Novel & Cerita Anyway The Wind Blows Hadestown

I had always been fragile, the kind of kid who could not handle a gust of wind without losing balance and who teared up over the smallest thing. The day my biological parents found me and took me back into their wealthy world, everything had already felt unreal. Then, things got worse. Out of nowhere, an old woman came sprinting down the street and dropped right in front of the Bentley, like she had timed it perfectly. I panicked and completely froze, so I did the only thing I could think of. I dropped down beside her and started crying. However, I overdid it. I cried so hard that blood started streaming from my eyes. The old woman jolted upright like she had seen something horrifying. She shoved 500 dollars into my hands, muttered a string of curses, and ran off without looking back. Just like that, I was back with the Snyder family. The house rose in front of me, all polished stone and perfectly kept lawns, like something out of a magazine. However, the closer I got, the more my nerves kicked in, and that familiar metallic taste crept up my throat again. The so-called heir walked over, smiling like we were supposed to be close. Then, he gave me a light shove. He leaned in, his voice low enough that only I could hear. "Stay in your place. Don't start wanting things that were never yours." Right there, in front of everyone, I leaned back and collapsed. I did not move at all. He froze. His face turned red as he grabbed my collar and shook me. "Quit pretending. Get up!" A few seconds passed, then a few more, before he slowly turned his head, his movements stiff. Tiny drops of blood speckled his clothes. His voice trembled. "Mom… Dad… I think…" He swallowed hard. "I think he stopped breathing."

My fated mate, Alpha Ronan Thornwood, gets betrayed by his best friend, Asher Crowe, during a pack battle. In order to preserve his position as the Alpha, Ronan begs me to travel to the Onyx Wolf pack with him in search of help. I accept his request immediately. But three days before our journey is set to begin, Ronan gets shot in the leg by a silver arrow when he's hunting a deer for me. In order to not delay our trip, he suggests that I travel to the pack on my own. Out of guilt toward Ronan, I decide to drop by the Healing Sanctuary to visit Ronan before the journey. But that's when I overhear his conversation with Asher. "So you first pretended to have bad blood with me, then you pretended to get hurt? All this just to trick Freya into traveling to the Onyx Wolf pack? You do realize that in order to get there, one must travel through the Dark Forest, right? Rumors have it that ferocious Rogues prowl that place! "You and Freya have grown up with each other since you two were pups! Do you really have the heart to let her embark on such a dangerous journey?" As Ronan unties the bandages around his leg, he replies coldly, "Those are just rumors. It's not like there really are Rogues infesting the forest. "Anyway, Freya is too docile and boring. The thought of being bound to her forever after she turns 18 suffocates me to no end! Willow, on the other hand, is different. She might be an Omega, but she's passionate and bold, not to mention she's also interesting and outgoing!" "So, are you going to abandon Freya and be with Willow?" "No way!" Ronan replies firmly. "Freya is my Luna. I just want to spend an unforgettable time with Willow before bonding with Freya." It turns out the pack battle, the betrayal, and Ronan's injury are all lies. Ronan wants to trick me into leaving the pack just so he can be with another she-wolf. After drying my tears, I change my destination. Now, I'm heading toward the Moon Goddess' Sacred Ground. I'm born with the mark of the Moon Goddess, which automatically makes me a Luna. But this mark doesn't just represent the title of the Luna—it also represents the most prestigious position in a pack, which is the divine messenger. From now on, I have nothing to do with Ronan.

