Protect My Star Novels & Stories

My best friend, Maya, flew in from Miami for my bachelorette week. My last days of freedom. She insisted on a girls' night in to celebrate, ordering all my favorite takeout. She asked me to hold her mobile phone and wait.Then her phone lit up. A message from some guy. A shirtless pic. Text: I need you tonight. Another photo buzzed through. Sex toys. Bondage gear straight out of a movie. My face burned. My heart hammered against my ribs. I’d just stumbled into her secret life. But the next image made my blood run cold. A close-up of the man's chest. A jagged scar I knew better than my own reflection. It belonged to my fiancé, Luciano Carbone.

My sister, Laura Ward, died the year we were ten, the year we snuck out of school to play. From that day forward, my mother’s grief turned into a burning hatred for me, convinced that I was the reason my sister was gone. She treated me like a servant, like an unwanted burden, and filled the void by adopting a perfect, obedient daughter to replace my sister. She took everything from me without a second thought — my rights, my freedom, my very existence — and even demanded that I give up a kidney for her precious adopted girl. Alright, Mother, if you want a life, I’ll give you mine! But it was only when my body lay cold, my breath long gone, that she finally turned and looked at me.

Because I was born under the Moon’s blessing, my body ripened earlier than any she-wolf my age. On the night of my eighteenth turning, my brother—fearing I’d be force-claimed by brutes—entrusted me to his blood-oath brother: Silas, Alpha of the Northern Peak. The first time we met, his golden eyes locked on my bared neck and never left. His fangs sank into my scent gland that very night, claiming me beneath the full moon. For four years since, I’ve been his scribe by dawn light, and his whore by moonrise. He trained my body to fit his every hunger, covering me in bite marks, yet never left the Mating Mark that would make me his true mate. Four years later, his confidante from the Central Territories returned. He tore from my heat-soaked sheets without a backward glance, racing to the moon-platform to greet her. I followed, stomach hollow, scent glands throbbing with his phantom claim. Only an hour before, his hand—scarred from my own teeth—had clamped over my mouth as he rutted me into the furs. Now, before the assembled Pack, he stroked another woman’s silver hair. “Amara, don’t show that jealous look. Have you forgotten—four years ago, you were the one who crawled into my bed while I was moon-mad.” “This tantrum is unbecoming.” He was right. I had chosen this life myself. But when I finally chose to leave him, he was the first to break.

My fiancee, Josephine Carter, tells me she is too busy with work to go home with me for Christmas just yesterday. But today, I find out that she has secretly booked a flight ticket to my hometown. I am delighted. Josephine has always been good at creating surprises during our relationship. I do not expect her to still be doing this now that we have practically been dating for years already. Just as I am about to tell my mom the good news, my stepbrother, Daniel Reed, suddenly announces in the family group chat that he is bringing his girlfriend home for Christmas as well. My relatives immediately start teasing him in the group chat, asking to see the beautiful lady. In the next second, photos of Josephine and him embracing like a couple appear in the chat. Daniel texts, "See? I told you she is gorgeous. Not only that, she's rich too." "Wow. You won the heart of such an amazing woman. That's impressive, Daniel." Daniel replies smugly, "Of course! She is totally in love with me." My breath catches in my throat, and the veins on the back of my hand bulge as I grip my phone. No wonder Josephine says she cannot come home with me after learning I am spending the New Year at my mother's place. She doesn't expect that we will run into each other. I close my eyes for a moment and send her one last message, "I have transferred back the 500 thousand dollars you asked me to manage for our wedding. It's over between us."

Seven years after my death, an engagement invitation from my ex-girlfriend arrives at my house. Back then, I had broken up with her in my lowest, most desperate days and married someone else. Now, she has reinvented herself as a rising powerhouse worth hundreds of billions, driven by revenge and eager to see me regret everything and beg for mercy. Unfortunately for her, I am not the one who shows up. She looks around in open contempt, convinced my absence means guilt, shame, and fear. When I finally appear, all she sees is an urn.

