Hilde Counter Side

After receiving the news that her husband had died during a mission, my sister-in-law collapsed from the shock. When she woke up, she'd lost her memory. She clung to my husband and refused to let go. Our husbands were twin brothers. The doctor said she couldn't be triggered, so my husband and mother-in-law sat me down and begged me to play along until she got over this. Every time I brought it up again, they shut me down. "This is only until she gets her memory back!" So I watched as my husband and his widowed sister-in-law eat, sleep, and live under the same roof. Even our daughter could only stand by and watch her cousin call him "Daddy". One day, my daughter spiked a high fever and wouldn't wake up. I begged my husband to take us to the hospital. Unexpectedly, his sister-in-law went berserk over it and threatened to kill herself. In the chaos, I was stabbed in the heart by the scissors she swung around. When I opened my eyes again, I found myself back to the day my husband agreed to play the role of a substitute husband.

When I was waiting for Theodore at City Hall from dawn to dusk, he was accompanying his first love on a hike. I called him dozens of times, but he rejected my calls instantly each time. He finally picked up on the twentieth call. "Why are you blowing up my phone when you simply didn't see me for a day? Why are you acting so desperate? Sammy's feeling unwell because of her heart and I still need to take care of her at the hospital. We'll talk later about registering our marriage." Ten years of love. This was the 100th time Theodore had left me alone in front of City Hall for his first love. I hung up and calmly tossed the wedding ring away. This marriage? I was done with it.

After being in love with Dylan for seven years, I planned to propose to him at his birthday party. But then I overheard him speaking to his friend in Italian: "You like Lydia? I'll give her to you. I'm tired of her anyway. Sarah is better—she's a dancer, young and sexy." He thought I couldn’t understand, but he didn’t know that I had learned Italian for him. I threw away the ring I had designed for him, tore apart the wedding suit I had sewn and left. Our friends were all speculating how long it would take before I came back. Dylan sneered with disdain, "She’s just an orphan with no family. Where could she go without me? Three days at most." But to his surprise, I never returned and found a new home.

When I was two months pregnant, the Alpha, Lucas, asked me to give blood to his childhood friend. She pretended to have been injected with wolfsbane by a rogue werewolf and required the Luna's blood to recover. “Jessica, your physical constitution is good; hurry and give Lilith a blood transfusion!” “A real Luna wouldn’t just stand by and watch her die!” Lucas and his friends pushed me into the operating room. “It’s just a blood transfusion; it won’t harm the fetus. Even if we lose it, we can have another, but Lilith must survive.” I gave up struggling, watching my blood being drawn and transferred into Lilith's body. After waking up, I dragged myself home, only to be pushed to the ground by Lucas. I ended up with a miscarriage. That was the moment I decided to give up on this relationship.

I was like the pure and innocent Cinderella of a school romance novel. Unlike the aristocratic students around me, I didn't come from wealth or privilege. I earned my place at this elite academy through merit alone, my high scores opening the gates to a world far beyond my means. Cinderella is supposed to be stubborn, proud, and righteous—standing tall despite her humble origins. But I have none of those qualities. All I have is poverty.

My boyfriend, Zayne Jefferson, is particularly gifted in certain ways. Every time we're intimate, he insists on trying something new. More than once, he gently coaxes me, saying, "Once you graduate, we'll get married." And I believe him. I throw myself into my studies, pushing hard to finish my credits early. At the same time, I secretly watch all kinds of videos at night and read up on techniques. I want to keep his body satisfied. One night, I stay up too late studying and miss curfew. I run to the bar to find him, where I overhear him chatting with his friends. "Zayne, is your girlfriend really that wild in bed?" one guy asks. "Of course. He trained her himself!" another guy says. "What about Yasmin?" Zayne exhales a stream of smoke, his eyes soft. "She's different. She's pure." In that moment, I begin to hate him. Back on campus, I make a call to my professor. "That secret program you mentioned… I want in." From this day on, my life belongs only to my career.

My elder sister, Emma Rothschild, longs for a life of luxury. As such, she requests to marry the prince of Northia, Matias Redburn. On the other hand, I'm married off to an elven scholar visiting human territory, Aleron Glintwood. After the wedding with Emma, Matias leaves Northia and visits the giant clan's territory to establish a trade route. He's never heard of again. Meanwhile, I accompany Aleron to Empiria. He obtains a teaching position at the Royal Academy of Magic by virtue of his elven talent for magic. As for me, I become a highly envied professor's wife. Emma continues to live alone in the Northian Frozen Plains. She's later discovered to be having an affair with a human knight. When the Draconian Council of Elders exiles her from their lands, our father—Gareth Rothschild—furiously declares that he's severing ties with her. She's thus forever cut off from the Rothschild family. While I'm on my way home for the festival, Emma forcibly stops my carriage. She begs me to take her home and put in a good word for her. Along the way, she suddenly grabs the reins. As a result, the carriage goes out of control and tumbles over a cliff. When I regain consciousness, I see Emma on the floor. She's crying and demanding a change in engagement plans. At that moment, I realize that she's also been reborn. However, Emma doesn't know that life with the elves isn't as wonderful as she imagines. I immediately begin preparing for the magic academy's entrance exam. This time, I'll spare no effort to be admitted into the academy myself.

The Langston brothers once vowed that they wouldn't marry anyone but me. However, when it's time for me to pick one of them as my husband, they both turn me down. Nigel says, "My career is my priority. I'm not considering marriage at the moment." Shawn says, "Sorry, but I haven't had enough fun yet." Shortly after, they make my asthma act up during my engagement party just so they can please their new princess. As I writhe from the lack of oxygen, they cover her eyes so she won't see. They also mock me, saying I won't die from this. That kills me inside. When I wake up in the hospital, I call my father. "I'll marry the heir of the Blackwell family."

On the night of our mating ceremony, my mate, Damon, marked another she-wolf right in front of me. He said that if I wanted to be his Luna, I had to accept him having us both. In my past life, I screamed at him, accusing him of defying the Moon Goddess. Pressured by the Elders, he was forced to banish Lyla. She was run down by rogues and fell from a cliff to her death. After that, Damon refused to ever mark me. He even framed me, luring me into the forbidden lands as a pretext to banish me. Then, he hunted me down and killed me himself. I remember my body being picked apart by birds, the agony of it all. But now, I just stared at Damon's cold face, and at the Omega, Lyla, cradled in his arms. Then, I calmly reached up and removed the sacred symbol of our fated bond. "I refuse." And with that, under the shocked gazes of the entire pack, I walked away, heading for the frozen lands of the North. This time, I will make every single wolf who hurt me pay.

On our fifth dating anniversary, my boyfriend, Luke Bolton, gives me a cheap bracelet worth less than a hundred dollars. On the same night, he splurges ten million dollars on a yacht for his first love, Cindy Gale. I refuse to accept this, and he accuses me of making a scene. "I gave Cindy that gift to boost the company's stock price, not because I still have feelings for her," he says. "You're poor, and I still promised to marry you. Isn't that enough? This was actually your last test, Elisa Gray, but you failed it." I break up with him, and he immediately proposes to Cindy. Five years after that, we meet again at a luxury hotel during a business summit. His company is about to become an industry giant, and Cindy is holding onto his arm. When he sees me, I'm standing in a fountain, all drenched and disheveled. "Elisa," Luke sneers. "When you turned me down back then, did it ever cross your mind that you might end up worse than a homeless person? "Don't think acting pitiful here will make me feel sorry and take you back." I ignore him. My son's cherished blue diamond was a birthday gift from his father, and he accidentally dropped it into the fountain. He's so upset that he's about to cry, and I have to find it right away.