I Cheated Myself Like I Knew I Would

Before my boyfriend, August Cadwell, marked me, we went to register our mate bond at the Pack Affairs Department. Without a word of explanation, he unexpectedly had someone throw me out of the office. Then he walked in with his childhood sweetheart. He didn’t even blink when he saw me sitting there on the ground, shaking with disbelief. "Hailey's pup needs to be part of the Aurelis pack. The best and quickest method is for her to register a mate bond with a werewolf from the Aurelis pack. As soon as we sever the mate bond, I'll form a mate bond with you." Everyone assumed the lovesick version of me would wait just one more month for him. After all, I'd already waited seven long years. But that night, I did something unexpected too. I accepted my parents' arranged mate bond and quietly left for the Lymerian pack, disappearing from his life entirely. Three years later, I returned to my original pack to visit my family. My mate, Ryder Weyland, was now the lycan chairman. Because of an urgent council meeting, he arranged for someone to collect me from the airport. I never imagined that “someone” would be August. The moment he spotted me, his eyes immediately landed on the sparkling bracelet on my wrist. "Isn't this a knockoff of the bracelet Ryder Weyland, the lycan chairman, spent two million dollars on for his mate? Didn't expect you to turn this vain after just a few years. "You've caused enough chaos, haven't you? It's time to return. Hailey's pup is now of school age. You can take on the responsibility of pick-ups and drop-offs." I gently ran my fingers over the bracelet on my wrist. Little did he know that this was the cheapest one Ryder had ever given me.

For six years of marriage, Cyran Valehart and I lived with measured respect, as if we were partners holding the same scale in perfect balance. For the sake of my equestrian career, I refused to have children. He shouldered the gossip, endured the judgment, and stood beside me without hesitation. But when I rode into what should have been my final international competition, he went back home with his first love—her hand resting protectively over her swollen belly. "All these years, you chose the horses over me," he spat. "That damned competition meant more to you than our family ever did." His voice shook with righteous anger, but his next words cut far deeper. "Six years ago, I abandoned Celia once. Now she carries my child. I won't betray her again." In that instant, my marriage became nothing but a title. I was reduced to a wife in name only, a figurehead in his home, a shadow he no longer cared to see. During the very competition meant to crown my life's work, Cyran laced a sharp needle beneath my saddle, each stride of my horse a fresh stab of pain meant to break us both. I lost the match. My horse collapsed with a shattered leg. And in that fall, my dream and my marriage were crushed together—ruined by the very man who once swore to protect them. Later, he paid with everything he had, desperate to make amends. But no matter what he sacrificed, Cyran Valehart was already behind me, nothing more than a ghost I would never turn to face again.

On the day of my coming-of-age ceremony, all three of my fiancés showed up with the worst reports from their family-run businesses. My father had declared that I would marry the one who could bring the greatest benefit to our family. However, all three of them had already fallen for a penniless scholarship girl named Amelia Jones, and none of them wanted me. In my previous life, I kept them close, mentored them, and poured my resources into helping them rise. By the time they had each become powerful men in my family, they repaid me by framing my father, getting him arrested, and making him age more than 10 years overnight. He was dragged to prison. Me? They hired a crew of street thugs to brutalize me, leaving me to die while my private photos spread across the internet. As life slipped away, I heard their sneering voices: "Did you really think we ever liked you? Everything we did was for Amelia." "If you hadn't chained us to your side, we'd have married her long ago, we'd have a house full of kids by now!" "You and your father ruined her future. She couldn't afford college because of you. She had no choice but to jump!" Then I opened my eyes: reborn on the very day of my coming-of-age ceremony. I pulled my father aside, looked him in the eye, and said, "I'm an adult now. Throw them out. Strip them of every business and every asset we gave them." "I'm not choosing any of them. I chose Bruce Sullivan, the Don of the Sullivan family."

During the tenth year I had a crush on Ron, I was diagnosed with advanced stomach cancer. With a critically ill notice in hand, I stood at the door to the room where my former classmates gathered, and I heard Ron holding his crush and cooing at her, “Just ignore it. Willow has been bothering me for ten years. If there was even a possibility of us getting together, we would have done so a long time ago. Honestly, I would never like her. Even if she continues bothering me for another ten or twenty years, I still won’t like her.” My former classmates cheered, and Ron looked like he was about to kiss her. I stood at the door and cried so hard that I trembled, but I did not dare make a sound. Ron, I would not be able to bother you for another twenty years. I was about to die.

