Lovesick Fool

“Isn’t she bride having wedding anniversary? Where is she going with her bags?” “So she looked disheveled; did she lose a pregnancy or what?” These are the words that entered through my right ear and came out of the left ear. As I drag my luggages out of my matrimonial home on the night of my wedding anniversary, several tongues lolled at me as if I was not in my right senses. Yes you can say I am not in my right senses and my name should go down the history as the most foolish woman in the entire universe. I gave my precious left kidney for this two faced bastard but he threw my love back to my face. He promised me an elaborate wedding anniversary and marking night but he made it an elaborate disgrace day. Marking my stepsister right before me and gave me the divorce papers, what else should have been my reward for loving this man too much like a fool? He said he was sorry and there's no hope for me, I know I was foolish and there’s no remedy for my useless actions. But HE said “Are’nt you the woman I slept with last year?” I rolled my eyes but HE held me back and say, “I have been looking for you, be my Luna and I’ll be your slave, be my woman and I’ll be your guard, be with me, because you are my fated mate!"

> “Stay still, Little Thorn… I want to taste you slowly.” His voice was velvet and ruin. His mouth, a weapon. And I—fool that I was—leaned closer. Before death wore a suit and called itself a lover, I used to believe in beauty. Before the blood. Before the runes. Before I painted the image that killed my parents—I believed my art could save me. Now I know better. I was just weeks from graduating when the painting came to me like a fever. I didn’t choose it. I didn’t plan it. My hands moved, possessed, dragging symbols I’d never seen and a face I’d never forgotten—his. Eyes red as wine. A crown pierced with thorns. And a girl in the center… me. Offering herself. I signed it with a mark I didn’t recognize. I sold it to a stranger. And days later, my parents were dead—no wounds, no reason, just... gone. The police said stress. I say fate. Now I’m being hunted by a world I didn’t know existed. Vampires with ancient courts and older grudges. Symbols that whisper in my blood. And Lucien D’Aragon—the vampire who says I summoned him with my brushstroke. That I belong to him. He says I’m his prophecy. His ruin. His Little Thorn. But I’m not just prey. Something is waking in me. Something hungry. Something I was never meant to survive. If I give in, I lose everything. If I fight, I might finally learn the truth. About my art. About my bloodline. About what really happened that night. And why he keeps whispering that I was painted for ruin... but made for him.

As if being a rejected mate was not enough. I was bullied and laughed at for it. “She's such a fool to even imagine that Alpha Ryder would want her. An ordinary beta” “Such a useless fool” I would reject her if I were him too” These words followed me wherever I go, sounding like whispers but were intended for me to hear. I was done. From the death of my parents in the war, to the maltreatment by an aunt that was paid by the council to take care of me, to now being rejected by the one person that was supposed to love me unconditionally. I was done. Done with love, done with happiness. It was never in the books for me so I gave up on desperately searching for it and dedicated my life to the cause that killed my parents: The war between the Tiger shifters and the Werewolves. What happens when the General who was supposed to tear her apart, treats her with more care than she had ever gotten? Will she find love again? Or will love break the strong woman she had made herself into?

When I pushed through the main door, covered in blood, I found my amnesiac husband right on top of my best friend. His arm was wrapped around her waist with practiced ease, and she was passionately reciprocating his advances. "Ada will be devastated if she finds out…" Camilla said in a sweet voice through bated breaths. "After all, she really thinks you've lost your memories." Lucio chuckled softly and said in a mocking tone, "It's not my fault she loves me that much. Then again, it's a good thing for me since I can just let her do all the tough and dirty work." He leaned down and planted a kiss on Camilla's lips, mumbling, "Right now, you're the only one I recognize as my wife. Just wait. Once I sign the deal with the Della Veras, I'll have her kicked out and pass everything she owns to you. After all, I no longer remember a thing." Only then did it hit me. My husband's amnesia was all an act, a farce to fool me. Moreover, my best friend conspired with him to stab me in the back. Too bad they didn't know that the Della Vera family, the most feared Mafia family in Ritelle, only acknowledged one person: Me, Ada Rossi.

My sister, Bella, had a baby in a back-alley shithole. Then she disappeared. A midwife tracked me down using an address Bella left behind. She shoved the newborn at me like a sack of garbage. My parents fell to their knees. Crying. Begging me to take her bastard. Just like that, my future as a promising artist was gone. The neighbors, the priest, my landlord… they all called me a whore. A sinner who had disgraced God. They ran me out of the neighborhood . My life was over. Eighteen years later, Bella waltzed back into my life. A cheap thug with a fake Rolex dangled from her arm. She held my son, crocodile tears streaming down her face. She called me jealous. Accused me of stealing her flesh and blood. Of keeping a mother from her child. And my son? The one I bled myself dry for? The son I poured every last cent into, turning him into a brilliant painter? The son I starved for, so much that I ended up in a hospital bed? The moment he saw his "real" mother, he cast me aside without a second thought. "You pathetic, broke bitch!" he spat. "You stole everything from us! All the happiness that was supposed to be ours!" My parents threw me out like a dog. Bella's thug husband had his men corner me in the red-light district. They pinned me against a wall, their threats vile and clear: Never come back. I had no way out. I threw myself off the Brooklyn Bridge. Then, I opened my eyes. I was back. Eighteen years in the past. Then came the knock. Hell had found my door. I wasn’t going to be the fool who gave everything and got nothing. This time, I took control.