After five years of being mated to Alpha Lucas, I finally got pregnant. Lucas and I were ecstatic, but five months into the pregnancy, I suffered an accidental miscarriage. The Chief Healer told me it was because my wolf was too weak. I couldn't handle the news and blacked out. The usually stoic Alpha couldn't stop weeping. I thought he was as devastated as I was. That was until I accidentally overheard his conversation with his Beta. "Alpha, why gag the healer? Luna clearly ingested Wolfsbane. Why aren't we hunting down the culprit?" Beta Marcus's voice was full of confusion. "We bury this." Lucas's voice was heavy with suppressed pain. "It was Isabella. She slipped Wolfsbane into Emily's tonic by mistake. Isabella suffered severe brain damage saving me three years ago; she has the mind of a five-year-old. She can't tell the difference between Wolfsbane and Moon Grass..." "She just wanted to help brew the tonic to help Emily get better, to make me happy. But if the Council catches wind of this, they will absolutely execute Isabella for murdering the Alpha heir." Ever since Isabella saved his life three years ago and became mentally regressed, she had shamelessly invaded our lives. On stormy nights, she would crawl into Lucas's bed wearing translucent lingerie, crying that she was scared, forcing Lucas to hold her all night while I was relegated to the guest room. He always said Isabella was brain-damaged, stuck with the IQ of a five-year-old, just like a child. He treated her like a sister and told me not to hold it against her. Since you loved your Isabella so much, I would grant you your wish. I picked up the private phone I hadn't used in five years. "I regret it. I'm willing to return to the Royal Pack. Come get me tomorrow." But when I truly disappeared, the once arrogant Alpha killed his precious Isabella and begged me to come back.

When the half-mile sprint test is about to begin, Quiana Sullivan, the class president, and I have applied to be exempted from it. My own mother, who's the homeroom teacher of my class, approves Quiana's application with a smile. But she then throws mine to the floor. "You're having a chest pain, you say? I can't believe you're able to come up with such lies just to avoid the half-mile sprint! I'd have known if you had a heart condition! "Quiana is weak by nature, not to mention she's on her period right now, so she can't handle the agony. What about you, hmm? You've always been perfectly healthy, yet now you're telling me that you're suffering from heart pain? "Don't go around embarrassing me just because you want to slack off! I don't want others claiming that I'm being biased toward my own child! As long as you're still alive and kicking, you must finish the half-mile course no matter what!" Left without a choice, I can only return to the field. The cold wind makes me feel even dizzier now. My heart keeps contracting uncontrollably against my will. Suddenly, it just stops pumping. The next thing I know, I collapse onto the grassy field heavily. When my consciousness is about to flicker to darkness, my mom finally walks over to me. But she merely kicks my arm with a frown on her face, and her tone remains glacial. "Stop playing dead. Get up right now." She doesn't realize that I can never open my eyes ever again. Isn't this great, Mom? No one will ever claim that you're biased toward your own child. I've used my life to prove how fair and just you are. You must be happy now, right?

On the night of our third anniversary, Killian missed dinner again. Texted me he was working late at the auto shop. I looked at the $5.90 clearance cake on the table. I'd fought a crowd at the grocery store to buy it. I swallowed the bitter lump in my throat. We need to save for a real house in Brooklyn, I told myself. I put the cake in the fridge. I wrapped my cheap coat tight and walked into the cold to deliver late-night takeout for extra cash. I never expected to run into my "poor" husband at a luxury hotel in Manhattan. He stepped out of a Rolls-Royce in a sharp custom suit, tossing hundred-dollar bills to the valet. A hot woman wearing a priceless pigeon-blood ruby followed behind him, hooking his arm. "Killian, it's snowing so hard. Are you really going back to Brooklyn to play house with your naive little peasant wife?" she whined. Killian looked at the cheap, tarnished silver ring on his finger. A hint of softness crossed his cold eyes. "For three years, she worked five jobs a day to pay off the fake debts I made up. She wouldn't even see a doctor when she was sick." "That's enough. She passed my test. Once I deal with the rat in the family, I'll tell her everything. Give her the glory she deserves as my Donna." The woman bit her lip. "What if she finds out you're a Mafia Don and is just after your money? Why not tell her you have a terminal illness—see if she'll drain her savings to save you. Test her one more time…" Killian stayed quiet for a long time. Finally, he nodded. "One last test. After this, I'm giving her the grandest wedding." The freezing wind howled. I gripped the paper takeout bag. Tears rolled down my face without a sound. I am done with this arrogant, lying love.

