At a company party, I catch our manager drugging a female coworker's drink and call the police to save her. But the next day, she shows up with the police and accuses me of drugging her and trying to rape her. She even claims our manager was the one who saved her. The police take me in for questioning, and before long, I'm being branded a rapist all over the internet. My company fires me to distance itself from the scandal. Even after I'm cleared of all charges, my life is a mess. I've lost my job, and the online harassment gets so bad that my mother ends up in intensive care. When I confront my coworker, Katherine Miller, about what she's done to me, she doesn't feel the least bit guilty. "I never asked you to save me. You're the one who decided to stick your nose where it didn't belong. Whatever happened to you is your own problem. "I worked hard to land this job. I'm not going to risk getting fired just because you decided to piss off my manager." Then our manager comes out shirtless, puts his arm around her, and gives me a smug look. "You were too stupid to know your place. Of course you got fired. Getting rid of someone like you would be as easy as squashing a bug." I'm so furious that I pass out. But when I open my eyes, I'm back on the day of the company party.

In my previous life, the day after my son was born, someone stole him. My wife lost her mind. She spent six months searching for him before finally jumping off our balcony. Right after that, I drank myself to death on the streets. This time around, I trusted no one. When the head nurse said she needed to take my baby for a checkup, I rose from my chair and stepped in front of the crib, blocking her way. "What checkup? Which department? Where is the paperwork? Has the attending physician signed off on it?" She froze, caught off guard. "It's a routine hearing screening," she explained. "If it's a routine screening, why are you personally taking my baby? I don't trust anyone. Bring me the paperwork. I'll carry my son and go with you. Otherwise, the answer is no." She stood there, frozen in place.

Ten years of devotion. Ten years of playing the "perfect" wife. All for a lie. I spent a decade as a ghost in my own home, scrubbing floors for a husband who never loved me and raising children who treated me like the help. But when I discover the ultimate betrayal—a forged marriage certificate and a plot that murdered my parents—my heart finally shatters. Trying to confront the people who betrayed me, I was murdered. But instead of dying, I wake up to the past. It’s June 14th. The morning of my wedding. My parents are still alive, my "loving" fiancé is downstairs plotting his first theft, and my twin sister is hiding her evil thoughts behind her innocent smile. I have less than 24 hours before the "I do" that ruined my life. Less than 24 hours to move millions in assets, stop a fatal car crash, and expose the affairs.

On the day of my marking ceremony, I arrived at the Moon Goddess altar clutching the silver crest meant for Blackridge's future Luna, only to find the place completely deserted. My mother was laughing so hard over the phone she could barely speak. "Selena, you actually went? We're all in Riverbend Valley with Leah." The video shifted. Leah was sitting by the fireplace in Kane's coat, with my father and my brother Rowan nearby. The moment Kane saw how red my face was from the snow, his smile faded. "Where's your cloak?" He turned and ordered a guard to go get me before looking back at the screen. "Selena, I just wanted to know whether you'd still choose me if fate hadn't already chosen for us." "So you tricked me into coming here alone just to test me?" Laughter broke out again on the other end of the call. Kane's voice dropped. "I was never going to choose anyone else. I just wanted to hear you say, for once, that you wanted me too." They had all known I would cross the snow to get there. Not one of them had stopped to think that the whole thing might humiliate me. I looked down and unclasped the silver crest that marked me as Blackridge's future Luna. "Fine." The next day, I canceled the marking ceremony, resigned from every position I held in Silverpine, and left both packs behind. At first, they all thought I was simply angry. It took them much longer to understand that this time, I was done with all of them.

Elara was Cassian's only Luna, and they had loved each other for ten years. But at this year's remembrance ceremony, Elara's name on the stone tablet suddenly split open. The Moon Goddess no longer blessed her, no longer claimed her. Another woman, Seraphina, was about to become the next Luna. And Elara had only five days left to live. What made it worse was that Cassian had known all along. Three years ago, he had led Elara up to the crown himself, and he had signed that contract himself. He knew perfectly well that being Luna had never been an honor, but an offering to the Moon Goddess. Yet Cassian kept it from her for three years. All he said was, "I want to save you." Only later did she discover what his so-called salvation really meant: putting Seraphina in her place as the new offering. Elara finally understood. Cassian loved her, but he had never once thought of letting her choose how to live. But Seraphina told her, "I never wanted to take your place." "I want to destroy the contract." In that moment, the two of them decided to work together. Five days later, Elara would tear down the centuries-old Luna system with her own hands. Even if the cost was— The Alpha stripped of his power, and every rule holding Mooncrown together brought down with it. This time, Elara would never let anyone else decide her fate again.

My fiancé, Alpha Theron, was the star player on the pack hockey team. Yet even as his mate, the pack mocked me as a fat pig that had wandered in among wolves. But when he was attacked, I was the one who stepped in front of him. Hockey sticks came down on my back and my shoulders. The pain cut to the bone, and I gritted my teeth and took it. That overweight body everyone despised was the only reason not one blow landed on him. It was also what finally made the old Luna nod and agree to let me marry into the family. But while I lay unconscious from my injuries, Theron announced that he would mark my stepsister Hannah, the cheer captain, instead. Not only that. Hannah posted videos online of the two of us practicing cheer routines together. "Who wants to watch a pig dance sexy? The Alpha had his reasons for turning her down." "Look at all that useless fat. Is that really a wolf?" Then, while the mockery was at its worst, she asked me to forgive her, as if none of it had been on purpose. When my heart was already ash, my father and my stepmother threw me out of the house. "All that fat, clumsy and ugly, and she cannot even hold on to her own mate." "She is that fat and still joined the cheer squad. Now the rest of us get mocked too. How humiliating!" As a rogue, I swallowed every kind of suffering there is. In one year I lost over a hundred pounds and became the brightest cheer sweetheart in the league. Then I turned around and cheered for the most valuable player on the ice. Theron heard about it and came running. He dropped to his knees with red eyes and clung to the hem of my skirt. "You were my love, my mate! What does that idiot who can only swing a stick have that I don't?"

I never thought I'd die on my honeymoon. 160 feet down in a pitch-black underwater cave, Adam Hunter, my husband who has spent ten years courting me, kills me with a knife. When he returns home, he takes everything my family owns. The broke nobody turns into a billionaire powerhouse overnight. Meanwhile, my parents spend every last cent trying to prove he murdered me, only to die in bitter despair. When I open my eyes, I'm back at the moment before the dive. Adam lies beside me, holding me tightly as he sleeps peacefully. Only I know that he will kill me in the crushing darkness of the deep water. I have less than two hours to escape this death trap. I look at the clock. The countdown begins.

During the Christmas holidays, my parents began our family meeting with the yearly "family support vote." Our family's only recommendation letter for Oxford's architecture program lay on the table. My name had originally been on it. "I vote for Camilla." My older brother, Evan Prescott, was the first to raise his hand. "She just went through a breakup. She needs to get away to Europe for a while." "I vote for Camilla too." My mother kept filing her nails as she talked. "Selena can go to community college. Camilla's grades are bad. Without a recommendation letter, she won't get in anywhere." My father didn't hesitate. He slid the recommendation letter across the table to Camilla. "Three votes to one, Selena. It's settled." My younger sister, Camilla Prescott, picked up the letter and smiled sweetly. "Thanks, Selena. You've always been the independent one. I knew you wouldn't hold this against me." I looked at that letter. To earn it, I'd stayed up late for six straight months and drawn more than 300 designs. To them, all my hard work was just a way to get my sister's foot in the door. I stood up. I didn't cry, and I didn't demand an explanation. "Fine. If that's how you voted, give it to her." I turned, walked back to my room, and pulled out the suitcase I'd packed a long time ago. What they didn't know was that my own designs had already earned me an offer of direct admission to Harvard. That letter felt like a handout. I wanted nothing to do with it.

I'm nine years old when I secretly contact my mom Lori Parker's family to get her out of the remote village. When my grandpa, Richard Parker, bursts into the cellar, he finds Mom chained by the neck, with a whip stained with dried, dark blood lying at her feet. Overwhelmed with rage, Grandpa beats my dad, Bruce Fraser, until he is almost dead, vomiting blood repeatedly. Dad is left paralyzed and bedridden for the rest of his life. Just before getting into the car, Mom cries and reaches out to me. "Amy, I'm taking you home!" My eyes sting as I clutch the hem of her clothes, but then memories of my past life come rushing back. Her family turns against her because she protects a bastard like me. She endures their contempt and humiliation and eventually dies of illness alone in a rented room. If she takes me with her, she will never forget this nightmare. I dig my nails into my palm and push her away. "Get lost! Dad only brought you into this family because he wanted a child. I never loved you!" The car door slams shut. I finally break down and run after it, tears streaming down my face. But I don't dare call out "Mom". I'm afraid that if she hears me, she'll turn back.

