Scarlet Widow

“Please...come back to me, be my Luna again, Charlotte,” Hayden said. I sneered. “You don't even qualify to be my Omega. What makes you think I would want to be your Luna?” “Then let me be your slave,” the shameless mate who had rejected me begged. ------------------- I had been claimed and married to my mate, Hayden for three years, but everything changed when his brother died. He began to ignore me and get closer to his brother’s widow, Sofia. Everyone could see how much he favored Sofia over his own mate, me. I turned a blind eye and endured it all because he was my destined mate and I loved him so much. But Sofia framed me for causing her miscarriage and everyone blamed me for it, not to mention my mate. My mate forced me to kneel and apologize to that bitch who had tried many times to drive wedges between me and my mate, with the help of his sister, Milla. Hayden didn't even want to listen to my explanations. He gave me a choice - apologize or divorce. I would never apologize for something I didn't do and thus I chose divorce. No one knew I was actually the next-Alpha-in-line of one of the most powerful packs. After the divorce, I went back to my pack and take over my birthright - becoming a powerful Alpha and showing Hayden that he was nothing to me and my life was better off without him!

Penelope Davenport—perfect Luna, devoted mate, strategic partner—thinks she is a smart woman who built an unbeatable empire beside her Alpha husband. Until the sex tape message that shatters her and instantly makes her realize that she had only ever been a stepping stone. But her unremorseful alpha husband rejects her when she confronts him, calling her infertile and casts her aside for his mistress—a cruel widow who has hated her all along. By nightfall, Penelope is kidnapped to be used as leverage in a struggle between pack Alphas grasping at power and authority.  When her husband is offered the chance to come and save her, he tells them to kill her and get her off his hands. And so they do, unaware that Penelope had been thrown under the bus. But death is not the end. Penelope wakes two hours before the public proposal that once sealed her fate and this time she refuses to be sacrificed.  She rejects her mate afore the entire elite circle and exposes his affair, claiming that she has already moved on. She kisses a stranger walking into the room on impulse to cement this and he turns out to be Lorcan Callahan—the most powerful young Alpha heir in the country. What no one knows is that Lorcan remembers dying too, and this time, he refuses to lose his mate again. Now bound by a contract marriage and a shared thirst for retribution, Penelope and Lorcan will dismantle empires because revenge is always sweeter the second time around.

On the day of the wedding, my best friend, Elena Hartman, can't bear to part with me, so she threads my wedding shoes with a string and ties them snugly around her slim waist. The groomsmen turn the whole place upside down, and we end up late for the ceremony. She eventually cracks up and tugs at her billowy bridesmaid dress, revealing the outline of the shoes at her waist. "I dare you to come take them. As long as I'm here, she's not getting married!" My fiancé, Miles Lawson, shakes his head and chuckles. "You just love tormenting us, don't you?" Miles exchanges a look with the groomsmen, and they charge at her at the same time. She squeals as she falls back onto the bed, squirming under her layers of tulle. "Don't be so rough! I'm ticklish…" The groomsmen flush bright red. Miles' ears turn scarlet as he feels around her waist. She giggles even louder. "How are you going to undo it through all these layers? Use your head!" Then, she gasped. "That tickles!" Her theatrics make my temper flare. I spring to my feet, lift her skirt, and rip the wedding shoes right off her. "If you're that ticklish, smack yourself with a slipper. Drop the act, or I'll yank out the nerves that make you ticklish!"