After the Ferguson family went bankrupt, I gave up everything I had and followed Ethan Ferguson to Stormbay. Five years later, he had fought his way back into the top three on the Forbes rich list. He rebuilt the empire everyone believed he had lost for good. He never mentioned marriage, no matter how much we had been through together. I did not understand the reason until the night before Memorial Day. I woke after midnight and saw Ethan standing alone on the terrace of our beachfront house. The cold ocean wind swept through the darkness while he lit three white candles one by one. Their flames flickered softly against the night. He faced the distant horizon across the sea and lowered his voice. “Mom, Dad… I’m sorry I couldn’t come see you again this year.” He paused, and his expression softened. “However, please keep watching over Vivi. Keep her healthy… and bless the two of us with a long, happy life together.” Warmth spread through my chest as I listened. My health had never been good, and every year near Memorial Day, Ethan refused to let me exhaust myself with the long trip home. He always went alone to visit his parents’ graves while I stayed behind in Stormbay. This year, when I saw the homesickness in his eyes, I decided to surprise him. I wanted to make the trip in his place. I never expected my entire world to collapse the moment I arrived at the cemetery. Ethan’s name was carved into the headstone. Beside it was the name of another woman. Olivia Ferguson. My gaze drifted lower. A framed family photograph sat at the foot of the headstone. Its edges had curled from the ocean wind. In the picture, Ethan held a little blond-haired boy in his arms. The child looked no older than three. Olivia stood beside him, smiling softly at the camera. A sharp pain cut through my chest. Only then did I understand the truth. The “Vivi” Ethan prayed for was never Vivian. It had been Olivia all along.

I died on the day I was supposed to form a mate bond with Alpha Ragnar. Since I did not show up, he went ahead and performed the ceremony with his childhood sweetheart, Nina. “Selena has already been marked by me, yet she still threw caution to the wind and cheated with a rogue. Her betrayal has brought shame upon us. She’s not worthy of being the pack’s Luna!” With just one careless sentence, Ragnar made my family a disgrace of the pack. My father was once a great warrior of the pack. He lost his wolf saving Ragnar, only to be drowned in a river as punishment for supposedly failing to discipline his own daughter. Our blood bond allowed me to feel his pain. However, I had been locked in a sealed, abandoned interrogation room—a silver cage. The mechanism inside was accidentally triggered, and thick poisonous gas filled the space. It killed me slowly and painfully. After my soul left my body, I appeared beside Ragnar and heard him say to Nina, “Thanks for your help today. If Selena hadn’t acted so foolishly, you wouldn’t have had to take her place in the ceremony. Ever since I marked her, she’s been getting bolder, thinking my affection gives her a free pass. How dare she skip such an important ceremony?!” However, the noble Alpha Ragnar seemed to have forgotten something. Just seven days ago, he threw me into a silver cage meant only for the most dangerous criminals to appease Nina. “You hurt Nina, so you must face the consequences. Take these three days to reflect. If you still won't admit your mistake, then don’t even think about ever leaving this place for the rest of your life.” I waited three days and then three more. The poisonous gas and silver ate away at my body, corroding me from the outside in. I endured seven days of unbearable pain before I finally died. When my body was found, it had been so ravaged by the poison that I was unrecognizable. As for the arrogant Alpha? He had completely lost his mind.

I paid Curtis Robinett 200 thousand dollars a month to be a standby blood donor. My fiancée, Eden May, thought it was a waste of money. So she reassigned him to work part-time as her personal assistant instead. When Curtis accidentally submitted my marriage license appointment as a divorce filing for the 99th time, I kicked open Eden's office door. She didn't even look up. "We're in no rush to get married anyway," she said calmly. "Curtis is just careless. That's how he's always been." Later, in the emergency room, I called Eden while doctors rushed around me, my throat shredded from yelling. "Where's my emergency medical kit?" I rasped. "What did you do with it?" Curtis answered instead, his voice warm and smug. "You mean the expensive leather bag you kept in the cabinet? I swapped it out for a large party snack box. It holds everything just fine, and honestly, it looks a lot more cheerful. "Ms. May's brother and sister-in-law are both career soldiers. Your bag didn't really match that image, so I thought this would be more appropriate." My vision dimmed. My hands shook as I told Curtis to come donate blood. Eden laughed softly and cut in, "Stop pretending you're anemic just to get attention. If you're actually sick, deal with it. You're at the hospital; I think the doctors are fully capable of keeping you alive. Curtis is afraid of needles. He's not coming." Then, she hung up. She didn't appear until the surgical lights finally went dark. "Curtis had me bring you chocolate milk," she said. "It's good for recovery. It's not that he didn't want to help. He just faints at the sight of blood." She placed a settlement waiver on my bed. "I was the one who told him not to come. That 200-thousand-dollar monthly salary is his pay as my assistant. It has nothing to do with you. You didn't have to call the police for that. Sign this, and I'll go get the marriage license with you." I thought of what I had just seen in the operating room. Eden's brother, Harvey May, was bleeding out on the operating table, waiting for a lifesaving drug that never came. In the final moments of surgery, he could do nothing but lie there and die. I looked at her and said evenly, "You're the immediate family. It's not my place to sign that."

