Counter Attack Reviews Novels & Stories

I’m a werewolf, eight months pregnant with my vampire mate's hybrid child. When the contractions hit, my vampire mate, Justin, locked me in an ice coffin carved with runes meant to suppress childbirth. I screamed. I begged him. He just said, "Wait." But this was all for his childhood sweetheart. Isolde. The pureblood vampire had used dark blood magic to carry his pure-blood heir without having sex. The first vampire child born in a millennium would receive the Progenitor's ultimate blessing. It would purify the bloodline. It would break a curse generations in the making. "That honor belongs to Isolde's child," Justin said, his voice pure ice. "You already have my love, Gracie. This coffin just ensures you give birth after her." The pain of the contractions tore through me. I begged him to take me to the Bloodspring Sanctuary. He leaned in, his cold fingers gripping my chin. "Stop the act. I should have seen it sooner. You never loved me. You were an outcast in the werewolf world. You only wanted my power and my title." "You're so desperate you'd risk our child with your savage wolf tricks, just to ruin a pureblood's blessing... You're poison." Tears streamed down my face. I trembled, my voice shattering. "The baby's coming—I can't stop it. Please, I'll make a blood oath. I don't care about the blessing. I just want you!" He scoffed, a hint of pained betrayal in his eyes. "If you loved me, you wouldn't have run to my mother. You wouldn't have poisoned her mind against Isolde." "I'll be back after she receives the blessing. After all, the child you're carrying is mine, too." He stood guard outside the sanctuary where Isolde's ritual was taking place. He didn't give me another thought. Not until he saw the halo of the blessing crown Isolde. He ordered his blood thrall to release me. But the thrall's voice trembled with terror. "My lord… Lady Gracie and the child… their life signs… they're gone." In that instant, Justin’s world shattered.

When my best friend and I realized we had been reborn and traveled back several decades, we locked eyes, collapsed into each other's arms, and sobbed, shouting that we wanted to break off our engagements. The entire neighborhood whispered that we had lost our minds. But only we knew the truth. In our past lives, this was the day everything was sealed: she married a battalion commander, Ned Stark, and I became the wife of a high school teacher, Robbie Stark. My husband betrayed me. For the sake of that pretentious whore, Scarlett Wheaton, he stole my university admission letter and let her take my place on campus. The world mocked me as a failure, and Robbie stood by in silence. After we married, every time he touched me, he would immediately write another love letter to Scarlett—atoning for his supposed guilt. "Scarlett, even if I can't be with you in this life, my soul will always belong to you alone." Even my own child despised me, calling me an ignorant village woman, urging me again and again to divorce so that his father could be with his "true love," Scarlett. And my best friend, Rachel Croft—born the daughter of a factory director—was tricked by her husband, Ned, under the pretense of buying a house. He drained her savings and her wages for twenty long years. It wasn't until she fell gravely ill and went to sell the house that she discovered the deed he had given her was a forgery. The real house—the one paid in full—was in Scarlett's name. One of Scarlett's dresses cost more than my friend's entire monthly salary. When Rachel begged to reclaim what rightfully belonged to her, she was met only with contempt from Ned and her child. "All you ever care about is money. You're nothing like Scarlett, who isn't materialistic at all. Your illness is retribution," Ned had said. "Exactly. Only someone as noble and kind as Scarlett deserves to be my mother!" her child had said. Rachel and I both spent our lives working ourselves to the bone, only to end with nothing—dying bitter and broken from the injustice. But this time, fate has given us another chance. I will go to university. Rachel will become a wealthy woman. This time, without us paving the way, those shameless men and that wretched woman think they can still live happily ever after? Dream on.

