Courting Death

After the cruise ship strikes a hidden reef, panicked passengers shove me and Kristen Langford into the sea. My boyfriend, Elijah Jensen, is the ship's captain, so he plunges into the water. But instead of saving me, he grabs Kristen and boards the last lifeboat. I thrash and cry for help, but he slaps my hand away. "You can swim. Stop pretending for attention!" Elijah snaps. "Kristen's body temperature is dropping. I have to get her to a hospital!" The waters around me are pitch-black, and his words feel like a death sentence. When the tracking bracelet I always wear is discovered inside a shark, Elijah dives alone into shark-infested waters, searching for three days and nights. In the end, the brilliant captain who once ruled the oceans can never sail again.

My boyfriend is a lauded attorney. His true love rams into me with her car; my daughter stands bravely before me as the car explodes. She's blown to smithereens. I'm on the brink of death as I'm carried onto a stretcher, but my boyfriend holds his true love's face tenderly. His gaze is filled with heartache as he tells her that he'll get her off scot-free. He ruins the scene of the accident and buys off the witnesses. He even comes to the hospital to threaten me after I've been disfigured from the explosion. In the end, I die after the treatment doesn't help. It's only when the court announces the sentence that he realizes the deceased's personal details match mine perfectly.

My life was left behind in that church fire. When the flames broke out, Cersei lied to me and said Jaeren was still inside. I didn't hesitate. I rushed into the fire without a second thought, only to save my fiancé, Jaeren. Then Cersei shoved me into the flames. By the time Jaeren found us, he picked Cersei up and turned away. He never looked back at me. I was swallowed little by little by the smoke and fire. Later, I stumbled out of the fire alone, covered in soot from head to toe. Jaeren frowned, his face full of impatience. “I didn't take you out first, sure. But couldn't you just call yourself a cab?” “Be glad Cersei is unharmed. Even your death in that fire wouldn’t clear your fault.” He didn't know that I had already suffocated to death in the flames. The one who walked out of the ruins was nothing more than a body still breathing. I made a deal with the vampire in the church basement, trading away my love for Jaeren and every tear I had ever shed for him. In seven days, on the night of the full moon, I will open my eyes again in the dark as one of her kind. From then on, I will no longer be trapped by love. And I will never shed another tear for Jaeren.

My husband was in the late stages of liver cancer. Afraid of dragging me down, he committed suicide by jumping into the river. I couldn’t swim, but I dove in after him without hesitation. To give him the will to live on, I told him about winning the lottery. He pretended to struggle but took the chance to shove me underwater, drowning me. Before I could rest in peace, he ran off abroad with his first love using my money. Only then did I realize that he had planned to fake his death all along just to get rid of me! When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day he jumped into the river. You wanted to die, huh? Well, let me help you with that!

My parents died when I was ten years old, but a big shot in Jade City adopted me. It was rumored that Sean Graham was a cruel and violent man, but he doted on me for nearly ten years. He booked the advertising screens in the city to celebrate my birthday and promised to marry me when I got drunk and pestered him about it. I called him Uncle Sean at his request. Fear gripped me when I woke up in his bed every morning, but I kept it a secret. Yet one time, we accidentally slept with each other. I got pregnant with his child and wanted to keep it, but I knew I would not live for much longer. One day, I heard his conversation with a servant. “Clean up Zella’s room for Yulia.” “But Mr. Graham, Miss Cooper has been staying there for ten years. Didn’t you design it for her?” “No, I only let her stay there because Yulia had gone abroad.” I touched my belly as disappointment gripped me. It turned out that the man who had promised to provide me with a home as long as he lived wanted to drive me away.

The day my husband's first love, who was my sister, died, he sent me into the wilderness, all because I was not a match for the kidney transplant she needed. "Make sure Lisa can’t leave. For pretending to be Emma’s little sister, it’s time she learns her lesson," he ordered. I was abandoned in the dense forest, trapped, and left to fend for myself. Desperate, I sought shelter in a cave, trying to survive. However, wild animals soon picked up my scent and surrounded the cave. In the end, they tore me apart, and I died a brutal, painful death, with my body left exposed and torn in the wilderness. When Benjamin finally saw what was left of me, he lost his mind.

On the day my body gets blasted into pieces, Amanda Stone, my wife and a police captain, is busy riding the merry-go-round with her childhood sweetheart, Mark Horton, and his son, Keith Horton. Three days later, she finally remembers our son, Evan Johnson, and me. "It's been three days! Is he still mad that I used him and Evan to exchange for Mark and Keith? He's even trying to get the entire police squad to play along with this fake disappearing act of his, huh?" "Captain Stone, Caleb has died in the line of duty. Evan was also injur—" "That's impossible! What I did was only a temporary measure. I set up three layers of defense. There was no way anything would've happened to Evan or him!" Lara Chase, Amanda's colleague, turns away. She can no longer bear to look at Amanda. "Mark did it. He lied about the situation and used your authorization to move everyone away. We've already identified the kidnappers. They're the remnants of MW Syndicate. This was all part of their attempt to get revenge against you. "We also found out that, when you were trapped at the border three years ago, it was Caleb who led the rescue attempt and risked his life to bring you to safety, not Mark's deceased wife…"

On the night of the full moon, I take my mate, Kyle Fenwolf, back to my pack for the full moon ceremony. Before the start of the ceremony, I head over to the sacred spring to wash my hands. Upon returning to the venue, I find out that Kyle has gone missing. I quickly looked for the guards, only to be told that I came to the pack on my own. When I asked my packmates, who were here to attend the ceremony, they told me that they never saw anyone by my side. But the thing is, I came back with Kyle! He had just given me the bone flute that he had personally carved! He even told me that he'd teach me how to play it once the ceremony was over! How could he be gone all of a sudden? As I stared at the flute, which was still warm from Kyle's body heat, in my hands, I strongly requested the guards to search around the forest and the pack territory. Thanks to my strong demands, the ceremony was forcibly interrupted. The pack's enforcers searched the entire territory for Kyle, and yet they never found him. They couldn't even pick up on a trace of his scent. They asked my father, who was the pack's Alpha, for answers. But Dad claimed that I was mentally ill, and that I dreamed up a mate on my own. In the end, I was thrown into the dungeon. There, I got ripped into shreds by the other insane wolves. When I open my eyes again, I've returned to the day when I'm meant to bring Kyle home.

"Ms. Jones, the service to fake your death that you requested has been arranged. Here's the agreement. Please sign here." Isabella Jones glanced at the contract that the person placed before her. Client: Isabella Jones Cause of death: Falling from a mountain, eaten by wild animals. Unable to retrieve the remains of the body Time of death: One week from now One week from now would mark the fifth anniversary of her marriage to Samuel Grant. It was also the day she had planned to fake her death and leave him. Since that was the date it all began, it might as well be when it ended.

My family has always considered me a harbinger of misfortune. It's all because I can see a countdown to my relatives' deaths. I tell them when my grandfather, father, and mother will die. It all comes true due to various accidents. My three brothers hate me to the core because they think I cursed my parents and grandfather. My mother actually dies after giving birth to my younger sister, but my brothers dote on her to no end. They say she's their lucky star because everything goes well for the family after she's born. But didn't Mom die while giving birth to her? On my 18th birthday, I see my death countdown when I look at myself in the mirror. I buy an urn I like and prepare a meal. I want to have one last meal with my brothers, but none of them show up even when the timer hits zero…