Agony Venom

For my birthday, I got a gift box. Inside was a dead silver fox. Its fur was peeled away. Dark, profane runes were carved into its flesh. My wolf cried out in agony, then shattered. I desperately reached for my Alpha, Darian, through our mate bond. “Darian… help me… My wolf… my heart…” His response was ice cold. “Maeve, stop being so dramatic. It’s just a prank. A Luna should be stronger than this. Amara has a fever. I’m with her.” He just cut the bond. He chose his childhood friend over me. Her mate had recently died, and she only had a low-grade fever. I was left to collapse in agony. I didn't get help until a pack beta found me and rushed me to the medical center. It took me three whole days to recover. When Darian finally came back, reeking of Amara’s sweet perfume, he sneered at me. "I knew you were faking it. How could a dead fox hurt you? You just wanted to stop me from comforting her!" I didn’t cry. I didn’t scream. I just handed him a document to sign. Compensation, I said, for choosing Amara over me. He signed it without even looking. "Is this about money? Don't be another jealous she-wolf. Don't cause trouble for me. I can give you anything. Amara and I grew up together. She's important to me. You know that." I just nodded. I didn't say a word. The next day, he took Amara to an Alpha-only alliance dinner. Pictures were all over the werewolf social feeds. He had no idea what he’d signed. It wasn’t a compensation agreement. It was a rejection of our mate bond. I counted down the three days. I calmly packed my most precious things. Then, I pulled out my burner phone. “Uncle Marcus? I need a private jet to the South.”

Niccolo Rossi, my five-year-old son, accidentally wanders into the location where an underground firearms transaction between mafia forces is being conducted. He ends up dying from the gunfire there. Upon receiving the bad news, I collapse immediately. When I wake up, my husband, Luca Rossi, wears a guilty look. He takes my hand and comforts me, "Elena, Niccolo's death is a misunderstanding. Everyone thought he was a spy belonging to the enemy forces, so they started a crossfire with each other." In the middle of the night, I overhear his conversation with his assistant, Marco Giordano. "Don Rossi, Niccolo was still alive, but why did you order for the medics to stop treating him?" Marco sounds very confused. "Niccolo's injuries are far too grave. He'll just end up being a burden to us even if he survives," Luca says sorrowfully. "Besides, I've already promised Gina that the next heir of the Rossi family can only be our illegitimate son, Lorenzo. Now's the best time to arrange for the swap. No one will ever suspect a thing." "But… what should we do about Mrs. Rossi?" Marco sounds worried. "I'll deal with her." Luca's voice becomes calm. "I'll bring Lorenzo over and claim that he's an orphan from the orphanage. Since Elena has just lost Niccolo, she'll definitely raise Lorenzo as her own son. It's a win-win situation for us." As I lie on the hospital bed, I can only cover my mouth in agony to stop myself from sobbing out loud. Niccolo's death wasn't an accident at all. He was still alive, and yet Luca allowed him to die for the sake of his own bastard son! I dig out the high-explosive ammunition core data that my father has given to me prior to his death, which was once the most sought after item in the entire mafia underworld of the east coast. Then, I dial the hotline belonging to the Gambino family, which is the biggest mafia family in Novaro. "I can give you the core data under one condition—I want the Rossi family to disappear from the face of Earth in three days."

To save the merfolk from slaughter, I seduced the vampire lord himself-Lazarus. He still loved me after all. For three days and three nights, he drowned himself in my body, unwilling to let me out of his arms for even a second. I roused from the haze of fleeting bliss, only to have a searing, corrosive liquid poured mercilessly over my head. "You with eternal healing can taste the sting of agony？" "Yet your trivial suffering pales in comparison to the loss of my kin you brought upon me. It is nothing at all!" "This is merely the beginning. Refuse to reveal where my parents lie hidden, and you shall never break free from this castle." He was convinced that I alone had destroyed everything he held dear. Holding the entire merfolk’s lives hostage, he confined me within the castle. Time and again, he tore open my chest by force, wrenching out my pearl of the mer, feeding its essence to Isolde to mend her frail flesh. He condemned me to sleepless nights, forcing me to cleanse the filth he left behind. Barefoot, I was made to dance the mermaid’s lament upon razor-sharp silver blades, writhing in pain to lull Isolde into slumber. Later, Isolde feigned a pregnancy. Driven by false tenderness for her, Lazarus took to slicing chunks of my immortal mermaid flesh with cold blades, brewing them into nourishing potions for her. Hatred for me burned deep in his bones, yet whenever I was on the brink of death, he would still force his own blood down my throat to keep me alive. "You presume too much on my lingering love for you, choosing silence over the truth, do you not? Aurora… tell me, what became of my parents?" I endured in silence, bearing witness to his love torn between hatred and longing. Soon, I would no longer need to guard that fatal secret. For a mermaid who dwells on land for three years shall wither and perish, severed from the sea that gives her life. Only three days remained until my final breath.

