Hercules 10th Labor

On my eighteenth birthday, Alpha called me up in front of the whole pack and told me to choose—one of his sons as my mate. Whichever I chose? He'd be the next Alpha. I didn't flinch. I picked Cayce, his eldest. The room went dead silent. Everyone knew I used to be stupidly in love with Kain, the younger one. I'd confessed at every pack dance. Took a silver dagger for him once. Cayce? Coldest, meanest wolf we had. Total menace. No one got close. But they didn't know the truth. In my last life, I was bonded to Kain. On the day of our Bonding Ceremony, he slept with Lena, my cousin. My mom lost it. Shipped Lena off to Duskwolf Pack to get bonded to their Beta. Kain? He blamed me. Paraded in she-wolves with Lena's same ice-blue eyes. When he found out I was carrying his pup, he made sure I saw him with every one of them. It was torture. When labor hit, he locked me in the dungeon. Blocked everyone out. My pup got crushed. I died hating him. Maybe the Moon Goddess felt sorry for me—she gave me a second shot. I came back. This time? I let Kain keep Lena. Didn't think he would ever regret it.

Eight months pregnant. Three hundred witnesses. Ninety seconds to destroy everything. Alisha Davis-Williams stands before her pack as Luna, carrying twin heirs and wearing her Alpha mate's mark. Then Joshua Black-Gold presents photographs of her with another man, and her world detonates. The rejection is brutal and public. Her mate's bond severed. Her Luna title stripped. Her unborn children's paternity questioned. Banished from the only home she's known, Alisha collapses on a roadside as premature labor tears through her body. She wakes in rival territory with a screaming mate bond, two fragile newborns, and fury where love used to live. When Beta Nathan proves the photographs were fabricated, the damage is already done. The affair never happened. The witnesses were coerced. Everything was orchestrated by someone with intimate access to pack secrets and Joshua's deepest trauma. But by then, Alisha is already suppressing their mate bond despite the agony, filing for formal rejection despite the impossibility, and rebuilding her shattered life under Alpha Val's protection. Val offers everything Joshua didn't and asks for nothing but her happiness in return. Meanwhile, Joshua confronts the childhood wounds his mother weaponized against him. His transformation is genuine, sustained, and too late. His twins screamed at his presence. And Alisha won't take his calls. The conspiracy targets her children, and Alisha faces an impossible choice: the mate fate gave her, or the future she's building from ashes.

Dying from wolfsbane, I came back six months into carrying his pup. I went straight to a witch, begged for a potion to slow down the pup's growth. Choked it down. Then every day, I padded my belly with rabbit fur and kept up the act. In my first life, Emily and I went into labor on the same day. She popped out a perfect silver-white pup. Me? A white wolf giving birth to some scrappy mutt. James—Alpha of Ebonfang Pack—looked me dead in the eye and swore I betrayed him. I begged him to test the pup's blood. He did. Results came back: father was from an enemy pack. He called me a traitor, said I slept with the enemy, cut the bond, and threw me out. Five years rogue gutted my wolf. Then he showed up again. Guilt all over his face. "Emily got played by a Darkclaw wolf. She's just an omega—she wouldn't have survived going rogue. I had to swap the pups. Didn't you get the supplies I sent? Whatever, it's over. I'll take care of you now." Emily shot me a look full of venom and passed me a teapot. Didn't even get a word out before the wolfsbane kicked in. I died choking, eyes wide, body frozen. But now? I'm back. I know everything. Let's see how they plan to win this time.

During the Labor Day team retreat, I had booked out the entire top floor of the Grand Summit Hotel. Yet, when my fiancee, Serena Wagner, found out, she was enraged. "Matthew Grant, are you out of your mind? Spending over 800,000 dollars to rent a place for one day? Since you're so rich and have nowhere else to splurge, just let me help you spend it!" Then, she called over our intern, Dylan Foster. She pointed at him and started yelling at me. "He only makes 6000 a month as an intern. Why don't you give him this money instead?" I looked at my colleagues standing nearby, their faces clearly uncomfortable. I replied calmly, "His salary isn't low compared to industry standards. Besides, the team-building budget belongs to everyone. Why should I give it all to him?" However, the moment those words left my mouth, Serena exploded. "I'm your finance director and your future wife! Of course, I get to control where your money goes. If you don't agree, then let's call off the engagement!" With that, she stormed off with Dylan. I silently picked up a bottle from the floor and poured myself three glasses. The first glass was for her, for being with me through the first half of my life. The second glass was for me, for having a clear conscience in this relationship. The third glass was for both of us. I wished us well as we parted ways and moved on with our separate lives.

The day I went into labor with the twins, I bribed the family doctor to shoot me up with every heavy-duty suppressant he could get his hands on. Anything to stall the birth. Why? Because in my last life, Vincent—my husband, the Don—claimed to have a low sperm count. To guarantee an heir, he lined up ten mistresses and told the whole house: whoever popped out a son first, her kid would be the next Corleone Don. He promised if I delivered first, he'd ditch the others. Said our baby would inherit the throne. I bought every word. When I found out I was carrying twins, I couldn't stop shaking—I thought I'd won. But after I gave birth, he tossed me and the babies into the freezing wine cellar and locked the place down. "Lucy came from nothing. I just wanted to give her kid a name. You started rumors, pushed her into despair, and now she's dead—her and the baby. You're vile. Not fit to be the Don's wife. Think about what you've done. I'll open the door in three days." Then he had the butler seal it shut. What he didn't know? That night, the cellar caught fire. Me and my babies? Burned alive. When I opened my eyes again, I was back—right before labor. This time, I'm not staying. Soon as I deliver and get back on my feet, I'm taking my kids and disappearing for good.

