Bathed

The day I died was Mommy’s birthday. For once, she left me an unusually large slice of cake. I hovered before it, greedy, leaning in to breathe in its sweetness. But the very next second, she handed the cake to my younger sister, Bella Tesla. “Have some, Bella. Better you than that ungrateful girl!” Then she turned to Daddy, who was filming nearby. “You recorded everything, right? When she returns, make her watch it. Don’t let her say again that we play favorites! “Of all things to learn, she learned how to run away from home! “We spoiled her! If she has any sense, let her never come back!” She sneered as she slammed the table and cursed at me, never noticing the panic on Bella’s face as she held the cake. She also failed to notice Bella’s disheveled hair. She noticed even less the dark stains of blood on her sleeve. Blood that belonged to me.

From as far back as I can remember, I knew my mom hated me. She gives me sleeping pills when I'm three. When I'm five, she tries pesticide instead. But I'm hard to get rid of. By the time I'm seven, I've already learned how to fight back. If she refuses to give me food, I flip the table so no one can eat either. If she beats me up until I'm on the ground, writhing in pain, I go after her beloved son the same way, leaving him bruised and bawling. That's how we stay locked in battle until I turn 12. Everything changes when my youngest sister is born. I'm clumsily trying to help with her wet diaper when Mom suddenly shoves me against the wall. The look in her eyes holds both disgust and fear. "What were you trying to do to my daughter? I knew it. You take after that monster of a father. Why didn't you just die with him?" I hold my aching head. For the first time, I don't fight back. I believe she's right. My existence is a mistake. I should never have been alive.

It is the third year of my marriage when the video of my bodyguard, Julian Sutherland, holding an umbrella over me in a downpour goes viral. Overnight, the internet becomes obsessed with the "Icy Protector and his Forbidden Heiress." Netizens are relentless; they dig through the archives until they unearth a ten-year-old clip. In the video, a girl was holding a pair of high-heeled shoes while sprinting through the Folander airport. My friend teased, "No way, Ms. Serina Brown. Are you really flying back home to confess to that poor man? What could you possibly see in him?" The camera shakes, capturing my youthful face. I was just a reckless 20-year-old. "I love Julian. I love everything about him." That night, after seeing the video, Julian loses his composure and bursts into my room. "I didn't know you loved me back then. I thought… I thought… God, it was never supposed to end like this." I pull my coat around me and stand rooted on the spot, remaining silent. Suddenly, a mocking laugh echoes from behind me. Someone places their hand firmly on my waist and says, "Are you trying to reminisce about your love with my wife right in front of me? Do I look dead to you?"

|SUTON| n. The approach of death or end of something. "What did I do to deserve this?" He chuckled before saying, "You were born princess," She bathed in her own tub of blood. And her watched her, finding pleasure. He was killing her While she was saving him

Clever has never thought he would end up like this: bathed and fed by a human who calls him Cutie, for Moon Goddess's sake, he is an Alpha! "How can I flee the horrible place? Seems no way! Er--" mumbling, he is being caressed by her, and here comes the food he hates most. "No more pet food!" What will an Alpha do when he has to stay in his wolf form and is mistaken for a husky? "Come on, you little Cutie, I'm sorry." "Don't call me Cutie." A man suddenly appeared and said so.

Seraphina Smith lived for the spotlight, a prima ballerina bathed in its every glow. But when a powerful sponsor fixates on her, that light morphs into a cage. Desperate, she flees, tumbling from her world of grace into the brutal, shadowed realm of Hugo Volkov, a ruthless underground boxer. He's an unexpected refuge, a dangerous calm in the storm she barely survived. Yet, as their forbidden connection deepens, Seraphina discovers her escape was just the beginning. The man she ran from is merely a ghost compared to the true threat, and Hugo Volkov isn't just her unlikely protector—he's the very reason her life is about to shatter all over again.

Betrayed by her fated mate and abandoned by her pack, she is marked for death by the family who raised her. Donika is supposed to be weak, wolfless, voiceless, and disposable. But on the day she’s forced to marry the man who broke her, a royal menace crashes the wedding. The ruthless Lycan King claims her as his and drags her into a kingdom that once bathed in her parents’ blood. But as she begins to find her footing in this new realm, something awakens inside her, and a buried bloodline screams to be freed. Donika learns the truth: her powers were never gone…they were suppressed. Will the powers long held back finally rise… or consume her whole?

The afternoon my critical condition notice was issued, Silas Stenson popped a bottle of champagne in the lab. On social media, a photo showed him and Wynter Keller standing side by side in the golden sunset, their white coats bathed in light. The caption read only one line—'Ten years—it finally worked.' Everyone said he was devoted, that he'd spent ten sleepless years trying to save me. When the nurse, her eyes red, showed it to me on her phone, I was staring at the wavering lines on the monitor. No one knew that the drug had already been perfected a year ago. And I was the only candidate who wasn't allowed to receive it.

Channary always believed the Moon had blessed her. Born to an Alpha family, she was destined for greatness. So on the night of the Blood-Moon Unity Festival, a gathering where newly made wolves seek their fated mates, she was certain that fate was on her side. But as the blood-red moon bathed the night sky, her life took a dark turn. Drugged and mated against her will, Channary was left abandoned in The Grove, shunned by her pack and disowned by her father, the Alpha. Years later, Channary lives four packs away, raising her twin daughters in secrecy, piecing together a quiet life as she leaves the past behind. But as her daughters’ school project awakens their curiosity about their family roots, Channary's carefully guarded walls begin to crumble. Reluctantly, she attends a meeting with their teacher, where an unexpected encounter brings her face to face with a man who claims to be her mate—the one she’d sworn never to forgive—and the father of her children.

On the night of the Silvermoon Festival, the entire Black Forest pack is bathed in the light of the Moon Goddess. I'm about to share the spectacle with Kaelen through the mind-link, but then I spot a familiar figure. Kaelen Payne, my Alpha and fated mate, is holding a she-wolf in his arms. She tilts her face up to him, her voice edged with challenge. "Kaelen, prove I'm not just a secret. Mark me." My blood seems to freeze as I hear Kaelen murmur his agreement before pressing his mouth to hers. My wolf lets out a painful howl inside me. Just an hour ago, Kaelen's voice had come through the mind-link, "My Luna, I wish I could see the festival too, but there's an emergency at the border. Don't forget to share it with me through the mind-link." My fingertips turn cold, and I instinctively reach for him through the mind-link.