The Clan Healer told me that without the vial of Progenitor's Blood, the Blood Blight afflicting me meant I had only seventy-two hours to live. But my husband, Miles, the new Duke of our world, gave the only vial of the precious cure to my adopted sister, Vivienne, the woman I had turned three years ago. "She's in agony from the rejection, Isolde. It's a pain you can't possibly understand." His tone was self-righteous, devoid of any concern for the patch of skin on my collarbone already turning to stone. I nodded, watching as the life-saving, dark red liquid slid down another woman's throat. I accomplished a great deal in the time I had left. As I signed the documents, the lawyer's hand trembled. "Are you certain you want to transfer everything, Your Grace? The territorial rights of a thousand-year-old clan..." I didn't hesitate. "Yes. To Vivienne." My adopted daughter, Lily, the girl I had risked everything to save, who was now forever frozen at the age of eight, cowered in Vivienne's arms, pointing at me and screaming, "Aunt Vivienne is my real mommy! You're the witch who turned us into monsters!" I offered no defense. "Yes, that's right. Be a good girl and listen to your new mother now." The Progenitor's Ring, the symbol of the clan's supreme authority, now rested on Vivienne's hand. "Oh, sister, you're too kind," she sobbed, her sobs a practiced performance. "I'll be sure to protect the family in your stead." I nodded. "You'll run things better than I ever did." I even signed away my control over the Elder Council, a council sustained by my own blood. For the first time in a century, a shadow of complex emotion crossed Miles's face. He stared at me,"Isolde, stop fighting. It's better this way. You need to rest." Yes. On my deathbed, I had finally become the perfect, submissive Isolde they always wanted. An Isolde who was about to turn to dust. The seventy-two-hour countdown had begun. I wondered, when I finally turned to ash,

At nine months pregnant, I was in the final stretch of my term, and my body heavy with a baby due any day. But my husband, Vito Falcone, underboss of the family, had locked me away. He held me in a sterile underground medical room and injected me with a labor suppressant. As I screamed in agony, he coldly told me to endure it. Because his brother's widow, Scarlett, was expected to go into labor at the exact same time. A blood oath he'd made with his late brother declared that the firstborn son would inherit the family's lucrative West Coast territory. "That inheritance belongs to Scarlett's child," he said. "With Daemon gone, she is utterly alone and destitute. You have my love, Alessia. All of it. I just need her to deliver safely. Then it's your turn." The drug was a constant, agonizing torment. I begged him to take me to a hospital. He grabbed me by the throat, forcing me to meet his icy gaze. "Stop the act! I know you're fine. You’re just trying to steal the inheritance." "To get ahead of Scarlett, you'll stop at nothing." My face was ashen. My body convulsed as I managed a desperate whisper. "The baby's coming. I don't care about the inheritance. I just love you, and I want our child to be born safely!" He sneered. "If you were really that innocent, if you had an ounce of love for me, you wouldn't have forced Scarlett to sign that prenup, waiving her child's inheritance rights." "Don't worry, I'll be back for you after she's given birth. you're carrying my own flesh and blood, after all." He kept a vigil outside Scarlett's delivery room all night. It was only after seeing the newborn in her arms that he remembered me. He finally sent his second in command, Marco, to release me. But when Marco finally called, his voice was shaking. "Boss... the missus and the baby... they're gone." In that moment, Vito Falcone shattered.