On the party of our seventh year anniversary, Luca Romano wheels me into the venue. Both of us are dressed to the nines. Our daughter, Sofia Romano, suddenly leans into Luca's ear and says in fluent Bellavian, "Dad, Ms. Celia is eight months pregnant now. Once she gives birth to my little brother, will they be living with us?" Celia Amato is Sofia's private tutor. At the moment, she's staring at us jealously from a short distance away. Luca lowers his head and tucks in the blanket on my lap lovingly. Then, he replies in Bellavian, "I've made a vow to your mother that I will never betray her. So, once Celia is done with her labor, I'll send them to another country overseas. If you miss your little brother, we can visit them together." Once he's done speaking, he tries to kiss me. I lower my head quietly to avoid the kiss. Luca doesn't know that I understand Bellavian because I've grown up in Sisse, Bellavia since I was a kid. He also has no idea that my legs were fully healed a week ago, and that I've uncovered the evidence of his affair with Celia in the estate's wine cellar. Of course, he doesn't know that I've promised my grandma that I'll return to Bellavia and take over the family business. Once all the paperwork is done, I'll set off on a lone journey, and I will never return.

My husband, Adrian Cross, was a high-profile lawyer. We'd been married for seven years. I'd always wanted a child of our own, but he had never touched me because his heart belonged to someone else. Not long ago, I got into a car accident trying to save him. He promised he would grant me any wish. Everyone assumed I would ask him to have a child with me, but I calmly asked for a divorce. Adrian laughed, a cruel, public sneer on his face. "Don't pretend," he mocked. "I've never met anyone as shameless as you. You'd risk your life for me, yet you think you could ever leave me?" My heart, long hardened, turned even colder. He had no idea that I had been given a second chance. … In my previous life, I finally became pregnant with his child. But his obsession, the one he couldn't forget, took her own life. All his rage fell on me. On the day I went into labor, he locked me in the basement and forced me to swallow a massive dose of abortion drugs. As blood gushed from me, he laughed like a madman. "Ella died because of you and that wretched child you're carrying. For the pain she endured, you will pay twice over!" I died from hemorrhaging. And he went on to hold a wedding at the grave of his lost love. But reborn, I returned to the day of the car accident, ready to see their doomed love come to its bitter end.

He was, and had nothing when I met him. He was a terribly poor dreamer, and all he had was smooth words and endless promises. I gave up everything for him, including my family’s wealth, my privileged life, my identity as an heiress. I hid who I really was just to help him climb the ladder, brick by brick, until his name shone like gold. Our empire was built on my sacrifices. And how did he repay me? By throwing me away like a piece of used, wet tissue. By parading his new fiancée in my face and sneering, “Don’t you think I’m out of your league now?” He thought he could erase me. He thought he could take my love, my labor, my loyalty…and bury me like garbage. But he forgot one thing. I’m not just a girl he used. I’m an heiress. The gold in his pocket? The power in his hands? The empire on his shoulders? All of it came from me. Now I’ve returned to the world I left behind, with bodyguards at my side, a new fiancé chosen by my family, and more power than he could ever dream of. And when he calls me a gold digger? I’ll smile and remind him of the truth… “Gold digger? No. I’m the gold maker. And without me, Mr. Billionaire, you are nothing.”

There's an earthquake. My husband, the captain of the rescue team, abandons me to save Wendy Smith, his true love. I don't stop him. I let him go. Why? Because when he was faced with the same choice in my past life, he saved me because I was eight months pregnant. Meanwhile, Wendy remained trapped under the rubble. She ultimately died due to a lack of oxygen after the delayed rescue. Later, on the day I went into labor, my husband brought me to Wendy's grave. He watched me coldly as I collapsed on the ground from the searing pain. He ignored my pleas. "Does it hurt, Yelena? Wendy's pain was a thousand times worse when she was trapped under the rubble!" I stared at him in disbelief as he descended into insanity. "You were safe that night—you were in the safe triangle zone! Wendy would never have missed the best time for rescue if not for you using your pregnancy to threaten me! I want you to experience all the pain she went through!" He forced me down on my knees and bumped my head on the ground before Wendy's grave. He ignored the blood that flowed down my legs. Ultimately, I died after major blood loss from a difficult labor. When I open my eyes again, I'm back to the day the earthquake happened. This time, neither I nor my child will wait for him.

While we were scuba diving, my boyfriend, Raphael Carlisle, ripped off my oxygen mask and put it on his childhood friend, Lucia Fairchild, whose mask had started leaking. I was left thrashing helplessly in the freezing water. Just as I thought it was over, Raphael's younger brother, Gabriel Carlisle, swam over, breathed life into me, and brought me back to the surface. After he saved me, he presented me with the purple diamond ring he designed himself and proposed, "For as long as I live, I'll never let you face danger again." I believed that he was my one true love, so I married him, leaving my job behind to focus on starting a family. On the day Lucia was given a critical condition notice, I ended up in a car accident. As I lay half-conscious on the hospital bed, I overheard Gabriel talking with Raphael. "Get a doctor to induce labor right away! Lucia's illness can only be treated with a stem cell transplant from umbilical cord blood. The only reason I got Phoebe pregnant was for this very day." "But she's carrying our bloodline! How could you have someone hit her with a car?" Raphael yelled. Gabriel replied, "Lucy matters more to me! As for Phoebe, I can spoil her rotten once she wakes up." At that moment, I realized the love I held on to was nothing but a lie. If that was the case, I'd just leave.