Annie Saint-Claire is a woman with an active memory. She daily has to fight constant memories about her husband, Aaron Casey, whom she had lost three years ago. As a widow she has to fight for survival. She is in desperate need of an income. Billionaire Aaron Casey wakes nightly from erotic dreams about a woman whose face keeps eluding him. His frustration and questions about what happened to him makes him a serious man with anger issues and no answers as to why his body has scars. Aaron’s safe place is his office. He trusts no one. He randomly hired a personal assistant unbeknown to him his wife. Annie in her haste to attend an interview has an explosive encounter with her husband, the very man she thought she had lost. He was angry and alive, quick enough to catch her before she collided with the ground. Aaron found himself instantly annoyed yet intrigued with Annie who he impulsively kissed where they stood in a thunderstorm. Annie’s mind and body screaming for answers. Passion and a past have both spiraling out of control. Annie now has the explosive knowledge her husband was alive but completely unaware who she was. One shock look into his eyes…memories flashing through her mind in picture perfect clarity, her heart screaming for completion, demanding she open her broken heart and start rewriting her own heartbeat. Once by all account a forgotten past, now forcing her to reclaim what’s rightfully hers…you are mine: I am yours…

Just before her husband and son have her locked in a psychiatric ward, Nora Yates wakes up—reborn, wide awake, and done playing nice. Two men who never truly loved her? Who used and discarded her? Fine. She’s cutting them out for good. When she signs the divorce papers and walks away, the world cheers—including the internet. Oddly, the only one upset is her adoptive sister, the mistress. “Come on, Nora,” she pouts. “I only borrowed your husband and son for my birthday. Was that really worth all this drama?” “You’re lucky to have a husband and son like that. You should count your blessings.” Nora lets out a sharp laugh. “Then consider this ‘blessing’ my personal gift to you. After all, trash belongs in the dumpster.” She walks off without a second glance—glowing, untouchable, and ready to run the world. Soon, her business is booming. Suitors line up. The woman they tried to destroy becomes the woman everyone wants to be. Years later, now a titan in her field, she sits down for a high-profile interview. “Ms. Yates,” the reporter asks, “it’s rumored that Mr. Luther, CEO of Luther Corp, is your ex-husband. Do you still keep in touch?” Nora smiles politely. “Sorry. I’m a widow with no children.” Then she turns to the camera, smiles straight through the lens—at the ex-husband and son losing their minds behind the scenes—and adds, “Just remarried. Baby girl on the way.”

The day we were meant to be mated, my Alpha, Ford, was ambushed. Silver bullets shredded his car, sending it plunging off a bridge and into the river below. He was pronounced dead. Drowned. I was left pregnant with his heir, shattered by the raw agony of our severed mate bond. Then Ford's twin, Aiden, returned from abroad with his mate, Kyra. His identical face and a scent so similar to my mate's nearly drove me mad. A desperate part of me swore Ford was still alive. I told myself it was just grief. A widow's delusion. Until I overheard a hushed conversation and the horrifying truth slammed into me: the man pretending to be Aiden was Ford. He had faked his death. He'd let his own brother die in his place, all for Kyra—the other woman carrying his child. The grief that had crippled me instantly morphed into a cold, sharp rage. Ford didn't just break our bond; he shattered it. And I would make him pay. I wiped my tears and sent a single message to my brother, Billy, the Alpha of the Winterstone Pack. "Brother, I need a plane crash. He loves faking his death? Fine. Let him feel what it's like to truly lose a mate." Only when the news of my "death" spread did Ford reclaim his name. He knelt for seven days and nights in the ashes of the home we once shared, consumed by a grief of his own making.

Noah Stark was supposed to marry Genevieve’s cousin but was forced into the arms of Genevieve because his future wife's family treated him awfully, like a criminal, and looked down on him as the dirt underneath their boots until they found out who he was. For a moment, Mr. Cornell stared at Noah, and then he looked down at the resume in his hand, it took him a while before the light bulb spiked in his head, and he shouted, “Cease him!” Immediately, a guard fist slammed into Noah's jaw, and another struck him in the face, gashing his lip and causing Leo to scream and cry louder. ‘Glenn,’ Noah thought as his jaw tightened at the sight of his future wife, sensing his only emotion for her was a feeling of annoyance. “A house help… Cousin, your standard has dropped after your husband's death… How can you degrade from a CEO and governor's nephew to this thing right here.” Glenn said, her tone full of disgust. “Can you please stop, Glenn!” Genevieve snapped at her, tired of the constant smug remark from her cousin. “Watch it, Genevieve.” Mrs. Carnell warned her coldly. “My daughter is right. While Glenn is about to get married to the only heir of the Stark family, you are here fooling around with an idler. If word gets out about this, who would want to marry you again? You are already a widow, and now you are sleeping around with a ‘nobody! You should get remarried quickly to save face before any more scandals appear in the press and ruin this family!’”

