Nothing But Thirty

I gave everything to save my fated mate, Alpha Austen. I even lost our pups. Twice. But he gave all the credit to his adoptive sister, Seraphina. He called me weak. Useless. He always chose her tears over my scars. He even stood by as her poison shattered my wolf spirit. As I lay dying, I watched him hold my killer and whisper, “I know it wasn’t your fault. This was her fate.” Then I opened my eyes. And I was back. Back before it all went wrong. This time, I’m done explaining. Done sacrificing. Right in front of him, I disguised a potion that would sever our mate bond as a "blessing elixir" and held it to his lips. “My love,” I said, “drink this. It’ll help you comfort your poor little sister.” He drank it without a second thought. In thirty days, under the Blood Moon, our mate bond will be severed for good. But only when I was truly gone did he finally regret it. He knelt before me, again and again, calling himself my fated mate. Begging me to take him back.

BLURB Maya Blackwood has spent five years as the perfect wife to a man who doesn't love her. But when a terminal diagnosis gives her only six months to live, Maya finally finds the courage to demand what she's never had: one month of being Alexander's real wife. Alexander Blackwood has spent those same five years resenting the arrangement that tore him from his true love, Isabelle Chen. Now that Isabelle has returned to claim him, he's ready to file for divorce—until Maya makes him an offer he can't refuse without risking a scandal that could destroy his family's reputation. Thirty days. One month to discover whether a loveless marriage can become something real before time runs out. But as Maya and Alexander begin to truly see each other for the first time, secrets, lies, and the manipulations of those who want them apart threaten to steal even this brief chance at happiness. And when Alexander finally learns the devastating truth Maya has been hiding, he must face an impossible question: Is one month enough time to fall in love with someone you've already lost?

On the train back home, I found a scathing post online. [My sister-in-law is pushing thirty but isn’t married yet. She comes home all the time. Would you be bothered by it?] The comments were numerous and ran the gamut of opinions. The post got wildly popular, and there was an argument between the poster and commenters. [It’s bad enough that she won’t get married. She wants to stay with us when she’s home. Shouldn’t she feel ashamed? I’m at the end of my rope. She even drank all my lemonade last time she was here. I really hate her. [She has no boundaries. I’ve been wanting to teach her a lesson for ages. I turned her bedroom into my walk-in closet. Let’s see if she can still stay here.] When I got to this point, I closed the post. It was lucky that I bought the house where my parents and brother live. Because of that, I would not be at risk of losing my own room. But when I got out of the train station, I received a text from my mother. [Sweetie, I booked you a hotel room. You don’t have to come home and stay this time.]

He chose his mistress on our anniversary. He didn't know I was already planning my funeral. For three years, I was the perfect wife. I swallowed the insults from his family. I bore the guilt of our daughter’s death. Everyone blamed me. Yet, I loved Mateo Santiago with everything I had. Until the day I found out the truth. On the same day I discovered I was pregnant again, I learned my husband was expecting a child with another woman: my own step-aunt, Valentina. And worse? I finally discovered that he was the one responsible for our first daughter's death, not me. I didn't scream. I didn't fight. I simply texted him: "Your birthday is in a month. I’ll prepare a gift you’ll never forget." Thirty days later, Mateo Santiago watched my car burn at the bottom of a cliff. He buried an empty casket and cried for a wife he thought he loved. But Isabella Romano didn't die that day. She just disappeared. I was not alone anymore. I had another life growing inside me but then I stumbled upon a stranger. A stranger shadows feared. Dante Galante.

“I-I’m near, Zamir. Something is about to… come.” Claudia pierced a soft moan ahead of time. The man’s lips twitched into a curve. “For the next thirty days, I won’t let my maids clean the bathroom.” Claudia’s softest voice warmth Zamir’s heart. “Why?” “Your fingerprints are all over the place. I want to keep all your traces because thinking about you is making me feel aroused real good, Claudia.” *** Claudia Woods was a third year pre-med student. She wanted to be a Doctor due to her grandmother who was sick yet she has no control on the situations and casualties entering their lives. Unfortunately, her grandmother was diagnosed with a terminal disease and Claudia was forced to stop studying and just focused on working. Not until an unfortunate event occured, her grandmother died and the loan sharks were running after her. Yet destiny was a playful one. Claudia met the handsome Greek God-looking Zamir Trian Cassano, a person who will be a huge instrument that will change her life entirely. She thought that Zamir was just a normal person who had a lot of securities in his mansion yet as time goes by, Claudia soon found out the vicious man’s identity, leaving her a lot of doubts, horrific experiences along with his dark past and scars buried six-feet below the ground.