Before Grandpa passed, he left behind two things: a billion-dollar fortune and three matches. He said, "Each of you gets to pick one. Renee, you're the oldest, so you go first." I did not hesitate for even a second and chose the fortune. That left my adopted sister, Vera Gallagher, with nothing but three matches. What none of us could have known was that those three matches were no ordinary matches. Each one, when lit, could make any wish come true. Vera resented our parents for favoring me, so she immediately cursed them a terrible death. Sure enough, Dad suddenly suffered a heart attack and died on the spot, and Mom was hit by a speeding semi-truck on her way to the hospital. I grabbed a kitchen knife and went straight to Vera to settle the score. I growled, "Didn't I tell you that once you turned 18, I would split Grandpa's inheritance with you? Our parents opened their home to you and gave you everything I had growing up. All these years, you ate the same food and wore the same clothes as I did. How could you betray them?!" Vera's face was filled with greed. "Since they chose to adopt me, they should have thrown you away and given me all the good things instead! I don't want your handouts. Once you're all dead, the money will be mine anyway!" With that, Vera sneered and lit the second match. "I wish Renee would be trafficked to some remote backwoods town, forced to carry and deliver eight babies at once, and die from complications!" I was horrified. I emptied my savings and hired over 1000 bodyguards to protect me day and night, making sure there was not a single weak spot. However, one night, every single bodyguard suddenly passed out at the same time, and I was kidnapped and sold deep into the mountains. I was tortured, abused, and forced to endure things no person should ever have to survive. I did not know how much time had passed before I finally swallowed my last breath in agony and humiliation. When I opened my eyes again, I had been reborn on the very day the inheritance was divided.

In my previous life, my father gathered my sister Sarah and me and ordered us to choose a mate from the Alphas of the three great wolf packs: Black Fang, Red Claw, and Silverwind. Both of us set our sights on the same man—the most powerful Alpha among them all, Red Claw’s Alpha, Rhett. However, my father had always favored Sarah. Without giving me a choice, he forced me into a political marriage with Blake, the slightly weaker Alpha of the Black Fang pack. Meanwhile, Sarah got exactly what she wanted and married Rhett. At the time, no one expected what would happen next. After I became pregnant, Blake suddenly awakened the hidden power within his bloodline—the legendary strength of the Black Wolf. Overnight, he rose to become the most powerful Alpha of all. From that moment on, he treated me with endless tenderness, indulged my every wish, and never once raised his voice to me. Meanwhile, Sarah’s life with Rhett turned into a nightmare. Day after day, she endured his fists and cruelty. Her body was constantly covered in bruises and wounds. The jealousy consumed her until she finally lost control. One day, she forced poisonous wolfsbane down my throat. I died in unbearable agony, both the child in my womb and I. In my final moments, as my life faded away, I saw someone rushing toward me. It was Seville, the silent Alpha of the Silverwind pack, the man who had barely spoken a word the entire time. Yet, he was the one holding my lifeless body, crying uncontrollably. … When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day we were meant to choose our mates. This time, Sarah moved first. She deliberately seduced Blake before I could even approach him. Only then did I realize that she, too, had been reborn. She looked at me with open provocation, her lips curling into a smug smile. “You’re… too late.” I smiled brightly in return. Then, I chose the least favored Alpha of them all, Seville. She could go ahead. Blake was all hers. All the torment Blake inflicted on me in my previous life, she can have it this time.

I've been married to Salvatore Falcone for seven years. He's a mafia Don who drills raw terror into everyone's minds. While I'm the Donna whom he has announced to the world, in truth, I'm just a mistress who serves as his human shield that can warm his bed on the side. Salvatore has betrayed me countless times over the past seven years. The first betrayal occurred when he took my ring off on our first wedding anniversary and gave it to one of the escorts in the clubhouse on a whim. The second betrayal occurred when I collapsed in the kitchen out of exhaustion. Instead of saving me, Salvatore blamed me for not preparing the hangover tonic for him in time, so he had someone dump iced water onto me to wake me up. The third betrayal occurred when I suffered from massive bleeding when I was five months pregnant. When I begged Salvatore to go to the hospital with me, he told me that he was keeping Valentina Caruso, his childhood sweetheart, company while her cat was getting fixed. For 2500 days, I swallowed all of my grievances, agony, and tears. Last night, at the banquet of our seventh wedding anniversary, Salvatore had taken Valentina's hand and sat her down on the Donna's throne that was meant to be mine. At that moment, everyone looked forward to seeing me humiliate myself. This was the 101st time he betrayed me. After the banquet was over, Salvatore didn't even bother looking me in the eye. He just said icily, "Don't forget that you're only a mistress to me despite our marriage." At the crack of dawn, Salvatore wakes up with a hangover. He tosses his soiled shirt at me out of habit. "Wash this shirt immediately. I'm going to wear it tonight." As I gaze at him, I caress my belly, which is slightly swollen. "Sorry, Mr. Falcone. This is no longer my duty." Salvatore most likely has forgotten that we've signed a contract when we first got married. The clause states that we will get divorced seven years later. Today is the third day before our contract comes to an end. I toss the marriage certificate and the pregnancy report into the shredder on the spot. In three days, my unborn baby and I will disappear from Salvatore's world permanently. This time, I will never look back.