Could Have Been Us

Nikkie needs to earn at least 70,000 dollars for her mother's medical expenses. She can't get that much money from her part-time job. What kind of job could she get as a high school graduate to earn that much money? As she was crying about her poverty in a corner of the hospital lobby, a couple in their mid-thirties, dressed in fancy clothes, suddenly approached her. "Sorry, we accidentally heard about your predicament. Would you like to help us, and get 70,000 dollars in return?" the woman asked kindly. "What do I have to do? I'll do anything!" said Nikkie excitedly. "Be a surrogate mother for us."

When we were eight, Kaelen burned down an entire pack territory just to save me. He swore an oath before the Moon Goddess to be with me forever, to never leave my side. Not even his own father could keep us apart. Then, a pregnant human girl reeking of his scent strutted into my office, a smug smirk on her face. "He says you're old and boring," she gloated. "That your scars turn his stomach." He seems to forget that he's the reason I have every last one of them. And I am not some weak woman he can just humiliate.

“Is Batman my daddy?” my son Jackson pipes up from the back seat. Of course not! But telling him that his father is Asher Giordano, leader of New York’s deadliest mafia empire is out of the question. He found us anyway. “What have you done with Jackson?” I demand. “My son?” Asher asks calmly, looking around my small apartment disdainfully. “The one you’ve been hiding from me and forcing to live in this…pigeonhole?” Our son, not yours. “You’re the one who left me at the alter without as much as a ‘see you later’. If you left me a forwarding address to contact you at, I must have missed it.” Asher regards me coldly. I don’t know this man. The boy I fell in love with was warm, giving and open. This man in front of me is frostier than the arctic with his glacial eyes. “I know you know who I am and what I’m capable of, so don’t try anything stupid, Emmeline. There’s nowhere you can run where I can’t find you.” “Gosh, Asher, that’s like a line straight out of a movie. Have you been practicing delivering it in front of a mirror?”

I worked for a restaurant, and our boss loved making empty promises about giving us restaurant shares. The boss said we would start with zero shares, but we could earn 0.01% for every two hours of overtime, covering someone else’s work or saving the restaurant 1,000 bucks. I suggested she write this down in an official document and have someone track it properly. She just smiled and told everyone to work harder. She never actually put it in writing. The experienced staff did not believe her, but one prep cook took it seriously. At the end of the year, he went to the boss to claim his shares. The boss said, “Sorry, the head chef told me there’s no official document, so it doesn’t count. You can’t claim any shares.” The prep cook worked hard all year and got nothing for it, so he took his anger out on me. The day before I was going home for the New Year, he killed me with a knife. “If you hadn’t said it doesn’t count without an official document, this whole restaurant would’ve been mine!” I lay in a pool of blood. When I opened my eyes, I was back to the day the boss first made those empty promises.

During a battle between packs, both my adopted sister Chloe and I were injured. A Rogue tore me apart, leaving me a mangled heap of flesh and blood. My wolf was already fading from my spirit. But my Alpha mate, Damon, ran straight to Chloe. She had nothing more than a scratch on her face. He refused to use his Alpha power to save me, blaming me for the entire disaster. "Elena, if you hadn't slowed us down, none of this would have happened! How could Chloe have gotten hurt?" "You're not worth wasting the pack's resources on." In the end, I was left for dead in the forest, unclaimed and forgotten. And when the truth came out that I had died to save him? That cold-blooded Alpha who rejected me so viciously went insane.

