Finn 100

Through the bond that tied my wolf to his, I sent ninety-nine screams for help. The hundredth time, he answered—distant, distracted. "Seraphine, I'm occupied. Stop whining like a needy pup." I lay in an ice crevice, our pup suffocating in my womb, while he hunted beneath the full moon with another. Five days later, I woke in a healing den. Through the wall, I heard my mate—my Alpha—speaking of me like livestock. "Keep her under until Lysandra whelps," Leon growled to the shaman. "If she learns I drained our pup for that she-wolf's marrow, I'll have your tongue. And if you fail me—I'll burn your den to ash." I touched the mating mark burning on my throat and reached for the crystal. My voice didn't tremble. "Harris. Prepare the severance scroll. I want his signature before the moon wanes." The she-wolf who loved her Alpha died in that ravine. The one who clawed out will make him howl.

My brother vanished searching for the truth about our bloodline. Now I'm in the town that swallowed him whole — and the Alpha who runs it knows exactly what I am. He just won't tell me. Kael Blackwood has driven out everyone who asked too many questions. His pack obeys without hesitation. His enemies disappear without trace. And since the moment I arrived, something between us has been pulling tighter — a bond he's fighting, a secret he's keeping, and a full moon two days away that changes everything. My brother left one warning: Don't let them mark you before you know what it means. I'm starting to think the most dangerous thing in Ashveil isn't what they're hiding. It's what I am.

I hid behind the study curtains, heart racing with a fragile, trembling joy. In my hands: an ultrasound photo—two heartbeats—and a no-limit black card. Alessandro had given it to me last night, his lips on my neck, calling me his Donna, his queen. Tonight, I was going to tell him about the twins. "The Petrov family needs to see my good faith," his voice drifted in, smooth as velvet. "Vittoria arrives Thursday. I’ll announce the engagement then." My blood froze. "What about Elena?" someone asked. "She’s been with you three years. She manages the books, dug that slug out of your side herself. Is this fair to her?" "Elena?" He leaned back in the leather chair, cigar smoke curling around his jaw. "She’s like a trained hound, Salvatore. After the Rossi family got wiped out, I pulled her from the gutter, gave her a gun and a bed. Have you ever seen a hound leave its master? I could kick her, and she would lick my boot and ask for another." My nails sank into my palms, crumpling the ultrasound. "Aren’t you afraid she’ll leave?" Marco, his Capo, asked. Alessandro paused. Then he said: "She would die for me without question. How could she ever leave?" Those words struck my chest like two 9mm rounds. I didn't wait. I ran through the cemetery, past the tombs of dead Dons, and hurled that card into the Hudson. I vanished into the night with his heirs in my womb and three years of lies in my throat. "I'm sorry, my babies," I whispered to my belly. "Mommy was a fool." But I wouldn't be a fool anymore.

My sister fled on the day of her Bonding Ceremony. I was forced to marry the Lycan King known for his brutality. Six years later, she returned. Still as bold and brazen as ever, she pressed a crimson kiss against Kael’s collar—right in front of the entire Council of Elders. Kael went rigid. Then she turned to me, her eyes gleaming with mockery. “Little sister, thank you for keeping my throne warm all these years. Now that I’m back, it’s time you gave me back my place as Luna Queen.” Silence swallowed the hall. Everyone remembered what happened when she ran away. Kael had nearly slaughtered half a rival territory in his rage. So now? I wondered too. Would this unpredictable, brutal King lose his mind for her once again?

**Perfect Blind** *She pretended to be her blind twin. Then she watched her brother-in-law die. The killer tested her—held the bloody head five inches from her face. She didn't blink.* **But what he didn't know? She's not just pretending. She's hunting him too.** --- Jiang Yan has spent three months learning to be her blind twin sister: the walk, the voice, the empty stare. She breaks into Lin's apartment seeking a diary—evidence of a murder Yan committed ten years ago. Instead, she finds a body. A killer who knows sign language. And a "dead man" who won't stop breathing. Trapped in a locked room with two strangers and one lie, Yan must play the perfect blind woman while uncovering the truth: her sister isn't blind, her father isn't dead, and the murder she confessed to never happened. **In this family, everyone wears a mask. The only way out is to see through them all.** --- **Perfect for fans of:** - *The Silent Patient* (unreliable narrator) - *Gone Girl* (toxic sisterhood) - *Behind Her Eyes* (identity games) **Tags:** #PsychologicalThriller #TwistedFamily #BlindPOV #ShortRead #DarkSecrets --- **Word count:** 10,000 words | **Chapters:** 10 | **Reading time:** 45 minutes *Every chapter ends with a twist. The final page changes everything

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."

