In Our First Transfiguration Class

Late one night, a thread blew up and hit the front page of a famous forum deep in New York’s underworld. The original poster had dug up an old prompt: “Name three words that sum up your youth.” Then an account that’d been dormant for years popped up in the replies. Its avatar was a backlit silhouette of a girl in a white dress, username: Seraphina. That was Seraphina Rossi. The Rossi family heiress, the undisputed it girl of New York’s underworld. She typed: Vibrant. Passionate. And Rico Valentino. All hell broke loose in the thread. The wild Valentino’s heir and the breathtaking Rossi heiress had once loved each other hard, only for it all to end in bitter regret. Nearly everyone in New York’s underworld had watched that heartbreak play out. Including me. I turned my head, staring at the man sleeping beside me. This was the man next to me: the once reckless kid who’d ruled the streets of Queens with his bare fists, now the Don of the Valention family. Poised. Unshakable. And he didn’t love me. I’d always known Rico still kept in touch with Seraphina. That he’d met her in secret, more than once. That’s why he’d refused to make our marriage public. His excuse was always the same: “Keeping your identity off the grid keeps our enemies from targeting you.” But I knew I was the one standing between Rico and the woman he’d never stopped loving. If all three of us were just going to keep hurting like this? I’d rather walk away. Let them have each other. I’d made up my mind. I was divorcing Rico.

I was finally pregnant with his child after being married to Grady Winters for five years. I planned to share the wonderful news with him in person, but on that fateful day, I encountered his first love, who had just returned from abroad. She scalded me with soup, spilling it across me before shoving me down the stairs. Curled up and fighting through the piercing pain in my abdomen, I heard her cold, mocking laughter from above. "Who do you think you are to be Mrs. Winters? I've seen plenty of women who are social climbers." Then, she turned to Grady, her voice laced with pride. She playfully pouted, asking, "Didn't I do a good job, Grady? Don't you think you should reward me as well?"

Before the pack's Winter Solstice festival, I was given a Moonwater Mirror, forged from the waters of the Moon Goddess Spring. But the face staring back at me wasn't my own. It was my face, but younger. The girl I was eight years ago. Her eyes were bright with a joy I hadn't felt in years. When she realized I was from her future, she practically vibrated with excitement. "Our fated mate, Alpha Owen, he confessed today! He's going to plant moonflowers around the lake cabin. He'll stay with me for every full moon. He promised to make me his one and only Luna forever!" Her voice was full of hope for the future. Her joy was a bitter reminder of what I'd lost. I listened quietly, only managing a faint smile. My reaction must have given me away. Her excited chatter died. Her gaze drifted over my shoulder, taking in the cold, empty penthouse behind me. "Wait... where's Owen?" Her smile faltered. "We're happy, right? After eight years?" I didn't say a word. I just slowly, deliberately, turned the Moonwater Mirror toward the terrace. There, my Alpha mate, Owen, had another she-wolf pinned to the railing. Their mouths were fused, their breaths mingling in the cold night air.

When Rachel's father falls ill and a mountain of debt stares her family in the face, she is thrown at her wit's end. To save her father's life, she succumbs to the shocking proposal of her cold, powerful boss, Noah Sinclair. Noah needs a wife to silence his family's demands, while Rachel needs his riches to pay for her father's hospital bills. But the shocking part is: He wants a marriage based on business only-no feelings, no romance, and no expectations.

It all started the night Audrey was sent to serve drinks to one of the guests who was in room 112. Beginning Audrey's step sister, Annie had been plotting deviously against her months, her envy and resentment growing with every passing day. Finally deciding the time is right, Annie approaches Audrey's manager at the hotel she worked at, Mr Frost with her plan. They would drug Audrey and give her a bottle of wine to deliver, claiming it is a special drink for a VIP client. Unknown to Audrey, the plan is to trap her in a compromising position with a vile old man, Mr Santiago and record them having sex. The night of the incident, Audrey, unaware of the danger is drugged and presented with the seemingly innocent bottle of wine and asked to deliver it to a client in room 112. Under the influence of the drugs, Audrey goes into room 114 instead of the intended room 112. Mistakenly believing she was meeting Mr Santiago, she finds herself alone in the room with a wealthy powerful man named Rex. The night soon becomes a blur of passion, clouded by the effects of the drug. Audrey has sex with the stranger, Rex.

