May Death Never Stop You

My mate is Ryder Blackwood, Alpha of the pack. As the approaching bonding ceremony, he tells me that his "savior", Isabelle Morrison, is dying. She took a silver dagger meant for him three years ago. Now she is terminal, and her days are numbered. Her last wish, he says, is to leave behind a pup bearing the strongest Alpha blood. I tremble. "What about me? I'm your only mate." His voice is cold, emptied of feeling. "Don't worry. I'll always be your mate." Two days later, I receive the pregnancy test results. Isabelle is five weeks along. Turns out there was never a choice. All I get is a belated notice. What he doesn't know is that I'm the one who took the silver dagger meant for him three years ago. The healer tells me I have, at most, a month to live. I neither weep nor protest. I cancel the bonding ceremony I've dreamed of and quietly book a flight out. It leaves on the very day of the ceremony. Ryder stands at the venue of the canceled ceremony when my message reaches him. It's my unwavering rejection of him as my mate. That's when he finally breaks. For the first time, the Alpha who controls everything tastes a fear that tears the soul. He searches for me frantically, only to find every trace of me erased from his world.

When the power meter in the house trips, Mom's foster daughter, Juniper Hawthorne, is trapped in the dark for five minutes. Even though I have claustrophobia, Mom locks me in an empty, pitch-black room. "You knew Juniper was terrified of the dark, yet you intentionally shut off the power just to frighten her! I'll teach you how to behave today!" I cry and beg her not to, but all I receive in return is a harsh slap. "Claustrophobia? That's just what happens when a kid grows up too spoiled." Late that night, I sense someone breaking into the house. The first thing I do is to call Mom, a renowned criminal psychologist, for help, only to be yelled at. "You're still really getting into this role just to fight Juniper for attention, aren't you? "Kidnappers, huh? Well, go ahead and die so you'll stop bothering me!" As she wishes, I'm brutally tortured and killed. My body is buried beneath Mom's favorite flowerbed. After I die, my soul is trapped in the body of a cat. All I can do is helplessly circle Mom until five days have passed. The police arrive with a mangled body and request her help in creating a portrait of the killer.

The moisture condensed from the atmosphere that falls visibly in separate drops came unexpectedly. People had no idea that raindrops carry an infected agent, which consists of a nucleic acid molecule in a protein coat and multiplies only within the living of a host. It's like a piece of code that can copy itself and has a negative effect, such as corrupting the system and destroying the mind's rational data. A virus that was so small and infectious that once infected, a person's body became a reservoir of virus particles, causing the infected person to become carnivorous. Every second is crucial. Who will save humanity from the undead army? Will you save the world even if around you is on the verge of death?

One month before my wedding to my boyfriend, he announced he wanted to have a child with his "first love." I refused, but he brought it up every single day. Two weeks before the ceremony, I received a prenatal checkup report. That’s when I discovered his so-called "first love" was already nearly a month pregnant. It turned out he’d never intended to seek my consent at all. In that moment, years of affection evaporated like smoke. So, I canceled the wedding, destroyed every trace of our memories, and on what should have been our wedding day, I walked into a closed-off research lab. From then on, he meant nothing to me.

At one of the exclusive private casino parties, my eyes landed on a diamond tiara. The catch? It was the prize for a high-stakes blackjack game. Luckily, poker happens to be one of my many sins. A girl named Elara—whom I once pitied enough to introduce to Throne, hoping she’d land a job—has now declared she wants the tiara too. Naïve. Probably thought beginner’s luck was a real thing. I figured, fine. Let the cards decide. If I win, I walk away with the tiara. If I lose, I’ll find another way to soothe my pride. Easy enough. Thorne, my ever-watchful husband, leaned in and murmured, “Go easy on her.” I didn’t. I won. Beat the dealer faster than her and won the tiara. That girl cried at the table. Thorne didn’t look impressed for once. He rather seemed... irritated. I thought it was for Elara’s sake. Turns out, it was for mine. A year later, same party, different stakes. The grand prize? My own sex video. While holding Elara in his arms, my husband said to me, voice almost amusing, “Don’t you like winning prizes? Then go on. Win our sex tape back.”

My father called me to his study to deliver an order. I, Victoria Castellano, was to take my illegitimate half-sister Isabella’s place, to marry the comatose heir of the rival Moretti family and secure a truce. I didn’t cry. I laid my kid gloves on his polished desk and made my three demands. Sever all ties. My mother’s entire legacy. And give my bodyguard, Nicholas, to Isabella. Everyone knew my obsession with him. I loved him until I overheard the truth. He was the hidden Rossi heir, undercover only to protect his precious Isabella. Every time he’d saved my life, he was just guarding his link to her. So I let him go. I won’t tell him I’m marrying someone else. And I’ll never tell him that three years ago, in Lake Tahoe’s freezing depths, the lips that breathed life back into a drowning man—the memory that haunts him—weren’t Isabella’s. They were mine.

