Bond

I still have a week before my due date when a truck suddenly hits me, sending me flying several feet and leaving me bleeding profusely on the ground. As I lose consciousness, I call my husband, Wallace Brown, begging him to rush over and save our unborn child, only for him to reply coldly, "It's Beth's 18th birthday party today, Meryl. You can't seriously be pulling one of your stunts on a day like this, can you?" In the next instant, I hear my son, Daniel Brown, exclaiming, "You're always using the baby to threaten us, Mommy! I really hate it when you do that!" Wallace stresses the importance of Beth's birthday party again, demands that I attend immediately, and then hangs up on me. With a pool of blood spreading beneath me, I close my eyes, overcome by despair. When I open my eyes again, I am met by the sight of a death certificate. The doctor delivers a crushing pronouncement. "I'm sorry, but if you had gotten here sooner, we might have been able to save the baby's life…" I look at the death certificate, feeling as though my heart died with my baby. I finally decide to leave this family, yet now they're the ones begging me to stay.

In the backyard of my home, there is a dark red jar that is about half a person's height. It is half buried in the ground, and my whole family forbids me from going near it. But I hear someone inside the jar calling me over and over. That voice says, "Sis, I miss you so much."

My sister had struggled with depression since childhood. The doctor warned that she could not tolerate any kind of stimulation. As a result, my entire life fell silent. To avoid upsetting her, I never dared to laugh at home. I never dared to cry. When I got hurt, I did not even have the right to say it hurt. My parents would hug me with apologetic expressions and say, "You're the good one. Your sister's illness requires the whole family to work together. You're healthy. You're strong. Let her have more, okay?" One day, I accidentally knocked over a cup. The crash sounded enormous in the quiet room, and my sister's emotions shattered at once. My father struck me for the first time. He roared, "Can't you be careful? Do you have to push her until she dies before you're satisfied?" He shoved me to the floor. The back of my head slammed against the corner of the table, and blood poured out. But my whole family rushed to my screaming sister. No one even glanced at me. I lay on the cold floor as my vision blurred and my consciousness began to fade. To them, my sister's feelings were the only emergency. My small injury could wait. They did not know that bleeding inside the skull does not wait.

Mom and Dad keep claiming that I'm their firstborn, so they need to love me with all their hearts. Already, they're saving up for my college funds and keep taking me on vacations abroad just to explore the world. This time, I've gotten a full score on my exams. My parents decide to take me and my four-year-old sister, Amelia Orson, on a trip. Worried that I might mind Amelia's presence, they even specifically explain to me that no one is capable of taking care of Amelia in their stead, so she has to come along. I accept the explanation immediately. But Amelia falls sick right before the trip. There isn't any cough syrup left at home, so I use my pocket money to buy some imported cough syrup and feed Amelia with it. I thought I'd get praised for my efforts. Instead, Mom rushes over to induce vomiting for Amelia. With red-rimmed eyes, she scolds me, "How dare you feed her medicine without checking the source! Do you have any idea how lethal that is? When I was young, I almost died from a dose of misused medication fed by my own sister! How dare you try to harm Amelia, you wretched child!" After that, Mom tells Dad to bring out his suitcase so that she can lock me up in it. "You want to go on a trip because you've scored full marks in your exams, right? Fine! Have all the fun you want in the suitcase!" What they've forgotten is the fact that Dad often uses this suitcase on his business trips, so there's a TSA-approved lock on it. I can't even open the suitcase from inside.

Alexander Morrison doesn't love me, nor does he love our daughter. The only person he loves is his first love, Charlotte Clarke. To maintain his perfect image in Charlotte's eyes, he only allows our daughter to call him "Uncle Alex". This continues until Charlotte becomes pregnant and goes abroad to marry someone else. Alexander drinks himself into oblivion and finally decides to marry me. When he comes home, our daughter gives him 100 forgiveness coupons. I tell him that once those 100 coupons are used up, I'll take our daughter and leave him forever. He holds us both tightly in his arms, swearing he will never make us sad again. During the initial few years of our secret marriage, he indeed does exceptionally well, as not a single coupon is used. That is, until Charlotte returns to the country with her daughter. Every time he abandons me and our daughter for Charlotte and her child, I tear off one forgiveness coupon. Now, only three coupons remain.

