Hypocrisy

Even before marrying Wayne Cooper, I knew he had a fierce sister-in-law. He would always tell me to never get into a fight with her. After we marry, we spend Christmas Eve at his parents' house for the first time. I'm forced to bustle around in the kitchen as I prepare a feast for over a dozen people. Meanwhile, Wayne's family lounges in the living room. They chatter away while enjoying the fruits I've washed and sliced. As I place the last dish on the table, Wayne's brother and sister-in-law, Kyle Cooper and Lucy Wren, arrive. When I want to take my seat, I discover there isn't one for me. That's when Lucy snorts and says sarcastically, "I heard you're a good wife who's obedient and easygoing, Melanie. I have to say that your cooking is… mediocre, though." This infuriates me. I'm about to retort when she turns to my mother-in-law. She says, "I think you should do the cooking from now on, Gloria. Your food is delicious…"

My sister-in-law and I have always been close, and we happened to be pregnant at the same time. However, during a routine check-up, she was diagnosed with uterine fibroids. I urged her to have surgery as soon as possible, but she refused and instead claimed her sallow complexion was a sign she was carrying a "child of fortune." She then retreated to the countryside to rest and nurture her pregnancy. Nine months later, while I grieved the loss of my stillborn child, she came back from the countryside with a baby girl in her arms. Consumed by the suspicion that the child was rightfully mine, I demanded a DNA test. That same night, my own mother and brother conspired to take my life. After my death, I discovered it was all a conspiracy. My family had orchestrated everything to swap my child for hers. When I opened my eyes again, I found myself back to the moment before I took her for that fateful check-up.

On my wedding day, my fiancé’s childhood sweetheart arrived, wearing the exact same custom wedding dress as me. They stood together, greeting guests, while I smiled and praised them as a match made in heaven. Humiliated, she left the venue in tears. In her defense, my fiancé publicly accused me of being petty and unreasonable. After the wedding reception, he left with her for the honeymoon we had planned together. I didn’t cry. Instead, I called my lawyer immediately.

After my husband's brother died, he took Miranda, his widowed sister-in-law in. He claimed that he would give me his love—but gave all his money to her. He said that since she had no official status, being with him would make her the subject of gossip, so he took her with him and left me behind in the countryside. Every month, he wrote me three love letters, yet sent all his allowance to her. During the famine, she and her two children sat in a warm little house eating well, while my two children died before I could return from selling my blood. One froze to death, the other starved to death. Later, my husband finally came back, but he didn’t shed a single tear for the children. Instead, he told me he wanted a divorce. "Nathalie, to apply for housing, we need a marriage certificate. It hasn’t been easy for Miranda all these years. I want to give her a home. Don’t worry, even if I marry her, I’ll still divorce her afterward—because you’re the only one I love." In the end, I was devastated and threw myself into the icy river. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day my children were about to die. This time, I shook them awake, ready to go reclaim everything that was rightfully mine.

After Cynthia Musich causes a surgical accident, my husband of eight years, Xavier Goodwin, forces me to take the fall for her. "Being suspended won't have any effect on you, but Cynthia's just starting out! Leaving a mark on her record this early in her career will ruin her!" The accident victim's family cause a scene and stab me thrice in my pregnant belly. I call Xavier and beg him to save me, but he says coldly, "Cynthia was stabbed, and her life is at stake, so can you please stop making trouble? Just come out on your own." Later, when my dead body is brought to his department, Xavier loses his mind.

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!"

Penelope Rivera's little boy toy, Theodore Schneider, is throwing another tantrum. She slides the divorce papers across the table toward me. "Just sign them for show. It's to keep Teddy happy." I clench the cuff of my suit and nod in silence. I sign my name in one swift stroke. As I'm walking out, I hear one of her girlfriends teasing, "Samuel's way too easygoing. Does he actually do everything you say?" Penelope takes a graceful sip of red wine and smirks. "Wanna bet?" They bet that I will quietly go through with the divorce at the courthouse, even if my eyes are red with tears. Listening their laughter, I rub my thumb over my phone screen and reply to the message I've just received. "Will you marry me?" it says. "I will."

