Coolant Bleed Screw Novels & Stories

My best friend said she was just protecting me from bad men. So every time I started dating someone new, she would turn herself into his dream girl. She'd flirt, chase him, and seduce him until she ended up in his bed. And every time, she'd send me the photos. Always with the same cheerful caption: "Bestie! If I hadn't tested him, you'd be heartbroken again. Aren't I good to you?" I was tortured, broken, humiliated. Eventually, I cut her off completely and moved to another city. Then I met the man I thought was my true love—Liam. He was kind, devoted, and loving. I thought I could finally be happy. On my wedding day, I found Madison standing in my dressing room, disguised as my makeup artist. She smiled at me, just like she used to. "Don't worry, bestie," she whispered. "Let me test this one for you. Then you can marry him." She drugged me, then put on my wedding gown and got into bed with Liam. But I woke up in time. I burst into the room with our families. I caught them together. Later, I got pregnant. During labor, I hemorrhaged. Liam watched me bleed and refused to sign the emergency consent form. "Madison just wanted to give herself to me before our wedding—to fulfill her wish," he said coldly. "You humiliated her. You drove her to suicide. She died carrying my child." "You and the bastard in your belly deserve to die too." That was when I realized—the man I loved had already fallen for my best friend. I died in agony. My ashes were thrown into a ditch. Then I opened my eyes. I was back. On my wedding day. And Madison was standing right in front of me, pretending to be my makeup artist.

Some wounds don't bleed where anyone can see them. Sera Voss walked into her mate's study one night carrying the most important secret of her life. She walked out carrying it still. Because before she could open her mouth — before she could find the words for the two pink lines sitting on her bathroom sink, for the tiny heartbeat growing quietly beneath her ribs — Kael Drayden, Alpha of the Ashveil Pack, looked at her across his desk with decided eyes and spoke the words that unmade everything. *I reject you, Sera Voss, as my destined mate.* She felt the bond snap like a spine breaking. She felt the hollow it left — cold and sudden and enormous — open up beneath her ribs where warmth used to live. And she pressed her hand flat against her stomach, and she said nothing. Because he didn't deserve to know. Because her daughter deserved better than growing up in the shadow of a man who chose someone else before she had even drawn her first breath. Because some decisions, once made, cannot be unmade — and Sera Voss was done waiting for people to choose her. She left that night with one bag, one secret, and nothing else. --- She built a life from scratch in a town where nobody knew her name. A diner. A small warm room above a bakery. A landlady named Donna who never asked questions and always made extra food. A routine that kept the grief from swallowing her whole in the quiet hours after midnight when the bond's absence felt loudest and the room felt smallest and she pressed both hands against her growing stomach and talked to her daughter like she was the only person left in the world. Because right then, she was.