John Knox

“You shouldn’t be here, you're the Alpha King and Liam's uncle.” I managed to say, trying to resist his touch. He chuckled deeply, “You forgot one more thing” he said simply, brushing his thumb over my lower lips. “What is that?” I whispered almost inaudibly. “I'm also your mate.” He murmured, leaning towards me. “What do you want from me?” I asked, feeling so confused. “Isn't it obvious?” He asked with a smirk, “I want you.” . . Aria is heartbroken, when her fated mate, the Alpha's son, betrays and brutally rejects her. Seeking for temporary comfort, she finds herself in the arms of a mysterious stranger who offers her the comfort she desperately craves that night, under the influence of a sexual stimulant and she flees the next morning. To her shock, she discovers her passionate night was spent with her ex-mate's uncle, the Alpha King, Alpha Knox Blackwood, who is also her second chance mate. Knox however is not willing to let her go. He has had a taste, and wants her for himself. Knox offers her a second chance — an opportunity to leave her past as an omega behind, and she quickly accepts. However, there are so many people not happy about this, and Knox has a dark secret. What happens when their dark pasts rise up to haunt them?

For three years, I was the only one allowed inside my husband, Matthew Carter's, secret room on the top floor. Until that day—when I walked in and found his young assistant there. "Matthew asked me to get things ready for his dinner party," she said, all confidence and no shame. I smiled. It turned out this was what it felt like to have my privileges as his wife trampled on. Fine. If the rules of the game had changed, then I would show everyone who the real player was. One by one, I dismantled the Carter family's most prized projects. That was when Matthew finally panicked. He demanded, "Why? We're husband and wife!" "Exactly," I said, tossing the divorce papers onto his desk. "And that's why betrayal comes with a steeper price, doesn't it?"

I woke up staring at divorce papers—from the guy I'd crushed on all through college. My name. His. Right there on the page. He said I cheated. Last thing I remembered? Getting ready to finally tell him how I felt at our graduation party. Now suddenly, we've got a four-year-old. And him? He looked at me like I was some rando off the street. No trace of the sweet, soft guy I used to know. Just ice. What did I miss? What the hell happened in the last five years?

Three years ago, Lucas’ mother paid me ten million dollars to play his fated mate with the help of a potion. Lucas believed I was hopelessly in love with him. What he didn’t know was that I was nothing more than a hired actress. By day, I stood at his side during training. By night, he paraded a she-wolf through the mansion. He once sneered, “Don’t delude yourself into thinking the mate bond can change me.” I only smiled, silently counting my money. “Funny, because I never planned on giving you my heart, either.” On the day the potion wore off, I walked away with the fortune, while he spiraled into madness. Three years later, I returned victorious as the youngest S-class strategy consultant. There he was, on his knees, murmuring, “I was wrong.” Little did Lucas know that his arrogance, handed out like charity, had carried a hefty price tag of ten million. Now, even if he lost everything, it still wouldn’t be enough to buy my forgiveness.

At twenty-eight, I held the dubious honor of being the last unmarried socialite on New York's Upper East Side. Everyone around me was growing increasingly anxious about my single status. In my previous life, my mother arranged a matchmaking cocktail party, where I was told to choose a husband from ten handpicked elite bachelors. I bribed the event planner to place Mark West's profile at the very top—and as I had hoped, I chose him. After we married, Mark treated me with what seemed like tender affection. He even bought me an oceanfront villa in the Hamptons, making me believe I had finally found true love. But that illusion shattered the day I was nine months pregnant, just hours away from giving birth. Mark drove a scalpel straight into my abdomen—then, right in front of me, hurled our newborn onto the floor. "If you hadn't forced me into this marriage with your family's power, Sofia wouldn't have been heartbroken enough to go drinking and get drugged and assaulted. This… this is what you owe her!" He tossed the scalpel aside, then calmly let his private doctor pin down my blood-soaked body. I fought through excruciating pain for six agonizing hours, until I finally bled to death. Afterward, Mark dumped my corpse into the Hudson River. But for Sofia, he hosted a grand funeral—funded with my money, under my name—and paraded himself to the world as a grieving, devoted widower. Given a second chance at life, I refused to step foot in that cursed matchmaking event. Instead, I went straight to my mother with a demand: marry me to Robert Black—the most ruthless, cold-blooded titan of Wall Street, whose scarred face was feared by all. In the end, stripped of my financial backing, Mark's hedge fund collapsed. He became a disgraced fraudster, spat on by everyone on Wall Street.

