Death Mask Jim Butcher

I'm cursed with the most deadly spell of the werewolf pack—leaving me with only a month left to live. However, no one in my family knows about this. Ever since they'd adopted Natali Fisher, an orphan who greatly resembles my older sister, they've poured all their love and attention into her—and stopped caring about me. And at that very moment, I'm curled up in a corner of the woodshed, with blood steadily dripping from the corners of my lips. Dad, Mom, and my older brother, Kent Greene, probably think that I'm throwing another tantrum and am deliberately hiding from them. But that isn't the case this time. They are currently outside cooking Natali's favorite mushroom soup in the courtyard. Their happy laughter fills the air, painting the picture of a warm, loving family. Maybe I could even believe this is a happy family if I weren't about to die soon.

Once upon a time, Kayla thought she and Winston would be together until the day they died. She would never have expected them to take separate paths so soon. After retrieving her diagnosis report, she sees him holding another woman in his arms. A final tear trickles down her face. She's tired and doesn't want to use whatever time she has left to argue with him. She makes the arrangements for everything that will happen after her death. Then, she prepares a final gift for Winston. From this day onward, she'll leave for the afterworld while he remains on Earth. They won't see each other again.

When my fiance's student argued with me, she knocked over a gas cylinder and caused an explosion. As the fire spread, my fiancé rushed into the lab wearing a gas mask. However, his priority was to carry his student to safety. As he left, he said, "Wait for the rescue team! A teacher should treat their students like how a parent treats their children. If something happens to Amanda, you don't deserve to be a teacher!" In the end, I inhaled too much toxic gas and died, never having waited long enough for the rescue team to arrive. Since I was the only one who had mastered the core data of the lab, no one could take my place. This meant that five years of hard work in the lab were destroyed, and Astran University was kicked out of a global research project. Later, William, the once esteemed professor of Astran University, became a pariah—someone whom everyone scorned and reviled.

The Rogue King disguises himself as a food delivery person to assassinate my mate—Lucas Wolfgang, the Alpha of Moonbane pack. It's Valentine's day, but Lucas is spending it with his childhood sweetheart. When the Rogue King's assassination fails, he threatens me with my daughter Tina and forces me to ingest wolfsbane. I speak to him to drag things out while contacting Lucas through our mind-link. "Lucas, Tina and I need you…" However, Lucas has cut off our mind-link. He doesn't respond, and I have no choice but to take the wolfsbane. Before the Rogue King leaves, he mocks me for being a failure. I'm the Luna of Moonbane pack, yet I don't have my husband's heart. Tina calls Lucas. "Come home, Daddy! Mommy's bleeding everywhere!" He merely says coldly, "I've told you this many times, Tina. Stop being a liar like your mother!" I've never lied to him, and neither has Tina. Ultimately, he kneels before my grave in tears, looking like a poor little puppy. He begs me not to abandon him.

My husband had a heart attack on his way to work and died. All I could see was his body when I rushed to the hospital. I was heartbroken and bedridden. When I was about to die, I saw on the news that he won a lottery ticket worth 300 million dollars. My bestie cashed the prize money with him. When I opened my eyes again, I was back to the day when my husband faked his death. But I wanted to make his death real this time! “Are you from the funeral home? My husband is dead. We need to plan a cremation for him right away!”

In the third year of my relationship with Aden, he died in a war between werewolf packs. His beta twin brother, James, brought back the obsidian pendant that Aden had dropped on the battlefield. He told me in a choked voice, “Emily, Aden isn’t coming home.” I fainted on the spot. After waking up, I went mad and tried to go to the battlefield to die with Aden. However, James held me back. Later on, I attempted suicide multiple times, only to be saved by James and his mother, Louise. All the werewolves in Moon Forest Pack said that Aden and I were deeply bonded. It was not until the third month after Aden’s death that I finally discovered the one who died wasn’t him at all.

"Selene, your bloodline is too lowly. You don't deserve to be a Luna! You must let your Alpha mark his sister-in-law!" My mother-in-law despises me because I'm a lowly Omega. When my mate's brother dies in an accident, my mother-in-law wants me to allow my mate, Eugene Latham, to have pups with his sister-in-law, Kristy Unwin, because of her superior bloodline. Otherwise, Eugene will lose his right to become Alpha! Eugene wraps his arms around me tenderly and says, "You're the only one in my heart, but you need to understand that the pack can't go without an Alpha. I'll announce to everyone that you're my Luna once Kristy's pregnant and I become Alpha, okay?" I love him deeply, so I believe him. However, when Eugene goes from sleeping with Kristy once a month to sleeping with me once a month, I realize he's no longer a mate who belonged to me alone. When Kristy announces that she's pregnant and that she and Eugene are going to get married, I'm the only one who's kept in the dark. My heart shatters into pieces when I see the glimmering Luna's ring on her finger. If this is what Eugene wants, I'll fake my death and leave him. I won't ever return.

After my death, I found myself inside a romance strategy game, where the system assigned me three male leads. If I followed its instructions and successfully captured the heart of any one of them, I would return alive and well in the real world. Drawing on my experience, I crafted careful scripts to win their affection. Yet, every attempt ended in failure. The reason was simple: each of them had already fallen for the dazzling heroine of their world. They hurled cruel words at me, as if wishing I would just drop dead. In the end, I fulfilled their desire—when my strategies failed, the system erased me. But the moment I died, they all regretted it. One by one, they begged the heavens to return me to them.

It had been ten years, and Ethan—my mate—and I still didn’t have a pup. One day, he suggested we adopt one from the Werewolf Orphan Charity Agency. “My mate,” he said gently, “pregnancy is too hard for you. You’d have to go through so many checkups and herbs. Your wolf shouldn’t have to suffer like that.” When others heard this, they all said Ethan loved me deeply—that he couldn’t bear to see me in pain. But I saw the truth with my own eyes. He took an infant pup from another she-wolf. “Luckily, Mia isn’t pregnant,” he said. “That way, the excuse of adopting an infant works—and the pup can have a legitimate status in my clan.” I knew that she-wolf well. The same one Ethan used to call a “stupid omega.” Swallowing the bitterness in my heart, I called my mentor at the Werewolf Research Academy. “I want to devote myself to herb research,” I said calmly. Three days from now, during the pup’s first New Moon blessing, I’ll fake my death in a fire. No one will be able to stop me.

…from his responsibilities as a father, hiding out from his pregnant girlfriend, and working as a groundskeeper in a rural graveyard. He’s running from a lifetime of guilt and bad decisions, but principally he’s running from the murderous entities that have possessed the very ground at his feet. Jim has no idea what these entities are, but they’ve done unspeakable things to everyone in the graveyard and now they’re hunting him down. There is nowhere Jim can hide, nowhere he can walk and nowhere he can run that isn’t under the lethal power of the things in the ground. If he stands any chance of survival he must uncover the link between his murderous tormentors, three mysterious graves and an ancient heresy that stretches back to the beginning of time. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing