Growth

After I finished the Luna training that every she-wolf dreamed, I went to my Alpha, Damien, with a request. To break our mate bond. "All this, just because I missed your ceremony to help my late brother's mate, Lilith, with the rogues in her territory?" A smirk twisted his lips, his voice a low rasp. I nodded, silent. "I gave my brother my word before he died. I swore I would protect Lilith. I can't break that vow! Why can't you understand?" he whispered, sighing heavily. "Stop being so childish! Why can't you be reasonable, like Lilith is?" I pushed him away with a chilling calm. Ten years. For ten years after our bond was confirmed, I gave up everything. Every hobby, every dream… all to learn how to be his Luna. Everyone in the pack thought I was helpless without him. That I couldn't even survive without his protection. But this time, I was done. He didn't know I'd already contacted the neutral packs in another land. I was going somewhere his Alpha scent could never reach me.

At the Davenport family dinner, I arrive wearing the same dress Tucker Davenport's true love once wore. His face darkens immediately. He glares at me coldly and orders that my dress be burned on the spot. "Damn it, Willow, can't you show a little self-awareness? Shelby might be too naive to notice, but there's no way I'm letting you appear like this in front of her." The intense heat rushes toward me as the flames consume the fabric. A sharp, burning pain shoots between my legs, crashing over me like a tidal wave. The pain drags me under, but I suddenly jolt awake, barely able to gasp a plea for mercy. Tucker doesn't spare me a glance. He simply turns away to help Shelby cut the cake. Days later, he finally remembers I exist. "As long as you behave and don't bother Shelby again, you'll still be Mrs. Davenport." I stare at the burns on my legs as my tears dry up. I refuse to beg any longer. I'm done being Mrs. Davenport.

My boyfriend of eight years secretly plans the grand wedding I've always dreamed of. Just as I'm overwhelmed with joy, he sends me to a landslide zone to replace his true love. Turns out, the entire wedding is for her. Heartbroken, I walk away. But just as I enter the experimental site, a second landslide hits. At the wedding, he finally panics when news breaks that I've gone missing.

Word on the street in the city of Hereshire was that Roy Chester had a penchant for eighteen-year-old girls. Yet, Willow Croyton was twenty-one when they started dating, and she stuck by him for nearly three years. She was a well-known simp to Roy, her only merit being her docility and good behavior. Later, when Willow left, Roy was spotted multiple times near her apartment block, his eyes teary. 

My mate, Theo Burke, dies in a fight. Our son, Jax Burke, has now lost his father. Liam Burke, Theo's twin older brother, consoles me by saying, "I will treat Jax like my own son." He keeps his word, taking excellent care of Mia Parker, his mate, and me. However, I happen to overhear a conversation he has with a witch, Agatha Rune. "Give me more of that potion that masks my scent. I can't let Olivia find out that I'm Theo." This is how I find out that my mate isn't dead after all. He has simply adopted Liam's identity and now spends every night in bed with Mia next door. In order to get an heir with a purer bloodline, he assumes the identity of his dead twin brother and breeds with Mia. What he doesn't know is that I'm the daughter of the most powerful Alpha King in the Southern Woodlands. As it stands, a far superior bloodline flows in Jax's veins.

I watched as my boyfriend put the ring that he had promised to give me on Sophie White's finger at her birthday party. When I questioned him, Mark Goodman shrugged nonchalantly. "I promised to marry Sophie. Since that's not happening now, the ring is compensation." I was left speechless from rage and so disenchanted that I decided to cut all ties with him. Everyone was cheering when Mark later showed up at a gathering with Sophie, both wearing a matching set of rings. But when they all thought I would make a scene, I smiled faintly. "You two really deserve each other. When are you getting married? Do send me an invite."

My husband cheats on me with a university student when our daughter is two years old. My mother-in-law says I'm unworthy of being a woman. So, I back out, and he marries his mistress. When my former father-in-law cheats on my former mother-in-law, she gets a stroke. My ex-husband ends up behind bars, and his mistress abandons their child to be with another man. I stand before my former mother-in-law's bed. "Ask your new daughter-in-law to care for you!"

At our Thanksgiving family dinner, my stepbrother brought his beautiful girlfriend to meet the family for the first time. She held up her wine glass and flashed me a malicious smirk. “I heard you had a first love you can’t forget, Summer.” I kept my head low and focused on my food, unsure how to respond. After all, my first love… was her boyfriend. When I was seventeen, my stepbrother Ethan Cole tricked me into crossing the line we should never have crossed, while our parents were blissfully unaware. Even right now, under the table, his foot was rubbing mine sensually. He did not bother holding back. On the table, he held his girlfriend’s hand tenderly as he mocked me with a smirk, “You’re twenty-seven, sis. Your shelf life is running out, and you’re such a plain Jane. Who would ever want you?” I stood up abruptly and looked at him, my tone calm and resolute. “I’m married, Ethan.”

Just as Justin proposed to me, a phone call interrupted him. Standing close by, I clearly heard the voice on the other end of the line. “Justin, I’m hurt. My leg hurts so much!” Justin snapped the ring box shut and looked at me. “Alice is injured. I’ll have to do this another time.” With those words, he sprinted away, leaving everyone around us staring in astonishment. I had never met Alice, but her presence lingered in every corner of our lives.  At meals, Justin would mention her fondness for sweet desserts.  When I dressed, I came to know her love for soft lavender hues. I argued, I wept, I lashed out, but Justin always countered with the same line. “You’re so jealous. Everyone has their first love. She’s my past, but you’re my future.” So, I turned to a man who had once called me his first love—Quentin—and made a bold proposition. “Let’s get married.”

When I was four months pregnant, my fiance, who was a doctor, left me hanging when we were supposed to get married. This was not the first time; this was the sixteenth time. The first time, his nurse fainted at the sight of blood during an operation, and I waited for him for an entire day at the city hall. The second time, his nurse called, and he left me behind on a viaduct to buy daily necessities for her. Whenever we were about to get married, his nurse would call him for all sorts of problems. The final time was when he told me he was sick. Despite the rain, I rushed to the hospital, only to find that it was his nurse who was sick. He stayed by her side to care for her while he lied to me without batting an eye. At that moment, I began to hate him. I aborted our baby and left. But he chased after me and even traveled out of the country just to apologize.