They say Don Julian Marconi would burn the world for one tear of mine. Five years ago, at the Met Gala, he spent millions to hang emeralds around my neck and swore I was his Madonna. Five years later, beneath the velvet boxes of our anniversary, I found a lace strap soaked in sin—and a fresh, crimson smear on his collar that told me exactly whose bed he’d left. I smiled. I asked him to sign a blank sheet of paper. And that meant he was agreeing to whatever I wanted. He called it love. I called it the death warrant for his empire. In fifteen days, I finalized our divorce papers. I boarded the Stella d’Oro as Serena Cole and burned Celeste Marconi to ash on the deck. Then I vanished with his fortune, his power and the one secret that would destroy him. I was the saint he worshipped. Now I am the ghost who haunts him. No groveling. No forgiveness. No second chance. Just ashes.

On the night of our eighth anniversary, I cooked everything Ethan loved. He didn't come home. I sat alone at the table until the food went cold. Then I did what I always did. I opened Selene's profile on the pack network. New post. One hour ago. A photo of Ethan, shirtless, building a fire in her den. Her hand on his shoulder. Her face turned toward the camera with a smile that showed too many teeth. The caption read: Grateful for old friends who drop everything when you need them. Even their marking anniversaries. I stared at it until my eyes burned. Then I liked it. Filed the bond-dissolution request. And started packing the trunk I'd kept ready for months. Ethan didn't believe it when he found out. "She's throwing a fit," I heard he told his packmates. "Give her three days." "I'll crook my finger and she'll come running back." "She always does." What he didn't understand was why I always came back. It was because I loved him. That was gone now.

Five months pregnant, I watched my fated mate’s foster sister pour oil on our sacred threshold and strike the spark. I didn’t reach for the pack-link. Last life, I screamed through our bond. Cassian—my Alpha, the wolf I’d followed since I was six—came for me. Pulled me from the flames while his foster sister burned to charcoal behind us. He said nothing against me, even arranged the best care for my pregnancy. But on the fourth night after our daughter was born, he dragged us to the Blood Moon altar. He stood upon the High Rock, silver fur gleaming in the dark, and gave the order. His enforcers pinned me to the stone. He watched, silent and still, as they lit the pyre beneath our daughter’s body first—then mine. "You let Eira burn," he said, while the flames devoured us. "So you burn with what you loved." When I opened my eyes, I was back on the floor of our burning den.

Because I was born under the Moon’s blessing, my body ripened earlier than any she-wolf my age. On the night of my eighteenth turning, my brother—fearing I’d be force-claimed by brutes—entrusted me to his blood-oath brother: Silas, Alpha of the Northern Peak. The first time we met, his golden eyes locked on my bared neck and never left. His fangs sank into my scent gland that very night, claiming me beneath the full moon. For four years since, I’ve been his scribe by dawn light, and his whore by moonrise. He trained my body to fit his every hunger, covering me in bite marks, yet never left the Mating Mark that would make me his true mate. Four years later, his confidante from the Central Territories returned. He tore from my heat-soaked sheets without a backward glance, racing to the moon-platform to greet her. I followed, stomach hollow, scent glands throbbing with his phantom claim. Only an hour before, his hand—scarred from my own teeth—had clamped over my mouth as he rutted me into the furs. Now, before the assembled Pack, he stroked another woman’s silver hair. “Amara, don’t show that jealous look. Have you forgotten—four years ago, you were the one who crawled into my bed while I was moon-mad.” “This tantrum is unbecoming.” He was right. I had chosen this life myself. But when I finally chose to leave him, he was the first to break.