I went to surprise my fiancé, Dante Rossi, in my wheelchair. But just as I reached his door, my phone rang. The caller was me, ten years in the future. "Don't go in. He's in there with another woman." "No way." She read back the text I had just typed and deleted. "If I could still dance, would you come home earlier?" My hand jerked. I hadn't sent those words to anyone. I lost my legs saving him, and I would never dance ballet again. The day of my amputation, Dante, a Boston mafia Don, knelt beside my hospital bed in tears and begged me to marry him. He swore that whenever I was in pain, he would be right there with me. He loves me. How could he change? But the woman on the phone started to cry. "Last night, I fell in the bathroom. When I called him, all he said was, 'Erin, how much longer are you going to make me feel guilty about your legs?'" I gripped the armrest. "And then what?" "I apologized. I begged him not to be mad." I stared at the empty fabric hanging where my legs used to be. I'm the one who fell. I'm the one who got hurt. So why am I the one saying sorry? Just then, Dante texted me, "Still busy. Be good and don't wait up." Through the glass wall of the shooting range, I watched him put his phone away. Then he leaned down and kissed the woman in his arms. She turned her head, and I forgot how to breathe. How can it be her?

When my foster parents tried to sell me off to an ugly old nobleman, I finally snapped. I decided to climb Mount Olympus and confront the god I had prayed to all my life: Zeus. I wanted to know why he didn't care about his believers at all. After surviving a hellish climb, I finally laid eyes on him. He was tall, devastatingly handsome, and sat there looking entirely aloof and untouchable. But I didn't care about his divine majesty. I rushed forward, threw my arms around his leg, and started sobbing. Zeus fell silent for a moment, then let out a heavy sigh. "You came all this way... for this?" I glared up at him, fully justified. "Aren't you the most powerful god? Obviously, it's your job to take care of everyone!" Zeus was actually speechless. Eventually, he agreed to send down divine punishment, turning my greedy foster parents into literal fat pigs. But I still wasn't satisfied. "So, next time I get bullied, can I come find you again?" Zeus rubbed his temples in exasperation and handed me a necklace. "Say my name three times in your heart, and I will appear."

At my bonding ceremony with Liam Jones, the pack witch appeared and dropped a bombshell—my long-lost sister, Victoria, was still alive. She could bring Victoria back, but there was a catch. She turned to my parents and asked: “Are you willing to trade Margret Davis for Victoria Davis? The two will swap bodies.” My parents' faces lit up with excitement. They didn't hesitate for a second. Yes. They said the only reason they had me was because Victoria had vanished, and their mind-link with her had gone silent. I'd spent twenty years living a life that was never mine, while my sister suffered for over a decade. This was what I owed her. Then the witch turned to Liam. Victoria had gone missing because she saved him—I knew that. But if he could just say no, even if it was a lie, even if he was just pretending… Then at least there'd be one person in this world who wanted me to stay. One last reason for me to hold on. A long silence stretched between us. Finally, he spoke. "She went missing because she saved me. I have to bring her back." He gave a firm nod. "Yes." Then the witch sprinkled a vial of purple liquid over me. She looked at everyone with a cold smile. "The potion takes time to work. In one month, Victoria and Margret will swap."

The night I was born, every window in the kingdom of Astraea burned with candlelight for its newborn princess. Then black mist smashed through the palace doors. Morvena, the witch my family had banished years ago, strode across the shattered stained glass with thorns curling around her fingers. "You denied me mercy when I begged for it," she said. "So I will make you lose what you love most." She leaned over my cradle and gave me a cold smile. "When this child turns eighteen, death will begin to follow her. By your own hands, you will lose what you love most, and regret will haunt you for the rest of your lives." From that night on, I became the most precious person in Rose Palace. Father set moonstones in my crown. Mother sewed every gown I wore. Even after my little brother, Rowan, was born, the best of everything still came to me first. They always told him, "Let your sister have it. She won't be with us much longer." So I learned not to argue, not to make plans, and never to speak about the future. I simply waited for my eighteenth birthday the way other girls waited for a wedding. On that night, I blew out my candles beneath the tolling bells and hugged my parents and brother goodbye. The next morning, they entered my chamber dressed in mourning black. I sat up in bed and smiled. "Good morning." Their grief turned to shock. Then the shock hardened into something colder than hatred. That was when I understood. They had loved the princess who was supposed to die. They had never learned how to love the girl who lived. But they misunderstood the witch’s curse. Eighteen was never the end. The curse would follow me for an entire year… and by the time they realized the truth, it was already too late.

