I Will Be Reinstituting Prima Nocta Novels & Stories

As human fertility rates kept falling, the government created a matching system between humans and beasts. That was how I became engaged to the Blackwood brothers—two wolf beasts who never wanted me. For a year, I made coffee for both of them every morning.The older brother, Adrian, kept his distance, but he always took the mug and thanked me quietly. The younger one, Kieran, was all temper and sharp teeth. He snapped at me, broke the mug, and acted like I was a nuisance. I told myself this was fair. If I treated them the same, maybe one day this arranged bond would feel like home. Then my best friend saw it and asked, “Have you ever thought that treating them equally might be unfair to the one who’s actually kind to you?” I thought about that all day. Then one morning, I walked out of the kitchen carrying only one cup.

The night before my wedding, my mom got into a car accident—she needed a blood transfusion, fast. Her blood type was rare. Mine matched. I was pregnant, but I didn't think twice. I donated. While I was bleeding out, losing my baby, my fiancé, Joffrey Habsburg, and his brother—my so-called childhood friend—Mateo, were busy holding Nancy's hand during her cosmetic surgery. I begged Joffrey to save my mom. Only then did he bother to pick up a scalpel. When it was over, he said, "Surgery failed. She's gone." Two days later, I overheard Nancy purring through the door, wrapped around the Habsburg brothers. "Mateo really is a racer—he hit that old hag dead on. And Joffrey? You were amazing too, making sure she didn't survive the surgery. Thanks to you both, I got Lori's blood for my operation."

My husband, Oliver Dawson, "forgot" everything in a car crash—and somehow fell for me all over again. After getting out of the hospital, he said he wanted to date me from scratch. Moved out, made it all romantic. People thought we were couple goals. I figured he just wanted that first-date spark back. Then I overheard him with his best friend. "The amnesia was a lie. I only moved out to take care of Katy. She's pregnant. Cecelia's never wanted kids. I'm not going childless." I glanced down at my barely-there bump and booked a hospital appointment. Then I found the memory-erasing pill Mom left me—and took it. Oliver had no clue I'd forget him in seven days. Completely.

My husband has slept around thousands of times, yet he has never agreed to a divorce. His family calls me a low-class nobody who's unfit to be seen. Five years ago, the first time I asked for a divorce, Hugo Hudson said nothing. He simply locked me inside the villa for a full month. A month later, I discovered I was pregnant. Three years ago, I brought it up again. That very night, Hugo returned to his family's estate. Soon after, I was granted the right to see my child once a week. Today is the third time. And this time, I can finally leave. Because I've realized something at last: my child doesn't love me, and my marriage was never real to begin with. I'm no different from the women he keeps outside. When we met again later, Hugo's eyes reddened the instant he saw me.

My childhood friend, Sawyer Dwyer, had just confessed his feelings to me when his ex, Lina Keenan, got into a car accident. In the hospital hallway, his voice was steady. "She can't handle any emotional shock right now. Just give it some time. Don't tell her about us." I met his gaze and nodded. I never thought "some time" would turn into three whole years. He made her soup, helped with her rehab, and gave her all his attention. But whenever I showed the slightest frustration, he got annoyed. "Joelle, don't overthink it. She just depends on me right now. Once she's better, everything will be fine. "I'm just being there for her as a friend. "Stop making this into something it's not..." ... Over and over, he made the same promises with complete confidence. Then one day, I brought a hot meal to Lina's place and pushed open the door. They were kissing. I stood there, frozen. When Lina noticed me, she smiled. "Joelle, I have good news. We're back together. When are you going to get a boyfriend? I want to see you happy too." I looked at their hands locked together, my eyes burning. "I did have a boyfriend. But just now... we broke up."

