Awakening

Ten years to the day we were mated, Eric came home wearing the scent of his first love. He wrapped me in his scorching heat, his voice a hoarse whisper against my ear. "I want you, Lyra." He hadn't marked me on a full moon in so long. But right now, the scent of another she-wolf on him was a bitter ache in my chest. The dinner I'd prepared for our full moon ritual was swept off the table by our cub, River. He looked at me with his father’s cold expression. "Mom, your cooking doesn’t even come close to Auntie Aurora’s." Aurora. The first love Eric could never forget. The one he'd brazenly appointed as CFO of our pack's corporation. They were the perfect pair, flaunting their connection for all to see. And I, his true mate, had become the pack's laughingstock. For ten years, I played the part of the perfect mate and mother, only to become a shadow in my own home. That night, I filed the request to the Elders. I would sever the mate bond。 Later, under the brilliant Alaskan aurora, I received Eric's frantic mind link. "Lyra, what about River if you leave?" I let out a small laugh. " River only needs you." "Your first love is back, isn't she? Let her be the mother. I'm free."

The night my boyfriend and I celebrate our first anniversary, we get into an accident. My soul travels through time and ends up ten years in the future. Here, I see that my boyfriend and I have married and started a family. It's the future I've dreamed of. However, it seems that I'm out of a job, and I've given up on my dream. I struggle to make it through endless days of my boyfriend's ice-cold treatment. Ultimately, I see myself sitting on the edge of a building's roof after falling deep into postpartum depression. When I open my eyes again, I see my boyfriend's panicked face…

My boyfriend is a forensic doctor. I've been abducted and tied to a bomb—there's only ten minutes to detonation. The abductors force me to call my boyfriend, but all I get is a scolding. "What the hell do you want, Michelle? What are you playing at, using your life as an excuse just because you're jealous? "Vi's cat has already been stuck in a tree for three days. She loves it like it's her life! If you delay me from saving it, you'll be a murderer!" I hear a coquettish voice ring out on the other end of the line. "Thank you for this, Kev. You're amazing!" I recognize that voice—it belongs to my boyfriend's childhood friend. I text my boyfriend when the bomb is about to explode. "Farewell forever. I pray we won't meet each other again in another life."

Because of an accident during the hunt, I lose the chance to be "awakened". My wolf becomes badly damaged, and I'm forced to take the "inhibitor" injection to stay alive. I lose my strongest backing—my dad, the Alpha of the Argent Flame pack. After my dad's passing, his close friend, Ryder Wright, takes me to the Glace pack. As the Alpha and leader of the pack council, he can protect me. Meanwhile, my most trusted best friend steals the original draft I wrote when I was younger. The story goes viral among humans, and she becomes the most popular "werewolf literature" author. There's a charming Alpha in the story. He's her crush. Now, the three candidates of my marriage of convenience have been following her around, arguing about the real identity of her crush in the story. When I'm being mentioned, they seem irritated, and their tone is full of contempt. "How could she still think of marrying us when her wolf can never be awakened?" "Princess of the Argent Flame pack? Hah! She's nothing but a loser now!" "Why don't we try triggering her again? Maybe she'll go completely crazy if she loses control of her wolf." "Haha! Then none of us needs to marry her." I stand at the door, and the wolf hidden in me for years is awakening. They have no idea that the inhibitor has lost its effects, and my awakening is secretly happening. I've never loved any of them. They are merely pawns for me to pick. My phone rings, and it's a call from Ryder. "Aria, have you decided? Among the three candidates, who are you going to choose?" "Alpha Ryder, do I only have three choices?"

My husband lies to me about working late on Christmas Day. I know he wants to give me a surprise—I saw a jewelry set worth millions of dollars in his pocket. However, all I receive is the news of him pretending to be Santa Claus as he delivers a gift to his female secretary. She flaunts it on social media. "You're the most precious Christmas gift I've gotten." My husband changes the background photo on his social media to a photo of them together. I smile and like the post. Later, the secretary comes to me and smugly says she's pregnant. Meanwhile, I pull out a diagnosis report verifying that my husband is sterile. "Checkmate!" She visibly panics.

I jump off the seventh floor on my wedding day. Why? Because everyone has abandoned me to pick up a fake heiress from the airport, my fiancé included. I expect to see them riddled with heartbreak and regret after my death. However, my father merely shakes his head stoically and looks at my body while saying I was too willful. My mother bites her lip and sighs in relief. My fiancé, Magnus Gilmore, shields the fake heiress. He's afraid she'll see the horrible state of my body. The fake heiress is scared to tears at this, and everyone crowds around her to console her. No one cares whether I'm still breathing while lying in a pool of blood. I'm stunned when I see this, but I soon laugh self-deprecatingly. When I open my eyes again, I've been brought back seven years in the past. It's the day I've just stepped foot at home.

I'm rejected after asking for my boyfriend's hand in marriage for the 99th time. To my devastation, he turns and proposes to my best friend. I storm over to his office to demand an answer, but I hear them making out. My boyfriend says, "Don't worry. She offered herself to me in bed several times, but I've never touched her." I head home and trash the place. When I run out of strength, I make a call. "I'll marry you, Spencer." Since the man I chose doesn't love me, I'll now go for someone who does.

I tried to die a hundred times to make him notice me. For two years, I was Shawn Scott’s wife in name only—an unwanted bride bound by a scandal, left to live in the shadow of another woman. My parents only saw my faults. My husband only saw my mistakes. As for me? I saw no way out. Every time I tried to end it, I’d wake up again, bruised and humiliated. I was greeted not with concern, but accusations such as "Why are you so selfish, Zoe Jennings?" or "Why can’t you be more like your sister Yvonne?" It wasn’t until my hundredth suicide attempt that I finally understood: I was the only one fighting for a love that never existed. So, I stopped. I walked away. I disappeared. I gave them what they wanted—my absence. However, when I left, the man who never looked at me twice started chasing the ghost of the woman he thought he knew. By the time he realized what he truly lost, I was already learning how to live again.

Despite using my cornea, my husband, Felix Halward, forced me to kneel on glass shards. Despite using my heart, my daughter declared that I was not fit to be her mother. Before my artificial heart stopped beating, I called Felix, only to have him snap at me, “Liana, could you stop kicking up a fuss? If you want to die that badly, do it somewhere far away! I’m not collecting your corpse!” I shut my remaining left eye as I lay on the snow. Later on, Felix, who had stopped loving me, plucked out his own eyeball. My daughter, who had denounced me, tried taking her life multiple times just so that she could see me again. However, I no longer longed for their love.

My fiancée steals my designs to help her senior win a competition. She's not ashamed in the slightest when I confront her. "You're talented, so you can come up with a new design in an instant. This competition means a lot to Avery, so stop being so petty." I drop out of the competition and head home to inherit the family fortune. That's when my fiancée panics. "Don't be so unreasonable, Yarrow. Design is your life's dream and the only thing you want to do. How can you give up on it so easily?" Her senior panics, too. "This design is the product of your blood, sweat, and tears. Can you bear to give up on it at this juncture?" I hang up, unmoved by their words. My fiancée doesn't know that her family's company is the one handling the blueprints for my design. I can't wait to see how her senior is going to handle the situation without my help.