In Alabama’s rot-soaked bayous, Drucilla Drakes survives by three rules: silence, scars, and never letting Louise—her Bible-thumping captor—catch her hoping. But when a schoolyard ambush leaves her bleeding beneath a stranger’s leather jacket, invisibility becomes a death sentence. Enter Dragon Morales: New Orleans’ most notorious runaway, a cartel prince turned outlaw mechanic with grease-stained hands and a death wish. He doesn’t save people—he survives them. Yet in Dru’s lashed flesh and hellfire gaze, he sees his own shattered reflection. Their bond is gasoline and matches. Dragon’s father—Colombia’s cartel kingpin—hunts them relentlessly. Louise, armed with voodoo rites and the chaos-hungry loa Marinette, vows to break Dru. Their only allies? The Lou Nwa, a bayou biker gang trading in bullets and black magic, and Papa Legba, the crossroads spirit who offers Dru a lethal bargain: *“Her soul or yours.”* Fleeing through the Deep South’s cursed underbelly, they dodge cartel hitmen, haunted swamps, and safehouses reeking of betrayal. Dark magic seeps into old wounds; family secrets tighten like nooses. Dragon swears he’s too ruined to love. Dru knows she’s too shattered to trust. But in the bayou’s choking heat, desire is a grenade they can’t outrun. This isn’t a fairytale. It’s switchblade kisses and saintly curses—a collision of fire and ruin where protectors become predators. Dru doesn’t need saving; she needs an inferno. And Dragon? He’s got a lighter and nothing left to burn. Will they raze the South to ashes, or become the sacrifice the crossroads demands? One truth remains: in the bayou, even survival leaves scars. **Warning:** No princes here. Just bayou smoke, blood-soaked magic, and the kind of love that devours.

After joining the nation's top research lab as a sophomore, everyone assumes I've taken shortcuts to get there. Mom throws away the handmade gift I had spent days crafting and says with disdain, "I don't have a daughter who's this shameless." Andreas Fitzgerald, my fiance, doesn't hold back, either. He warns coldly, "Remember your place as Mrs. Fitzgerald." Later, when my younger sister, Elaine Wilde, destroys my left hand, they all pressure me to drop the matter. I wake up in the hospital, pain crawling up my arm, and I know exactly what I have to do. Without hesitation, I dial my mentor, George Landon's, number. "I'm ready to join the classified national rocket program."

The day I win a brand-new BMW, I suddenly receive a call from myself, ten years in the future. "Kieran will ask to borrow your car in a bit. And whatever you do, do not lend it to him. He intends to use it to pay off his gambling debt." Even with such an impossibility happening to me, I do not doubt a thing. When Kieran asks for my keys, I shut him down at once. That very night, he drives his old beater car to visit our parents. Along the way, he loses control of the car and collides with another vehicle. Just like that, he slips into a coma. The guilt hit me so hard that I eventually pass out. Mom and Dad stay by my side day and night until I can stand on my own two feet again. But the future version of me sounds cold when she calls again. "They only want to push you onto an operating table. They want your heart to save him!" Growing suspicious, I check their bags and find a donor report. Rage burns through me. I immediately block them on all platforms and throw them out of my home. When news that Kieran dies from blood loss arrives, I learn that they only ever needed my blood—not my heart. I try to find them to tell them the truth and apologize for my mistake. But the mysterious phone rings again. "They hate you because Kieran died. If you go to them now, they will drag you into a suicide pact." I freeze at the revelation, then tell my future myself that I will wait until they calm down. Later, I learn that a thief breaks into their home and kills them. I try to rush over and see them one last time, but a truck hits me and kills me on the spot. I die without ever understanding why the version of me from ten years in the future wanted me dead. When I open my eyes again, I am back on the day I won the prize.

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.

I was born a liar. That was the label my mother gave me. In the Dark Moon Pack, every pup carries a Lunar Mark on their wrist. Green means truth. Red means liar. My twin sister Maya slashed Mommy's ceremonial dress with a blade and blamed the pack hounds. Her wrist stayed soft and green. My mark went crimson when I said I was cold. "Mommy, I'm telling the truth. Please believe me." Elena would crouch down, look me in the eye, and say the same thing every time. "The Goddess's mark is absolute, Selena. Your own heart betrays you." She never touched me. She just looked at my wrist with disgust. No matter how honest I tried to be, my heart would race when I was scared. And every time my pulse spiked, the mark turned red. I lied when I said I was hungry. I lied when I said I loved her. I lied when I cried. After enough years, I stopped fighting back. I started to believe her. Maybe I really was broken. Maybe I was just born wrong. The night I died, I wrote one last line in my Penance Journal. "Mommy, help me. It hurts. Please — just believe me once." She never saw it. She had already locked the door and walked away. I'm sorry, Mommy. I died still trying to get it right. In my next life — will you hold me?