Emma Blanton twists her ankle, and my fiance, Matthew Harrison, insists on becoming her personal chauffeur. When I voice my disapproval, he makes an even more outrageous decision. He moves Emma into my apartment at Bellemont District—the apartment I bought with my own money. He argues like he's the victim, "You're being selfish. She's injured, and living alone is too dangerous for her right now. I'm just being a decent human being. "And that place is sitting empty anyway. Having someone there helps with security." On the morning we were supposed to get our marriage certificate, he doesn't show up. I call, expecting apologies. Instead, I hear, "Emma had a fever this morning—101 Fahrenheit. I had to take her to urgent care. We can postpone getting the marriage certificate. Her health can't wait." To hell with postponing! I grab my phone and call David Rockefeller. "Do you want to marry me? Then get to City Hall. I'm serious—right now."

When my stepsister, Kate Lawrence, is poisoned at the full moon ceremony, my father, Jack Blackwood, condemns me at once, convinced that I am the one behind it. He clamps silver chains around me and drags me into the manor's dark underground cell. His eyes burn hatefully as he snarls, "You wretch! How could I have a daughter like you? Rot in here!" I drop to my knees on the cold floor and try to explain, but the sentence he throws over his shoulder as he turns away snuffs out the last of my hope. "Even if she dies in there, no one shall go in! Whoever lets her out will die with her!" The cell severs the mind-link completely, so no one hears me screaming. Seven days later, he finally remembers me, not knowing that I'd already died on the fourth day when the silver burned through to the bone.

When my dad died, my husband was at the airport—picking up another girl. She looked like me. Only difference? He actually loved her. I was just the stand-in. Three years of marriage? It cost me my dad... and every last shred of self-respect. But at least I finally saw him for who he was. I left the country in a soaked dress. That's when it hit him—what it really meant to lose. "Emily, I was wrong!" "Daniel Wilson, it's too late." Stand-ins don't get love. They get a new beginning.

The explosion wiped out my parents—and their company. All I had left was some insurance cash and a pile of patents nobody cared about. I begged their old partners to back me. Crickets. Then Alex Ross strolled in, played the hero no one asked for, and proposed. Five years deep into our marriage, after my 99th FDA rejection, I finally cracked. I was in the garage when I heard his phone on speaker. Mark's voice came through: "Dude, you're still handing Lily Emma's blueprints before she even files? How many times has she flopped now? Girl's relentless, huh?" Alex? Straight-up ice. "Ninety-nine. She'll quit soon." "You're really tanking your wife to boost Lily's brand? Worth it?" "Lily's launching her new product tomorrow at the Boston Medical Summit. Patent number 100. Watching her blow up from nothing... makes me proud." "But it's all Emma's stuff. Your dad made you marry her for her brain, didn't he?" "Don't bring up my father." His voice turned sharp. "He forced me to dump Lily. I just played along." I sank into the driver's seat, frozen. I wasn't a partner. Just a pawn—revenge bait for his dad and backup fuel for his ex.

On the night of my awakening, which was also my 18th birthday, my parents locked me in a silver cage in the basement while my foster sister Emma prepared for her ceremony upstairs. Then, the Blood Moon Eclipse struck, forcing every member of the pack to evacuate. Emma urged our parents to help. My heart warmed, and I thought they would come to save me. However, the only thing my father carried out was Emma’s stuffed wolf doll. They clutched Emma and fled for their lives, leaving me behind in the collapsing basement. When I crawled out of the ruins, they were already in the safehouse, celebrating Emma’s successful awakening as a White Wolf. Ten years later, I became the heir to Blackstone Consortium, controlling half of the werewolf world’s economy. When we met again, the former leader of the Silvermoon Pack knelt before me. “I've finally found you, my daughter.” My gaze was cold as I faced the stranger in front of me. “You’ve got the wrong person.”