For one year, I believed Matteo De Luca had truly fallen in love with me. Our marriage began as an alliance, but he held me every night, kissed me before council meetings, and fastened the De Luca Donna brooch at my throat as if I already belonged beside him. Then his first love, Vanessa Ashford, came back. Within days, our official ceremony was postponed, her access was added to the Donna wing, and Matteo stopped wearing the family signet he once used to claim me in public. He said it was council business. But council business did not leave amber perfume on his skin. It did not sit beside him on a private jet to Palm Beach. And it certainly did not smile from the Donna’s chair while his friends watched me lose my place. The final humiliation came at a private dinner, when someone asked whether I was Matteo’s wife. He looked at me, then said calmly, “Elena and I have an arrangement.” That night, I stopped waiting to be chosen. Matteo could keep his first love, his title, and the home he let her enter. I packed my passport, my Florence contract, and the prenatal report he had never seen. Then I left New York with his child.

Right after Ethan and I announced our mating ceremony, his childhood sweetheart from the pack, Sophia, came rushing back. And she flat-out demanded I go through a "bloodline trial." "Someone like you, a wolf outcast, you're definitely up to no good. You have to pass this month-long bloodline trial before our pack will accept your mating!" With Ethan basically giving them the nod, Sophia and her pack betas put me through hell. They deliberately messed with my moonlight alchemy circle, almost tore my mind apart. The backlash from the moon energy tortured me until I almost broke. My body felt like it was being ripped to shreds. They contaminated my sacred water potions. The choking fumes nearly suffocated me. The betas were cruel and vicious. "She's just a lone wolf anyway. If she dies, no pack will back her up." Then, Sophia stole the Moon Goddess sacred artifact my grandma left me—the Moon Alchemy Cauldron. She taunted me, all cocky. "If you've got the guts, try summoning the Moon Goddess's power on the blood moon night to take it back! Otherwise, I'll use your family's crappy old cauldron as a chamber pot!" I’ve had enough. I’m so sick of these ‘trials,’ and there’s no way in hell I’m mating with Ethan.

My sister, Yvonne Jones, tried to murder the childhood friend of a rich heir in order to seduce him. Yvonne poisoned the woman's drink and pulled out her oxygen tube after she was sent to the hospital. When the rich heir arrived in a rush, Yvonne cried in his arms daintily. "I'm so sorry. This is all my fault. I failed to protect her." I witnessed everything in the ward but didn't say a word about it. In my previous lifetime, I stopped Yvonne from poisoning the woman. I knew the rich heir would never let her get away with it if he found out about it. Yvonne was forced to give up her plan and even praised me for my foresight. However, she ended up poisoning me instead and stabbed me in the heart with her dagger when I got dizzy. "This is your fault! Die! If you hadn't stopped me, Sean Graham would've been mine!" When I opened my eyes next, I had returned to the day of the poisoning.

The day my adopted sister Xina was diagnosed with a rare blood disease, I was captured by rival pack hunters and taken across pack territories. In a hidden den beneath the mountains, I was chained like an omega during the day and subjected to endless humiliation. At night, they locked me in a moonless chamber and extracted my blood and bone marrow while I was conscious. By the time my pack found me, my body was broken beyond recognition, covered in bite marks, and infected with numerous diseases that even our supernatural healing couldn't combat. My mother, Alpha Serena, looked at me barely clinging to life, and howled so painfully she collapsed several times. My brother Ivan even traveled beyond our ancestral lands to find healers who could treat me. But in my half-conscious state, I accidentally overheard their conversation: "Mother, we captured Lisa just to save Xina, and let her be violated by so many rogues. Now we're taking one of her kidneys too—isn't that going to kill her?" Mother was silent for a long time, then choked up and said: "For Xina, I had no choice." "Besides, Lisa challenged Xina's rank all these years, made her severely depressed. This is just me atoning to Xina on her behalf." "It doesn't matter if she's been tainted. From now on, we'll keep her in the packhouse and take care of her. That'll count as compensation." As the silver blade sliced into my body, tears streamed uncontrollably from my eyes. A den with four wolves... was simply too crowded.

My husband died unexpectedly, and my mother-in-law adopted a newborn boy. She said she wanted to keep this child by her side as a reminder of my husband. Therefore, I raised him as my own child. Later, when he grew up, I gave him the company with peace of mind. The first thing my son did after taking power was to have someone lock me up in the basement and torture me. He said, "If it weren't for you, I wouldn’t have been separated from my parents all these years." At the moment of my death, my husband, who had supposedly passed away for many years, appeared with his first love in his arms. "Sophia, how does it feel to be cheated for more than ten years? Fortunately, you raised a son for me so that we can live happily without you." Angered to death, I could only watch the three of them. When I opened my eyes again, I returned to the day when my husband died unexpectedly.