“You're nothing different from a rotten corpse if you don't have anything to prove." Origin Laurier is a young girl who was once an ally of an underground criminal organization called the Westside Dragons. She is hailed as the mafia’s killing machine, the Scarlet Beast, who only knew how to live as a tool for the mafia boss. Because of her deadly talisman ability, she never fails all of her missions. But the tables started to turn when she suddenly lost her ability and was kicked out of the mafia believing that she is not useful anymore. Origin is left homeless and scattered as she wonders how to regain her power and approval of the mafia boss she admires the most. On her path back to power, she stumbled upon a good-looking, yet emotionless guy who knew everything about her past, and stepped on her pride as a legendary assassin. He is W, the Student Council President of Greendale University, a school founded to protect the new generation of talisman users from being hunted down by scientists and evil organizations. W offered to help get Origin’s abilities back in exchange for forging an alliance with the Student Council who turns out to be members of a military agency called FEAR, Westside Dragon’s sworn enemy, secretly protecting and recruiting talisman users to Greendale. Upon joining the Student Council affairs, Origin will learn that there is more to humanity than she thinks. As her fate interconnects with the Student Council President who has a hobby of stalking her, how can she handle this new everyday life and her future that is uncertain of her relationship with the Mafia she grew up into?

On our son's fifth birthday, I found the texts on Stanley's phone—from his best friend's widow: [Stanley, the kid misses his dad again. When are you coming over?] [Stanley, Archie liked a set of matching family outfits. I already ordered them. Let's wear them together this weekend.] [Stanley, Archie starts school tomorrow. I put your name down under "father." Hope that's okay?] And Stanley? He was all in: [Loretta's asleep. I'll head over now.] [My size is 3XL. Don't get the wrong one.] [It's fine. You two have always been my responsibility.] I stood there, frozen. Then I called him back in from the living room, where he'd been helping Luca open gifts. He didn't deny it. Just hugged me and started rambling. "Hallie's Howard's widow. I promised I'd look out for her and Archie. I know I messed up. It won't happen again." We'd been together ten years. Luca had just turned five. Ending a marriage over a few texts felt dramatic. So I let it slide. Believed him. We even went out to celebrate Luca's birthday. Then his phone lit up on the table: [Stanley, the kid's crying for his dad before bed. I can't calm him down.] Stanley shoved his chair back and walked out—no hesitation. I looked at Luca. He was startled at the noise. And just like that, divorce didn't feel so dramatic anymore.

Eight months pregnant, a contraction tore through me like a blade. But my husband, the Mafia boss Darren, refused to take me to the hospital. His sister-in-law, Angelina, his late brother's widow, was also due. To ensure she gave birth before me, she produced so-called proof of my infidelity, insisting the child I carried was no true Falcone. Because the heir to the Falcone family had to be the firstborn grandson. Darren believed her. He locked me in an abandoned wine cellar. “Don't think for a second I don't know what you've been up to.” “Let me tell you, you're not giving birth to that bastard until I've verified its bloodline myself.” “Angelina’s boy is of pure blood. I have to make sure her boy is the family's firstborn grandson.” I tried desperately to explain. “My water is about to break! Please, take me to the hospital! He’s your son, I swear on my life!” “I’ll never fight for the position of heir! I just want my baby to be safe!” Darren simply kicked me and shot me a glance. “Who knows if you’ll change your mind later? Don’t worry. I’ll come for you after Angelina gives birth. When the baby is born, I’ll see for myself whose it is.” Later, as he gazed at the crying infant in Angelina's arms, he finally thought of me. But one of his men informed him, his voice trembling: “Boss, the Madam… and the child… they're both dead.”