After being forced to go to rogue wolf territory to exchange my mate's kidnapped childhood sweetheart while three months pregnant, I was tortured to death. Before my death, my eight-year-old daughter begged her father three times. The first time, my daughter took her father's hand and said, "Daddy, mommy is pregnant with my little brother. She can't go to the rogue territory." The alpha wolf let out a cold laugh: "How dare your mother teach a pup to lie." Then he had his beta guards drive my daughter out of the pack house. The second time, my daughter grabbed his sleeve and told him the rogue wolves were torturing me with silver. The alpha frowned: "These rogues were hired by your mother to kidnap Willow. How could she really be tortured?" The guards stepped forward and once again pulled my daughter out of the room. The third time, my daughter lay on the floor, desperately clutching his pant leg, crying that I was dying in the rogue wolf territory. The alpha finally lost his temper. He slapped her away with force. "I told you, Ava won't die. She's strong. If you come running back here to disturb Willow's rest again, I'll definitely throw both of you out of the pack territory." To save me, my daughter gave her most precious possession to the most powerful warrior in the pack—the healing gemstone I had given her for her birthday. "Please, can you use this to help save my mother? I don't need protection anymore. I just want my mother to live." The warrior took her healing gemstone, but before he could leave to rescue me, Willow stepped in his way. "Sorry, little pup," she smirked. "The warrior needs to stay here to protect my dog. Your father was afraid I would be sad if anything happened to my pet."

After the plane crash, I rejected the captain—my brother-in-law’s—final life jacket that he had as he handed it to me. Instead, I allowed myself to plunge a hundred meters from the sky. In my previous life, I had survived after accepting his life jacket. But he died a tragic death in the crash. After his death, I was consumed with guilt. My husband proposed to take care of two households at the same time so that he could look after his sister-in-law. Out of guilt, I reluctantly agreed to his proposal. I even had to give up my only chance of getting promoted to department head of the hospital to my sister-in-law, upon my husband’s insistence. When I was seventy years old, I suddenly saw my brother-in-law, who was supposed to be dead, show up in front of me. He said to my husband, “Bro, thank goodness you came up with that fake-death plan back then. I was drunk and caused the deaths of all the passengers after the plane crash. If not for that plan of yours, as the captain, I certainly could not have escaped scot-free and would have been sentenced to prison for life! “It was too bad we had to keep her in the dark for her entire life.” After a lifetime of sacrifices, I was so furious that I nearly passed out upon hearing my brother-in-law’s words. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day of the plane crash.

The night before our Mating Ceremony, my fated mate, Alpha Ryker of the Howling Moon Pack, ordered me to give him the Moon Soul Crystal—the very thing that protected my pack, the Willow Creek Pack. He said he needed it to power up the Howling Moon Pack's Blood Moon Altar. He also promised he'd keep me and my people safe. But he didn't know that we, the healers of the Willow Creek Pack, can only create one Moon Soul Crystal in our entire lives. Making one takes a crazy amount of moon energy. It's the treasure that keeps our pack alive. My mother, worried about me using up my moon energy while I was pregnant, gave up her own Moon Soul Crystal instead. But just three months after Ryker and I were mated, she got sick, fast. She was dying. I knelt in front of Ryker, crying, begging him for the Silverleaf Herb from the Howling Moon's forbidden grounds. It was the only thing that could save my mom. But he just looked at me, his eyes full of disappointment, and kicked me away. "I asked for the Moon Soul Crystal to test you," he snarled. "And just as I thought, you married me for our pack's treasures! Your mother's not sick. You're making it all up!" "You don't deserve to be the Luna of the Howling Moon Pack!" It wasn't until after my mother died, when he was arguing with me, trying to kick me out of the pack, that my mother's things fell and scattered everywhere. Her Soul Stone, the symbol of a wolf's spirit, shattered. That's when he finally realized he was wrong. He fell to his knees, begging me not to leave, crying for me to forgive him.