The first time I lived, my sister and I found two dragon eggs. The black one pulsed with raw, untamed power. My sister, Isabella, claimed it without a second thought. The white one was left for me. A cracked, forgotten thing. It held only a whisper of magic. I took it out of pity. Within a year, the black dragon shattered his shell and emerged a man so beautiful it was a curse. He became Isabella's devoted weapon, his power forging her path to godhood. Meanwhile, the white egg fed on me. I poured everything I had into my white egg. My magic, my money, my soul. For ten long years, it gave me nothing. Everyone said to abandon it. But I couldn’t. I was an orphan, ignored by my sister. I just wanted a companion. But as the dark plague swept the lands, the egg I'd nurtured for a decade hatched overnight—while I was dying, he soared past me to save Isabella. He could have hatched years ago. Could have been human all along. But he chose Isabella. He mistook her for his savior. Then I was back to the day it all began. This time, Isabella lunged for the white egg first, afraid I'd take it. I slung my worn satchel of herbs over my shoulder. Turned my back on them both. "You can have them both," I said calmly. "I choose myself." This life, I swore I would have nothing to do with Adrian. But now, he's the one filled with regret, willing to give his own life just to have me look at him one more time.

Bianca is dying. Acute myeloid leukemia, stage three. The family doctor told me on the phone—bone marrow transplant, only option, perfect match. Identical twins share ninety-nine percent compatibility. I crushed the diagnosis report. My name was at the top: Gemma Blackwell. But the doctor trembled, whispering apologies. A clerical error. The sick twin was Bianca. The cure was me. I had to get home. Rain lashed the taxi windows. I rehearsed the scene: Father setting down his cigar, Mother gasping, me explaining the mix-up. The report has my name, but the blood work is Bianca's. I can fix this before it's too late. My phone lit up. Family group chat. Father's message was short: [Gemma is terminal. Bianca forbidden from donation. Family decision.] My blood turned to ice. They had seen the misdelivered file. They thought I was the one dying—and they had voted to let me rot. When I pushed open the door and saw Father, I felt it— the temperature drop, the world freezing around me. Tears burned my eyes. I couldn't stop them. "Father," I said, my voice barely steady. "I have a question for you." He looked up from his cigar, annoyed. "If it were Bianca dying," I whispered. "Would you have made me give her my marrow?" The room went silent. He set down the cigar. A long pause. "No," he said finally. "Of course. We have resources. We would find another donor. We would never ask you to take that risk." I smiled a little. Just a small, sad smile. "Good," I said softly. "That's exactly what you said. Don't regret this."

I was born blessed by the god of fortune. No matter where I work, I can close major deals while lying down asleep. The underboss of the Castellano mafia family discovers this secret. He shows up at my door personally and invites me to join as a consigliere in name only. He offers me a six-figure annual salary and chauffeur service. He even installs a special ten-foot-wide massage bed in my office just for sleeping. After I join the Castellano family, arms deals finalize one after another. Several stalled collaborations come back to life. The Castellano family's reputation climbs steadily. Until the boss' girlfriend shows up to inspect for the first time. She grabs a pair of scissors and, in front of everyone, shreds my mattress to pieces. "Useless! We don't pay you all this money to sleep! "Starting tomorrow, you're working as a bar hostess. And you'll be paid like one too." I rub my sleepy eyes and stare at her in confusion. Last night, to help the Castellano family finalize that casino operation rights contract, I didn't sleep a wink. I barely fall asleep, so how am I useless? The soldato beside her breaks into a sweat. "Signora, she's…" "Shut up!" she cuts him off arrogantly. "From now on, I'm the one in charge of the Castellano family!" Fine. Since there's no place for me here, I'll find somewhere else to sleep. I hear the rival family's boss is willing to give me an entire luxury estate.