At five in the evening on the thirtieth of April, I was heading back to my dorm when a disheveled woman in a mask passed me going the other way. Her eyes were sunken. "It's your turn," I thought I heard her say, but her voice was so faint I thought I might have imagined it. A second later, a deafening thump came from nearby. "Ah!" "Someone jumped off a building!" "Someone's dead! Call an ambulance!" The police arrived quickly and sealed off the scene. The girl who had died was Rosa Harris, one of my dorm mates. The police interrogated each of us. All of us had the same impression of her. She was poor, unsociable, withdrawn, and possibly mentally ill. Her death was ruled a suicide before long. The police left, but the campus stayed on lockdown. Everyone was forced to hand over their phones for inspection. Anything about Rosa's suicide was deleted to keep the news from getting out. The lockdown would end at eight in the morning on the first of May, when we could leave for the break. But I never made it off campus. When my alarm rang at six in the morning, I groggily opened my eyes. Suddenly, a large hand clamped over my mouth and nose. I suffocated, dying in agony and despair. When I opened my eyes again, it was five in the evening on the thirtieth of April. A voice spoke in my ear, so faint I could have imagined it. "It's your turn."

As the only daughter of the Whitehaven Pack's Alpha, I had the right to choose my mate from among the heirs of our allied packs. Everyone expected me to choose Kieran Dante—after all, I’d spent years making a fool of myself chasing after him at every pack gathering. But instead, I chose Damon Thorne, the one they called cursed and weak. In my previous life, I did choose Kieran, and on the night of our bonding ceremony, I found him mating with my best friend Sera in the ceremonial preparation room. When my father found out and banished Sera from the pack, Kieran blamed me for ruining his happiness. He brought back a hundred she-wolves who looked exactly like her and forced me to watch as he bedded them one after another. The constant agony of the bond tore me apart from the inside, and when I finally grew too weak to endure it anymore, Kieran accused me of faking illness for attention. On the night I was dying, I crawled to his door begging for help, and he stepped over my body to go sleep with another woman. I died alone on the cold hallway floor while my mate laughed in the next room. When I opened my eyes again, I found myself back before it all happened — with a second chance to change everything. This time, I decided to let Kieran and Sera have each other. What I didn't expect was that Kieran had also been reborn, and when he saw me choose Damon over him, he completely lost control.

As the most powerful witch in the pack, I gritted my teeth and swallowed the poison before the new Luna's ascension, destroying my own gift of foresight. In my last life, I had divined that the new Luna was a spy sent by the vampires, and that she would bring about the pack's destruction. When I begged Alpha Hall to banish her, someone reported me for coveting the Luna position, accusing me of selfish motives. Alpha Hall led a search of my quarters, and somehow, a letter conspiring with vampires was found under my bed. The moment Luna saw it, she flung herself into Hall's arms and sobbed with wounded innocence: "Bella, I know you've been in love with our Alpha, but you can't just frame me because you're jealous!" Hall flew into a rage, declared me a liar and a threat, and ordered me nailed to the stake and burned alive. As the flames swallowed me, I saw Luna grinning at me, twisted and cruel, her lips parting to reveal the glint of vampire fangs. When I opened my eyes again, I was back to the day before Luna's binding ceremony. The very moment Hall commanded me to beseech the Moon Goddess's blessing for his beloved.

The night before I was due to leave the pack, the Alpha was struck by the heat poison. As his personal doctor, I broke it the only way I could, with my own body. The next morning, the old Luna came to find out what had happened. In my last life, I stepped forward and admitted it was me, shy and ashamed. The Alpha marked me himself and made me the pack's new Luna. After that, he let the pack fall to ruin, and gave up the peace alliance with a neighboring pack all for my sake. The whole pack cursed me for bewitching their Alpha. But I knew the truth. Every bit of his devotion was a lie. The one he truly wanted to mark was Cassia Lowe, the nurse who worked under me. For years she had his heart and his love, and every night I lay awake with the sound of the two of them through the wall. It left me sitting alone until dawn. Maybe the Moon Goddess took pity on me, because I woke again on the very day the old Luna came with her questions. This time, I stood quietly at the back of the room. Cassia stepped forward, soft and sweet, and claimed that night as her own. I swallowed the potion that hid the mate bond, nodded along, and agreed. “She was the one on night duty at the villa. It has to be her.”

On my 28th birthday, Carl Thorne asked me to meet him at the Moon Goddess statue. He specifically told me to wear a wedding dress and said he was finally going to keep his promise and mark me. But when I arrived in my wedding dress, its train trailing behind me, he turned to the crowd and laughed. "See? I don't even have to mark her. One word from me, and she'll come running. I win. The hunting grounds are mine." Then he raised an eyebrow at me. "Vera, I was only joking. The pack still sees you as their Luna, mark or no mark." When I remained silent, Carl grinned. "If you're so desperate to be marked, why not pick someone here?" The crowd burst out laughing. Everyone knew I was Carl's fated mate, that I was hopelessly in love with him and would never choose another. But when I took my new husband's hand and completed the marking ceremony, Carl went white and froze where he stood.