Alicia’s wedding once made headlines across all of New Yorke. The man who put the ring on her finger was Matteo Vitale, the youngest Don of the Vitale family. She was not a socialite heiress. She was a lawyer who had won countless cases for powerful families. She was also five years older than her husband. When Matteo was thirty and at the peak of his career, Alicia was already thirty-five. Back then, Matteo told her that age would never be a problem between them. As long as she wanted him, he would never let her go for the rest of his life. But in the fifth year of their marriage, a young woman burst into her office and dropped a divorce agreement on her desk. “I heard you’re the best divorce lawyer on New Yorke’s East Side. There isn’t a divorce case you can’t win, right? “I want to hire you to help my boyfriend get a divorce from his wife. “My boyfriend says his wife is thirty-five now. She smells old. Every time he touches her, he feels sick.” She opened the divorce agreement with practiced ease. She looked first at the names, as she always did. [Husband: Matteo Vitale [Wife: Alicia Leon] Her fingers paused for a brief moment. She was Alicia Leon!

Leah, Logan’s adopted sister, threw a tantrum at our first engagement party, an episode of her pup dependency anxiety. But after that night, I gave him an ultimatum: if he couldn’t bond me before I turned thirty, he’d have to choose—me or Leah. Logan believed I’d never walk away. After all, I was bonded by my dying mother’s last wish: to be bonded with the werewolf warrior who’d loved me for ten years. Ten years together. Twelve promises that he’d keep Leah in line. And then came my twenty-ninth birthday—our thirteenth engagement party. Leah locked me in a restroom, stole my gown, and stood beside Logan in my place. She was smiling, glowing, claiming everything that was mine. When I finally stepped out, my gown was tattered. I confronted Logan, but he only said, “Alison, forgive her. I promise, this is the last time.” I looked at the torn gown my mother had sewn through sickness and pain… and I laughed. Logan sighed in relief, thinking I’d let it slide again. But I didn’t. I turned and walked away without a word. After a decade together, he thought I belonged to him. Well, he was wrong. He didn’t know that there was someone else who could give me happiness and fulfill my mother’s wish.

I had gained thirty pounds after I was pregnant for six months. My husband, Jordan Smith felt disgusted by me. He would rather stay at work than come home, and he fell in love with his girl best friend, Holly Brown. On our wedding anniversary, they were acting intimately in a private room. Meanwhile, Holly was wearing my wedding gown. I saw the whole thing with my own eyes. She had her arms around Jordan’s neck and said to me coyly, “It’s not what you think.” Jordan was agitated after he was caught cheating on me. “I’ve known her since we were kids. We have been best friends for so many years. If something were to happen between us, it would have happened a long time ago.” However, I saw the hickey on Holly’s shoulder. She said to Jordan, “Your wife looks obese. My cousin didn’t gain a single pound after she had given birth. Instead, she looked even slimmer. Jordan, did your wife secretly eat pig feed?” Jordan felt embarrassed. He instructed someone to lock me in a bedroom and starve me for a few days. I suffered from a miscarriage. Indeed, I lost the weight on my abdomen, but Jordan went insane.

He scammed me out of my fortune. Now, I’m going to scan the marrow from his bones. Ethan Walker was the Golden Boy of Neo-Veridia. A billionaire tycoon with a shark’s smile and a god complex. Until Caleb Morgan—his rival, his shadow, the only man who ever saw beneath his tailored armor—liquidated his empire in a single, cold-blooded night. Ethan fell from the penthouse to the fighting pits, stripped of his name but fueled by a new, terrifying hunger. Because the bankruptcy wasn't a failure. It was a trigger. Deep in Ethan’s DNA, a 1998 secret is waking up. A silver-furred beast that doesn't want a board seat—it wants a mate. And it has its sights set on the man who ruined him. Caleb Morgan played the ultimate game. He didn't steal Ethan’s billions for the money; he did it to save Ethan’s life from the "Hunters" closing in. But Caleb’s mask is slipping. As the Universal Beta, he is the only one who can anchor Ethan’s rising Alpha fury. But anchors can be dragged under. From the glass halls of the city to the ancient shadows of the Moon, their rivalry is no longer about stocks and bonds. It’s about Skin. Silver. and Submission. In a world where thirty percent of humanity is shifting, Ethan is no longer looking for a merger. He’s looking for a total hostile takeover of the one man he’s forbidden to love. The Ledger is open. The Moon is rising. And the Audit is going to be bloody.

My mother and I pushed ourselves, slaving away to pay for my girlfriend’s debt. The work was too hard on her, and she was soon diagnosed with lung cancer. By the time I arrived at the hospital with money for her treatment, my mother had taken her own life and left behind a note. “I can’t go on, Gab. The money is best put toward settling the debts. Noelle is a good kid. She loves you. She’s just lost her way. That’s all. You two should settle down once the debts are cleared.” I held my mother’s ashes and gave Noelle the thirty thousand dollars she had left behind. Back in the office, I overheard Noelle talking to several creditors. “Ms. Strom, Mr. Lamb has passed your test. What’s next on the agenda for him?” Noelle’s childhood friend, Charles, jumped into the conversation. “Gabriel has proven that he’s willing to be there for you through thick and thin, but will he stick around in wealth? Noelle pursed her lips. “I need to know if he genuinely loves me. If he isn’t blinded by greed when learning about who I am, I’ll marry him.” I stared at my mother’s ashes, tears rolling down my face. “Noelle, my mother was wrong about you, and so was I. I don’t want to marry you anymore.” I thought to myself.