The day my son is born, my husband holds him tightly, looking overjoyed. However, while I'm asleep, he secretly swaps my son with the child next door—his first love's baby. I act like I know nothing and arrange for someone to switch the babies back. My husband wants me to raise someone else's child as my own but has no idea he's not even the father of my son. Ten years later, I transfer all my assets to my son's name as a birthday gift. That's when my husband's first love, Amanda Larkin, crashes the birthday party. She looks at me smugly and says, "The son you've treasured for the past decade is actually mine!"

When it's time for us to say our vows during the wedding ceremony, Jessica Fletcher, my wife, leaves the stage just so she can confess her love to her first love, Benedict Olson. "Once upon a time, we had vowed to stay together for the rest of our lives, Benedict. It's unfortunate that we've missed out on the chance to do so in this lifetime. Would you be willing to stay with me in our next life, then?" Touched, Benedict pulls Jessica into his arms. Then, he turns to tell me, "Oliver, I've already given Jess to you in this lifetime, so you must take good care of her for me." Everyone gasps in shock, thinking that they'll soon witness two men fighting over the same woman. But I merely smile at the sight of Benedict and Jessica embracing each other tightly. Then, I take off my ring before passing it to Benedict. "Why wait till your next life to be together? Since you've already made a vow to stay together for eternity, I might as well grant your wish."

The apocalypse was coming. The ground temperature was 158 °F, and the first batch of human beings started moving to the base at the North Pole. As a scientist, my husband was allowed to bring family members with the first batch. Everyone thought that he would take me along without hesitation. But in the end, the name he wrote in the application form was one of his master’s students. “I trained her myself, and she does not have parents. I can’t bear to leave her alone in such a hot place.” He casually submitted the application form, and his words just chilled me to the core. “Rose, you’re different. You’ve been through tough situations. I believe you can make it until the second batch moves.” I forced a resigned smile and said nothing. That night, as the temperature climbed, I made a calm call. “You promised to grant me one wish, no questions asked. Does that still count?”

One night was all it was ever meant to be, a reckless moment between Aria Bennett and a man far beyond her world, yet what he treated as something forgettable became the turning point of her life, because while he walked away without hesitation and chose a woman of his own status and power, Aria was left behind with heartbreak and a truth he never stayed long enough to discover, forcing her to rebuild her life alone while carrying the weight of a secret tied to the man who never looked back. Years later, Aria is no longer the same woman he left behind, as she has grown into someone stronger, guarded, and completely in control of her life, someone who no longer waits to be chosen and who has learned to hide everything that once made her vulnerable, but when fate brings her back into his world, the past refuses to stay buried and the balance of power begins to shift, because the man who once dismissed her now sees her in a way he cannot ignore, and what he once overlooked slowly turns into something he cannot escape. Regret begins to take hold as he is drawn to her with an intensity he cannot control, yet the closer he gets, the more he senses that Aria is hiding something far deeper than the pain he caused, something that threatens to change everything he thought he knew about that night, while Aria refuses to become his second choice again, holding onto the life she built without him even as the truth edges closer to being revealed, a truth that could force him to face the full consequences of walking away from the one woman he should have never lost.

On our wedding day, Lily, the apple of Patrick Luther's eye, tried to kill herself. I grabbed onto his sleeve. "Please don't go." He pried my fingers off, one by one. "Don't make a scene. Lily needs me right now." I watched him walk away, laughing until my eyes turned red. If you don't love me, then I'm done with you. “Patrick, this time I'm the one leaving you."