He fell hard for her but she fell harder. Homeless, heartbroken and rejected by her own family, Claire Jones, the ignored and hated daughter of a rich man never imagined that her life would change forever when she met her ray of light in the darkness of midnight,  Tristan Pierce.   “You have this chance to get back what you have lost, Miss Jones. You have my words.” Tristan said to Claire. She stared at him for a moment, he looked serious. “And why do you want to help me, Mr. Pierce? What will you achieve?” She couldn’t help but asked him with narrowing gaze. “I am not helping you in free, Miss Jones. I want a woman to as my son’s mother. He never asks for anything and this is the first time he wished for something and I can’t deny my only child's wish.” He said. “What do you mean, Mr. Pierce?” Her voice wavered as she anticipated his next words. “Marry me, Miss Jones.”

In Evergreen Pack, turning 18 means awakening, shifting into wolf form, and being marked by your mate. But on the day of my coming-of-age ceremony, my older brothers and my fiance bring back a gravely injured Omega from the border. They place her in my room, and my eldest brother, Corey Newman, personally put the moonstone pendant my parents left me around her neck. My fiance, Zachary Russell, who's supposed to mark me, instead takes the Omega, Nora Gates, by the hand. He looks at me coldly and hisses, "I refuse to be your mate." The pain is too much for my wolf and me. Yet, my other brother, Wesley Newman, only says, "Stop making a scene or get out." I realize then that they were no longer my family. So, I decide to exile myself and throw myself into ten years of closed research in Central City. They think I'm just throwing a tantrum, and they even take Nora to see the aurora in Everfrost, something I've always longed to do. When they finally realize that I'm never coming back, they fall to their knees at my feet, begging me like lunatics to return.

"He was everything I swore never to get close to. He was toxic, possessive, selfish. Without me even realising it. He was older than me. It was wrong. He was wrapped in darkness and mystery. He was sinisterly hot and rich to an extent I couldn't imagine. He made sure to become everything I have. He was anything but the one for me, yet he made me his. He made me fall for him. He got under my skin, penetrated my soul, shattered my heart. And I naively obeyed his will. He made me his but he never was mine. He was the devil himself and I'll burn in hell for ever loving him."

One impetuous night gave them a gem and a lifetime of happiness. Izabelle had one-time sex with her crush, her cousin’s bestfriend after he was drugged. Later learning that she was pregnant, a misunderstanding flared where he believed that she had it all planned out. He agreed on taking responsibility but Izabelle’s desire was not to get into a loveless marriage and so she gathered her belongings and fled the country. Five years later, he saved a cute little bunny from child traffickers at the airport not knowing that the child was his. “You look like me, see? We have same eye colour,” the child pointed out. Then again, few minutes later when her Mother walked in, ‘Mommy, look I found daddy.” She raised her head to meet those icy familiar dark eyes. All Izabelle wanted was to keep her child away from Marcel but what about the sweet little thing holding onto his legs out of nowhere, batting her eyes at him and asking. “Will you be my daddy?”

My fiance, Derrick Lodge, chooses to save me during the typhoon, instead of his first love, Victoria Rayne. My life is saved, but Victoria dies after being struck by flying debris before the rescue team can find her. They aren't even able to find the rest of her body afterward. After going home, Derrick doesn't attend Victoria's funeral and immediately holds a grand wedding for me instead. For the next three years of our marriage, Derrick doesn't stop torturing me because he says that I caused Victoria's death. When I reach my limit and finally ask him for a divorce, Derrick kills me with a gun before killing himself. I open my eyes again and realize that I have traveled back in time. It is the day the typhoon happened, threatening our lives. This time, however, I tell Derrick to save Victoria's life instead.

[I found out Daniel Ortega, the notorious delinquent at my high school, is actually a cat-loving gentle soul. Now, it's time to use it against him to get what I want.] Things get a lot more exciting for Logan Smith, a 17-year-old student from Skyland high school, when he catches Daniel Ortega in a vulnerable state. Logan is a scholarship boy-a genius prodigy who is expected to get into the best college once he graduates. Daniel Ortega is seen as the walking terror in high school. He is rough around the edges, tattooed, tall and muscular, and rumored to be a complete psychopath. But underneath his scarred skin hides a big heart. Daniel, however, doesn't want anyone to find out about his soft heart. His reputation as a bad boy makes people leave him alone, and he intends to keep it that way. But the problem arises when Logan finds out his secret. He threatens to expose Daniel as a secretly nice person unless Daniel beats up one of Logan's bullies on his behalf. Daniel doesn't like violence, but he has no choice but to agree since he doesn't want to lose his reputation as the high school bad boy. The sooner Daniel beats up the bully, the sooner he can return to being a lone wolf. He wants nothing to do with him after, yet, Logan seems to be attracted to him like the moth to a flame, and Danny can't seem to get rid of him!