When Heather first moved in with her Grandmother, after the loss of her parents, at the age of fourteen she thought she would live a quiet life. That all changed when she met the young Alphas of the Twin Moon pack. The strong attraction that they have towards each other can't be normal. She has been pulled into curses and family secrets. All while trying to navigate high school, boys, jealous mean girls and learning to understand her own desires in life and love. They weren't kidding when they said growing up isn't easy. Lucas POV I inhale deeply, taking in the mouth-watering scent of roasted walnuts. I have always liked her scent, but I could never place it. For some reason, it has become so strong there is no doubt what it is. I nuzzle into the side of her neck. “You are so beautiful, and I don't think I could ever get enough of you.” Reed starts placing kisses on the other side of her neck, as he says. “I agree, brother, she does smell divine and her body feels amazing under my touch. We should mark her as ours now. Can you smell how much she wants us too?” Heather POV I just want to get off this road and away from this feeling of being watched. As that thought goes through my head my car is hit from the side. I'm not sure what hit me but I'm pinned between the seat and all the airbags. I'm still trying to clear my fuzzy head when I hear what sounds like footsteps coming towards the car. I feel a sharp jab in the side of my neck. Before I back out I get the hint of a familiar scent.

I was a keeper of many secrets, and I have been for a long time. Secrets that I can't ever share with the world because if I did, it would not only put me in danger but everyone I care about. I had given up the life that had taken so much from me, well, so I thought, but when the man that ruined everything for me showed back up, I don't have a choice but to get back into it. One more target and I will be free, that is what I keep telling myself. I have done this before; it won't be the first life that I have taken. I was hoping it would be the last. If I knew at the time, my target would be the man I was slowly falling for. I would have found a way to get out of it. But now I was in too deep, and I can't do anything about it, well so I thought. It turns out I am not the only one with dark secrets, and between us, it would be those dark secrets that would help change both our lives forever. Co-wrote with Emma-Louise

"Stay away from me you monster!” I screamed at the top of my lungs while I sat there breathless and sweaty. My dress was ripped in half and my hair stood in my face. My eyes were furiously staring at him while I tried releasing my tied hands. ******* “Who the f**k are you, Levi? You can't just barge into my life and expect me to answer your every question.” I retorted, my blood already heating up. “Savannah, how could you keep our child a secret from me? Is this your way of punishing me for what happened between us?” His voice reverberated with an intense wave of anger. “Levi, I never wanted to keep her from you. You never gave me the chance to talk. You cut me off from everyone and everything. I was scared…scared of how you would react, scared of the consequences for both her and me,” I replied with tears streaming down my face. Levi interrupted me before I could finish what I was saying. It would have been helpful if he had taken the time to listen before interrupting. “Scared? Do you think that's an excuse? You denied me the right to be a father and be a part of her life. I won't stand for that” I tried explaining further, “Levi, I never denied you anything. You never gave me the opportunity, and I didn't know how to approach this situation. I wanted to protect her, to shield her from any pain or harm.” “Protect her? By keeping her away from her father? How could you be so selfish?

When my best friend, Tricia Tate, finds out I have secretly switched my husband's used rubber with her father-in-law's, she has a full-on meltdown right then and there. In my last life. Tricia had been abused by her husband and asked to stay at my place for a while. I felt sorry for her and agreed to let her stay temporarily. But just two weeks later, she unexpectedly found out she was pregnant. I was about to ask her what had happened when her husband suddenly showed up and broke my husband's leg before dragging my whole family into court. In court, Tricia sobbed uncontrollably, accusing my husband, Jayden Lowe, of being a predator and claiming he had assaulted her while she was living with us. She said I didn't just ignore it but helped him carry it out. Jayden and I denied everything in court, but she pulled out an amniocentesis report, proving that the baby was indeed Jayden's. The internet exploded with hate against us, and the court sentenced both of us to prison, ordering us to pay her ten million in emotional damages. In the end, Jayden and I went to jail, while Tricia took that ten million, aborted the baby, and lived happily ever after with her husband. When I open my eyes again, I am back to the very day Tricia came to stay at my house.

On the day I was declared pregnant, I ran into my husband in the ob-gyn. He was with his long-lost love for a prenatal checkup. "I'm not going home tonight. As you can see, I have business to attend to," Lawrence said quietly as he left with an arm wrapped around Melissa. I fell silent and booked an abortion surgery. Everyone around us thought I was a simp for Lawrence. They thought I wouldn't leave, no matter how badly he mistreated me. He had the same thought. No one knew that I only married him to repay a debt. That debt was now repaid. Ten years was up, and I could finally end this abominable marriage.