Courting Death

"If you refuse to apologize, stay here and reflect on your actions! Feel the pain Agnes went through!" Kenneth was the Alpha. His childhood friend was accidentally locked in a storage unit for three days. To punish me, he locked me in a faulty walk-in freezer. He left me with nothing but a piece of bread the size of my palm before locking the door and leaving. Unbeknownst to him, this walk-in freezer wasn't actually faulty. Not long after he left, the cooling system was suddenly activated. I screamed for help and desperately sought ways to survive. Unfortunately, no matter how hard I clawed at the door, nobody came to my rescue. A week later, he finally showed up outside the freezer. He was expecting an apology from me. But when he opened the freezer's door, all he found was my frozen corpse.

I was dying of kidney failure. Henry Colombo—the ruthless Mafia heir who once swore he’d burn the world to keep me alive— found me a donor. But the price… was her. Susan Miller, the woman who’d always lingered between us, smiled as she set her terms: “Be mine for one month. Pretend you love me—and I’ll save her life.” He agreed. He said it was just to save me. But every lie, every kiss, every photo she posted online was another nail in my coffin. Each time the surgery drew near, she invented a new delay—a fever, a nightmare, a tender bruise. And Henry believed her. He always believed her. The night my heart flatlined on the operating table, he was across the city, feeding her grapes under candlelight, whispering her name—the name of the woman who had let me die. When he finally learned the truth—that every tear she shed was rehearsed, every promise she made was poison— he destroyed everything. Her lies. Her wealth. Her family name. His own empire. But none of it brought me back.

My mate, Alpha Logan, was at the Sanctuary preparing to mark me when he was called away. “The mating doesn’t have to be on a full moon,” he said. “Something urgent has come up.” He left me alone in the sacred Sanctuary on the night of the full moon, all because his human friend, Lila, had been injured by a rogue wolf while hiking. A moment later, his text came through: [Lila needs a special serum. I have to get her to Canada within 48 hours. Let's reschedule the mating ceremony.] I’d lost count of how many times Logan had chosen Lila over me. But this time, I wasn’t going to get jealous, throw a fit, and ultimately cave like I always did. Because Logan has no idea that if we don't complete our mating bond by tomorrow, I'm going to die.

After a venomous snake bites me, my husband, Daniel Dawson, injects the only antivenom into my adopted sister, Grace Winton. Before I black out, I see my parents, Daniel, and my son, Ethan Dawson, all gathered around Grace, while I lie alone on the grass, completely ignored. When I come to, my colleague shakes his head and tells me the toxin has already spread. Within 48 hours, my body will begin to rot from the inside, and I'll die in unbearable pain. I give up the conservative plan and swallow a potent painkiller instead. Over the next two days, I transfer the hospital my grandfather gave me and every asset in my name to Grace. I divorce Daniel and place both his and Ethan's hands into Grace's. When I put Grace's name on the amyotrophic lateral sclerosis treatment protocol I've spent five years developing, they finally smile, hold my hand, and tell me we're finally a real family. I stay silent and only smile at them. I wonder what their faces will look like two days later when they see my body.

My boyfriend is a forensic doctor. I've been abducted and tied to a bomb—there's only ten minutes to detonation. The abductors force me to call my boyfriend, but all I get is a scolding. "What the hell do you want, Michelle? What are you playing at, using your life as an excuse just because you're jealous? "Vi's cat has already been stuck in a tree for three days. She loves it like it's her life! If you delay me from saving it, you'll be a murderer!" I hear a coquettish voice ring out on the other end of the line. "Thank you for this, Kev. You're amazing!" I recognize that voice—it belongs to my boyfriend's childhood friend. I text my boyfriend when the bomb is about to explode. "Farewell forever. I pray we won't meet each other again in another life."

Five years ago, I was the rising star of the nation’s top chemistry research lab, but on the eve of publishing the results of my study, my husband’s crush, Grace, killed me. She made several people violate me and cut my face up. Then, she injected sulfuric acid into my stomach, crushed my teeth and bones, and discarded my body without anyone’s knowledge. At that time, I was three months pregnant. But she told everyone that I stole the project’s research results and fled to another country. Jim, my husband, personally wrote a report to the government to label me as a globally wanted criminal. Five years later, a livestreamer who did nighttime explorations found my dried-up corpse in the basement of an abandoned warehouse.

I died on the day I was supposed to marry Ryan Wolfe. When I didn’t show up on time, he angrily married his childhood sweetheart, Lorelei Floyd, instead, and publicly announced, “Alexis Harding cheated before our wedding and called it off herself!” The rumors crushed my mother, and she died from a heart attack right then and there. But Ryan seemed to have forgotten that he, in a fit of rage to defend Lorelei, slashed my arm and locked me in a basement for ten whole days. I begged him and pleaded for mercy, but all I got was his cold reply. “You’ll stay here for a while, so you can fully understand the pain you caused Lorelei. And maybe, just maybe, it’ll rid you of your wicked thoughts.” When he found my corpse, ravaged by maggots, he lost his mind.

My father's adopted daughter was only locked in the cramped storage closet for around fifteen minutes, yet he punished me by tying me up and throwing me inside. He even sealed off the ventilation with towels. "As Wendy's older sister, if you can't take care of her, then you should also experience how scared she was," he declared coldly. He knew I was claustrophobic, but my desperate pleas for mercy, my terror, were met with nothing but heartless reprimands. "Let this be a lesson on how to be a good sister." As the last sliver of light disappeared, swallowed by the oppressive darkness, I struggled helplessly. A week passed before my father finally remembered my existence and decided it was time to end my punishment. "Let's hope this week served as a good lesson for you, Jennifer. If this happens again, you will no longer be allowed in this house." He would never know that I had already taken my last breath in that suffocating room. My body had begun to rot in the darkness.

I plan a family trip at my mother Lucia Sweeney's request. While avoiding the danger zones, my sister Linda Harper and I are ambushed by rogues. To protect her, I throw myself in the path of their claws and get driven into a silver mine. As I fall, my back is slashed open to the bone, and shards of silver embed deep into my right leg. The searing silver poison spreads quickly, burning through me and my wolf. My wolf is whimpering—she's close to death. However, as the pack's chief healer, Mom gathers all the healers around Linda to give her a full check-up over a few minor scrapes. I sob and beg her to save me first. "Mom, the poison has almost reached my heart. I can't hold on anymore." She turns around impatiently and yells, "Are you seriously still fighting with Linda now? Do you have any idea how close she came to getting clawed in the face by a silver claw? Our pack doesn't have a wolf as heartless as you!" And in that moment, I hear my wolf's final whimper, saying goodbye. I finally fall asleep in the cold wind, never waking up again.

The moment I was born, I took her life. They called me a murderer. Marcus used to burn me with cigarette butts, and Dad would say it was my fate. “You’re a curse. If you had any conscience, you’d have gone to join Mom a long time ago to repay what you owe.” When Marcus was diagnosed with kidney failure, that same cold, distant father knelt in front of me. “Please… save him…” I put my hand on Dad’s shoulder. “Dad, I’ll do the surgery. But can you promise me one thing?” Dad performed the surgery himself. It was a success. He saved the son he loved most and took the life of the daughter he hated. But after I died, Dad turned himself in to the police, and Marcus lost his mind.