I've been reborn back to the day my husband, Logan Lane, cheats on me. The first thing I do is request my colleague, Emma Kerr, to switch shifts with me at work. In my previous lifetime, Logan slept with my best friend, Yvonne Colton, behind my back. Since the toys they had used in their session were far too intense, their bodies ended up getting stuck together, so they had to be sent to the ER. Emma performed a surgery on them. Logan and Yvonne were fine after that. Upon receiving the news, I couldn't accept reality at all. I cried so much that I ended up fainting. When I woke up, Logan sent me a document. The document stated that if I were to demand a divorce, I couldn't take a single cent with me. That meant I had to give up on all of my assets. I refused to do so. But Logan merely chuckled coldly in return. "Mariella, Yvonne and I are just friends with benefits. You're the one who insists on getting a divorce, which makes you the one ruining our family. It's only natural that you can't take a single cent with you." I tried to go to the court to prove that Logan was the one cheating on me in our marriage. I even tried to file for a divorce there as well. But then, I found out that someone had already deleted the security footage in the hospital during my collapse. This left me without any solid evidence at all. On the day I lost the court case, Logan didn't hesitate to rub salt into my wound. "Just give up already, Mariella. So what if you have evidence and videos of my infidelity? You're just a regular doctor in the ER, whereas I'm the CEO of Lane Group. I'm the one who earned all of the assets. In fact, I have to give you extra money every month because that meager salary of yours can't sustain you at all. Who would rule in your favor anyway?" I couldn't do anything about Logan's underhanded ways at all. In order to stay with him, I had already cut off all ties with my dad and my family, who happened to be the only support I had in my life, a long time ago. Feeling extremely defeated, I wandered on the street in a daze. That was how I got run over by a speeding truck. When I open my eyes again, I've gotten reborn. The first thing I do is to switch shifts with Emma.

Three years ago, during a critical moment of a business negotiation, the proprietary data I personally compiled ended up becoming the weapon that secured the victory for my business rival. I was taken away on the charges of leaking corporate secrets—and my girlfriend, Kelly Stone, smugly flashes the proprietary data at me, mocking me for my foolishness. After being given a five-year prison sentence, I suffered endless torture behind bars and died from the internal injuries. However, I got to witness everything that happened following my death. Whitney Evans, a college senior of mine who had a thing for me, did everything in her power to clear my name. She sold her company and pursued every avenue she could. In the end, after losing everything, she cried herself unconscious at my grave. Then, suddenly, my eyes opened again. I saw Kelly sneaking a USB drive into her handbag before turning to leave. I grabbed the USB drive from her and looked her in the eye, warning, "What you're doing is against the law, Kelly. I advise you to watch yourself from now on. Also, it's over between us. Don't even set foot inside my office again." Immediately, I went looking for Whitney. Three years have passed since then. In that time, I've managed to secure success in both career and love. It won't be long before I complete the acquisition of my company's business rival, Havenshire Group. Yet, the night before the official signing, I drink a glass of milk that Whitney gives me. My body swiftly goes weak, and I collapse on the couch. When I regain consciousness, I find myself lying on the floor with my hands and feet bound in metal chains. I can hear Kelly's and Whitney's voices ringing loud and clear. "No one will be able to see that you forged Caleb's signature for the share transfer agreement with Sam as the recipient, right?" "We'll just keep Caleb locked up here, so who's going to know that the signature is forged? His company has been expanding too quickly. We can't let him ruin Sam. It's all your fault, anyway, Kelly. I wouldn't have had to waste all those years on Caleb if you'd just stolen the data back then!" Taking in my restraints, I let out a self-deprecating smile. All along, I believed that Whitney and I loved each other. Turns out I've just been deluded this whole time. If Kelly and Whitney care about Samuel Gibson that much, they'd better spend every moment of their lives guarding him from now on. I'm going to do everything in my power to destroy him!