Vera Quinn and I spent seven years tearing each other apart in the corporate world. When we first started, she sabotaged my presentation slides, hoping to watch me humiliate myself in front of the board. I retaliated by flagging her fraudulent expense reports to HR, making sure her name was dragged through every department in the company. When we were both up for the director position, she locked me in a supply closet to make me miss the final interview. The moment I got out, I poached a major client she had been pursuing for six months, leaving her at the very bottom of the year-end performance rankings. In our industry, we were fire and water—completely incompatible. Then three years ago, the endless scheming finally felt hollow. I handed in my resignation and walked away from the industry for good. The day I packed my desk and left, Vera was leaning against the elevator door, her eyes full of mockery. "Giving up already? Mylo, a cowardly deserter like you deserves to starve on the streets". I hit the "close" button, swearing I never wanted to see her face again as long as I lived. Three years later, we crossed paths again at the industry’s annual gala. Vera was now the youngest partner in the industry. She looked at me as I stood there, humbling myself to pour drinks for an executive, and let out a sharp laugh. "It’s been a few years, and you’ve fallen this far? Working as a glorified escort to scrounge up some investments? What happened to that pride you used to fight me with?" But I wasn't there to secure any investment. I was there to beg that executive for a few more days to pay off the predatory loans my father had left behind. I just needed enough time to sign the consent form for my stomach cancer surgery with a clear conscience.

The 99th time Owen Anderson slides a ring onto my finger, his adopted sister, Monica Morgan, calls again. And just like that, for the 99th time, he ditches me at the altar to be with her, who's having another depressive episode. I'm fed up. I yell after him as he walks away, "Go ahead! Walk out on me, and I swear I'll marry someone else!" He doesn't even flinch. Instead, he snaps, "Can you stop being so unreasonable? We can get married anytime, but Monica's the only sister I've got." Then, he turns and walks away, leaving me standing there like a complete fool. What he doesn't realize is that this time, I mean it. Later, when he gets down on one knee for the 100th time, his older brother, Chris, slips an arm around my waist and says, "Sorry, Owen. She's your sister-in-law now."

I didn’t expect my marriage to end when it was on the verge of being saved. Noah Reece, my husband, married my best friend and divorced me. And on a cold night, I fell into the arms of a man I was never supposed to love. When I tried to run from him and what we were becoming, my past returned to claim me in the most tempting way, leaving me torn between two forbidden choices.

The night of my first shift at eighteen, my two older sisters brought home a fifteen-year-old orphaned boy. My Alpha sister seized the rare healing herbs I'd spent all my savings on — herbs meant to ease my first shift — and gave them to him instead. "You're strong enough," she growled. "You don't need such precious herbs." My Beta sister snarled with fury, pointing toward the door. "Get out! Don't come back!" I said nothing more, just grabbed my packed bag and left. They assumed I was merely throwing a tantrum, that I'd return in a few days. My sisters, finally free of my presence, took the orphan boy on an international vacation to the Caribbean islands I'd always dreamed of visiting. Many days later, when they returned to the pack, they were shocked to discover I'd accepted an offer from the neighboring pack's Head Healer. The position required fifteen years of isolated herbal research. I could never return home. That night, they fell apart.

At the wedding, I immediately recognized that the woman under the veil wasn't Selene, but an impostor. But I still went through with the ceremony as if nothing was wrong. In my previous life, Selene had been forced to return and complete the wedding with me after I exposed the fake bride in front of everyone. That very night, however, her childhood sweetheart was rushed to the ICU with acute alcohol poisoning. When Selene heard the news, she didn't shed a tear. Instead, she cursed him, saying he got what he deserved. … After we married, Selene and I appeared to be a loving couple on the surface. I kept funneling money from my family to save her family business from collapse. But on our first anniversary, my wife—with not even a sliver of warmth in her eyes—tied me to a helicopter with her own hands. "If you hadn't forced me to come back and marry you that day, Chase wouldn't have ended up like that," she snarled. "What right do you have to live so happily? I'll make sure you feel the pain he went through before he died." She threw me from ten thousand yards up, and I hit the ground as nothing more than a broken heap of flesh. So, this time, I pretended to know nothing and went through with the wedding alongside the fake bride. I wanted to see just how Selene would manage to save the crumbling Liraine Co. without the Schreiber family's support.