Victoria Lewis was twenty-one years old, kind-heated, smart, and beautiful, her father and her late mother promised her that they will never interfere in her love life. However, when Victoria found her father trying to commit suicide, she agreed to an arranged marriage to James Johnson to save her father’s company from bankruptcy. James Johnson’s father Emmanuel Johnson arranged this marriage because he didn’t want his son to marry Serene Logan since she was not compatible with his son James Johnson. However, James Johnson was head over heels in love with Serene Logan, he threatened his parents that he would kill himself should they separate him from Serene Logan. Would James agree to the arranged marriage to Victoria Lewis? Will they be happily ever after?

The Horror Game invaded the world. Real players entered the game, and their every move would be broadcast live. My adopted son shoved me—an eighty-eight-year-old woman—straight into a deadly dungeon to save his own skin. One of the comments in the live stream predicted: [What? They’re tossing in such an elderly woman? No way she’s gonna survive the first night!] On the first night, a frost-bitten ghost exhaled icy breath in my face. I shrugged off my thick floral coat, feeling sorry for her. “You poor thing! You must be freezing. Listen to me and bundle up quickly!” The second night, a starving ghost lunged at me with blood dripping down his chin. I sniffed the air, then found a jar of pickled cabbage. “Look at how skinny you are! Come on, let me get you something hot to eat.” On the final day, the last surviving players tied me up, desperate to steal the one ticket to escape. However, before they could touch me, every ghost in the dungeon came storming out, cleavers and rolling pins in hand. “Touch her, and you’re dead meat!”

"I will make you wish for death," Marvin spat wickedly, his eyes blazing into mine. "But death... will be too far away." I sniffed and blinked a couple of times. “I, Rita Maxwell, would only wish for one thing.” Marvin’s head snapped toward me. Indifference coated his expression, sharp and cutting. Yet beneath the deep-rooted hatred was a flicker of something uncertain that didn’t last long. But I continued, “…I, Rita Maxwell, reject…” “Enough!” Alpha Philips’ voice broke through the air, both stiffening and unbearable. “You clearly wish for death, don’t you?” he blurted through gritted teeth. ***** Rita Maxwell was hated by all, including her mum and her twin sister, Becky, due to the birth scar on her face, the same scar that was termed a curse and had condemned her. What could be more cruel than having fate take a twist into one’s worst nightmare? Rita’s kindness was mistaken for treason and attempted murder, and she was reduced from a despised daughter to a rejected and hated maid in the packhouse. But on her eighteenth birthday, the tables turned so cruelly that she wished they never had. All she ever asked for was love, a perfect life with a mate who cherished her, not the other way around. Fated to the very man who was betrothed to her twin sister, wasn't what she ever wanted. As the hands of time ticked and broken hearts bled, what becomes of the bond that was termed a curse, a taboo… manipulated? What becomes of Rita, the cursed and hated pack omega in this journey of survival? And Marvin, would he ever see her any differently, especially with the demise of Becky and the impending chaos? What if there are better options for Rita?

My adopted sister, Rita Lawson, and I get ambushed by a rival family at the same time. But she pushes me away at the most critical juncture, leading to me getting kidnapped. After my kidnappers feed me poison, they leave me to rot in the wild. When I finally get home, I find out that Rita pretends to be poisoned, so my dad has already given her the only antidote. With tears streaking down her cheeks, Rita tells my parents that she's chosen to ingest poison for me, and yet I abandoned her and fled on my own. Of course, everyone believes her. My parents tell me, "Rita got poisoned just to protect you. You must transfer your businesses to her." My husband, Enrico Fulci, says to me, "Someone needs to take care of Rita. Let's get a divorce, Elisa." Even my own daughter, Ivana Fulci, asks me, "Mamma, when are you going to be as gentle and understanding as Zia Rita?" Faced with everyone's accusations, I drink a serum that I've bought from the black market in order to suppress the poison in my system. It can allow me to live like a regular person. But in return, the poison within me will erupt three days later, causing my instant death. Using the three days I have left, I hand my businesses, my husband, and my daughter over to Rita. Everyone is pleased, thinking that I've finally learned my place. But what they don't know is that Death will come for me after 72 hours.