Happy Family

In my past life, I toiled away at the Lincoln family and treated my in-laws like they were a king and a queen. I also gave my stepson the best education possible and helped him get into a renowned college. Yet, I later ended up dead on the street. My stepson said, "You're not my mother. You'll never be her!" He breaks my legs, kicks me out of the house, and watches as I starve to death. It's only after my death that I find out he's the illegitimate son of my husband and his true love! When I open my eyes again, I'm back to the day my husband, Simon Lincoln, brings my stepson home.

The day before the final round of Beta selection, I was poisoned with wolfsbane and locked inside my burning house. The fire spread too fast, and my weakened state prevented me from shifting. My wolf, Emma, screamed in my mind, but I couldn't escape. I clawed at the door as the flames seared my skin. When I was rescued, my body was covered in burns, my skin raw and torn. Outside the operating room, I heard my mother sobbing, repeating, “It’s my fault... I locked the door by accident... I never meant to...” Alpha David, my mate, called for every healer to restore me, but his cold words to my mother were chilling: “If Serina wasn’t so vain and selfish, I wouldn’t have had to do this. Becky was fragile, struggling with depression, yet Serina flaunted her success in front of her. This is what Serina owes her.” David’s actions were meant to pave the way for Becky to become Beta, but I was the one who suffered. He claimed to be treating me well, but destroying my health and future didn’t feel like care. I pressed my hand to my bandaged chest, the numbness spreading. Emma growled inside me, weakened by the wolfsbane. I no longer wanted the love of the mother who betrayed me or the mate who was supposed to protect me. I wanted nothing from them anymore.

In the tenth year after I had married in his place, my brother, Thayer Ashford, suddenly returned. The whole family fell silent as they looked at him. He yawned as he spoke with careless ease, “I traveled through thirteen countries. I’m exhausted. “Where’s Seraphina? She should be in primary school by now, right? Why hasn’t she come to see me?” Seraphina was Thayer’s daughter. Back then, Thayer had abruptly announced he had a child. Yet on the very day of his wedding, he staged his own death, leaving behind Seraphina and his fiancée, Isolde Fairchild. The Fairchilds belonged to the old-money elite of the city. My parents did not dare offend them, so they decided to package me—fresh out of graduation—and send me to the wedding in Thayer’s place. Over these ten years, I became a competent husband and a responsible father. As my parents watched Thayer’s brazen composure, their gazes shifted toward me. I gave them a faint smile. “Sera went to Novaforge with Isolde.”

I was the top engineer at the National Deep-Sea Institute—and the only person in the world with real deep-sea rescue experience. When my younger brother's submarine went down and he called for help from 35,000 feet below, I hung up on him. Then, calm and unhurried, I went straight to the police station and turned myself in for leaking classified research data. A few minutes later, my father called, furious. "Your brother's life is hanging by a thread—where the hell are you?! I demand you to get to the site and save him right now, or you won't see a single penny of the family fortune!" I pulled the blanket over myself and said into the phone, perfectly composed, "Busy. Don't bother me—I'm trying to sleep."

The day I found out I was a match for my dad—stage four leukemia—I bailed. Mom tore the world apart looking for me, but yeah, she had to watch him go. After that, she drowned herself in research, built a name, even adopted this perfect little angel. We crossed paths again at some fancy leukemia conference she was hosting. I was on the demo table. She took one look and scoffed. "Charlotte Stein, not the time for your crap. Get up and go." The host blinked, stunned. "Dr. Cooper... you know this cadaver?" She actually laughed. "What, she paid you for this stunt?" The host turned ghost-white. "M-Miss Stein passed three days ago..."

Caked in mud, her eyes bloodshot, my mother grabbed me by the shoulders. "Elliot, the company's collapsed. I… I killed a competitor. It was an accident. There's no way out now. You're the only one who can come with me." I believed her. I swallowed my fear and followed her into the mountains, deeper and deeper until there was nothing left of the world I knew. To keep her alive, I searched for food, forcing down insects, drinking whatever murky water I could find. When a pack of wolves began circling our shelter, my first instinct was to step in front of her. "Mom, I'll lead them away. You go." I glanced back at her one last time…and made my choice. I would give up my life for hers. However, when I leapt from the cliff and my body shattered against the rocks below… I still saw her. She was inside a descending helicopter, calm and composed, lifting a glass of champagne. Celebrating. That was when it finally clicked. The desperate escape that had driven me to sacrifice myself… was nothing more than a carefully staged show. She had been acting the entire time. I…was the only one who had actually died.

When Joy Staton, my adoptive sister, fainted in the freezer on her birthday, William Staton, my brother, checked on the security footage in rage. The moment he saw that I was the one who took Joy into the freezer, he kicked me inside without hesitation. Before shutting the door, he stared at me in disgust. “You’ve been pushing your luck a lot these days, huh? If I’d been a second too late, Joy would’ve died!” I wanted to defend myself, but William refused to listen and slammed the door shut. I heard him talking to the bodyguards outside. “If she doesn’t apologize, don’t let her out!” But he did not know that Joy had set the freezer to –58 °F. I did not even have the strength to complain about the freezer being cold. William did not know that the sister he once loved dearly had stopped breathing in the freezer. He had killed his only blood relative left in the world.

While I was traveling overseas with my family, a sudden flood hit. My fiancé slung my sister Joan over his back because her legs were weak, and ran for safety. My parents didn't have time for me, but they still remembered to grab the parrot they had just bought for Joan. All of them flew home overnight and even posted in the family group chat about how lucky everyone was to survive. But… They forgot something. I was still trapped in the flood, alone and helpless. When I woke up, I called my mentor without hesitation. "Dr. Jackson, I've decided to go with you and join Doctors Without Borders. I'm never coming back."

I had a miscarriage and was confined in the ICU. Meanwhile, my husband was off traveling the world with his first love. It wasn't until he decided to divorce me that he finally remembered I existed. He called my mother, demanding to know how long I planned to act out. She was disheartened, looking at me, who was barely clinging to life. "Shannon will never cause you trouble again! Happy now?" she snapped.

To save my family, I was dying of silver poisoning, my fiancé Marcus, the Alpha who had promised to never abandon me, now wanted to harvest my healthy kidney for my parents' adopted daughter, Celeste. Nobody cares if I live or die So I refused the conservative treatment plan. I injected myself with the witch's life potion. The price? In 72 hours, I would die from complete organ failure. In those three days, I gave my private healing center—the one I'd built with my own hands—to Celeste. Mom and Dad beamed with joy. "Good girl, you've finally grown up. You're taking care of your sister now." Marcus wanted to postpone our wedding to care for Celeste. I accepted it calmly. He praised me for finally being understanding. I even gave up my position as the pack's chief healer to Celeste. My parents and Marcus were so excited they planned to throw her a grand celebration ball. They invited every important person with status in the pack to honor her new role. I was just curious about one thing. After I died, would they shed a single tear for me?