My sister-in-law and I have always been close, and we happened to be pregnant at the same time. However, during a routine check-up, she was diagnosed with uterine fibroids. I urged her to have surgery as soon as possible, but she refused and instead claimed her sallow complexion was a sign she was carrying a "child of fortune." She then retreated to the countryside to rest and nurture her pregnancy. Nine months later, while I grieved the loss of my stillborn child, she came back from the countryside with a baby girl in her arms. Consumed by the suspicion that the child was rightfully mine, I demanded a DNA test. That same night, my own mother and brother conspired to take my life. After my death, I discovered it was all a conspiracy. My family had orchestrated everything to swap my child for hers. When I opened my eyes again, I found myself back to the moment before I took her for that fateful check-up.

On my birthday, my adopted sister, Sophia Norris, frames me for soiling her dress and causing her to not be able to attend the banquet. My older brothers, Gerald and Gary Moore, immediately demand that I give my gown to Sophia. Otherwise, they will cancel the birthday banquet. Furious, I point at them while screaming, "I didn't ruin her dress at all! She was the one who splashed red wine onto it! "Also, I will never give my gown to her! My best friend designed it for me!" As soon as my words fall, Gerald commands the bodyguards to tear the gown from my body. At the same time, Gary picks up a wine glass and dumps red wine onto my face. "It's bad enough that you constantly bully Sophia! Today, her crush, Zachary Green, will be attending the banquet too! Do you have any idea how long she has prepared for this day to come?" Gerald adds, "A vile woman like you doesn't have the right to be born, let alone celebrate your birthday!" After that, a few bodyguards drag me into the basement. Immediately, pitch-black darkness swallows me. I have severe asthma. Breathing becomes insanely difficult for me as seconds tick by. I keep screaming loudly and calling for help, but all I hear is laughter coming from the banquet upstairs. It isn't until the banquet is well underway that Gerald and Gary remember that I exist. But I've already died in the cramped basement.

I was separated from my family at a young age and was adopted by my adoptive parents, who treated me very well. The day I turned eighteen and became an adult, my biological parents called me and begged me to meet them. Even though I had not seen them for years, I decided to fly to the city where they lived for a meetup. On the day I arrived, I shopped for gifts to give them as a gesture of goodwill, all while waiting for my biological brother to come and pick me up. When I finally picked up the gifts, a young woman decided to take them for herself. “I want the smoking pipe, the tie, and the necklace she’s holding!” She signaled to the shop assistant with a quirk of her lips, and the latter snatched the gift boxes from me. “Hey, I saw them first!” I was furious, but she looked me up and down with a sneer. “All these items are from the most expensive brands in the store. They cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Can a penniless loser like you afford them? “I am the daughter of the Ferrero family. My older brother is the heir of the Roccia Gang, the city's most powerful gang. Over here, no one dares fight me over things I’ve set my eyes on.” ‘Ferrero? Isn’t that my biological family?’ I thought. As it turned out, she was the girl my parents had adopted after they lost me. I raised an eyebrow and called my older brother, who was coming to pick me up. “Hey, your adopted sister snatched the gifts I bought for you all. What’re you going to do about it?”

"Please reject me as your mate and let me go, Alpha Max! I know you have a lover, Lady Jessica, and live a happy life with her. Please just let me go.” I closed my eyes and begged hoping he'd at least listen but instead, I heard a little thud a few inches away from my face and I opened my eyes to see a file. "Wh- What is this, Alpha?" I stammered my voice barely above a whisper. "Open it!” he cold voice scared me and I took the file lying inches away from me. As I brought it closer and read it, the letters written on the first page sent shivers down my spine. "Contract Marriage? Wh...What is this?"

My mother, Winona Barlowe, who was the medical director at the hospital, decided to let my intern sister, Mia Barlowe, practice her skills by performing a brain tumor surgery on me. I begged my mother to assign another doctor since it was my only chance at survival. She slapped me across the face and cried out, "How did I ever give birth to a selfish girl like you? Mia just started her internship. Can’t you give her the chance to practice?" When I died from the botched surgery, she turned gray overnight.