Storm Watch C. J. Box

On the twelfth anniversary of our mating ceremony, my Alpha mate gave me a ten-million-dollar Moonlight herb. Fresh from the healing clinic after my miscarriage, I calmly dialed his number to request the severing of our mate bond. On the other end of the line, his secretary—also his childhood sweetheart—apologized through tears: "Sage, Moonlight herb is a sacred healing herb for most werewolves. I didn't know your mother died from Moonlight herb poisoning. I didn't know you despised it most. It's all my fault for making the decision myself. Please don't be angry with the Alpha." Marcus spent a long time gently comforting her, only saying to me: "If you want to sever it, then sever it. Don't regret it later." But when I really cut off the mate bond, the powerful Alpha went crazy.

Le premier amour de mon compagnon, Sarah Blackwood, et moi avions chacune un fils de huit ans. Le fils de Sarah a tué un loup innocent. Au lieu de le livrer à la justice de la meute, mon compagnon m'a demandé que notre propre enfant prenne la responsabilité du crime. « Marcus ne passera que cinq ans dans la Prison d'Argent », m'a-t-il grogné. « Sarah et Jamie n'ont aucune protection — l'exil les tuerait tous les deux ! Notre fils est assez fort pour survivre à ça ! » Pendant qu'il les a envoyés à l'étranger pour fuir la justice, les gardes de ses parents ont traîné notre petit innocent en prison. Quand Ryan est revenu… j'avais déjà disparu.

On the day of my first shift, my Alpha triplet adoptive brothers weren't by my side for the first time ever, because their long-lost birth sister Scarlett had returned. My doting third brother Hunter abandoned me in a forest crawling with rogue wolves and made me walk back alone. My gentle second brother Ethan slapped me across the face for Scarlett, demanding to know why I was being so vicious. Even my usually level-headed oldest brother Mason told me to get out and never come back for his birth sister's sake, without even bothering to hear my side of the story. Scarlett's sweet facade fell away when we were alone. "So what if your parents sacrificed themselves to save my brothers? They are my biological brothers. You're just a mongrel with no blood relation. Even if I drive you out, my brothers will definitely take my side." I didn't say another word. I just grabbed my bags and left. They thought I was just throwing a tantrum and would be back in a few days. The three brothers even postponed their busy pack affairs to accompany their birth sister to patrol the Northern territories – to see the snowy tundra I had always dreamed of visiting. Many days later, when they returned to the pack, they suddenly learned that I had joined a Beta Wolf Enhancement Program that would last ten years, with no contact with the outside world. When they knew that I could never come home again, they fell apart.

Mon compagnon, ainsi que mon frère, m'ont détestée pendant douze ans. Ils croyaient toujours que j'avais volé les recherches sur les herbes médicinales de leur précieuse Sarah, et que je l'avais harcelée pendant douze ans pour la réduire au silence. Lors de ma cérémonie de marquage, ils ont dévoilé mes « crimes » au monde entier. « C'est une brute qui maltraite les membres de sa meute, et une voleuse, qui a volé les formules d'herbes de Sarah ! » Mais Sarah a souri à travers ses larmes : « La formule n'a plus d'importance. » « Du moment qu'elles peuvent sauver notre meute du poison d'argent, peu importe qui les a créées. » « Je lui ai déjà pardonné. » Elle est devenue l'ange miséricordieux de la meute. J'ai été condamnée par tous, jusqu'au jour où le loup-garou que j'avais sauvé grâce à mes remèdes a versé de l'eau argentée sur ma tête. Et dans mon désespoir, j'ai entraîné Sarah dans la mort avec moi. Quand j'ai rouvert les yeux, j'étais de retour en deuxième année de lycée. Sarah tenait une petite lame en argent et se tailladait le bras tout en me demandant avec un sourire : « T'as réfléchi à comment t'allais t'excuser ? » Quelque chose en moi a soudain craqué. Ma puissance d'Alpha a jailli, la forçant à se mettre à genoux. J'ai arraché la lame : « Laisse-moi te montrer ce qu'est une vraie coupure. »

My Alpha mate has canceled our carefully planned honeymoon trips fourteen times for his Omega secretary. The first time, because of the secretary's phone call about "lost territorial maps," he didn't hesitate to abandon me at a strange Nordic airport. The second time, because of the secretary's plea for help, he drove back alone to the pack's core territory, leaving me alone in the dangerous hunting grounds. For four years, I carefully planned fourteen honeymoon trips, but each time my mate would abandon me to choose to accompany his Omega secretary. Finally, I stopped insisting and decided to give up this mating relationship that was never firmly chosen. But when I joined the Alpha Council's secret research project and decided to leave forever, he cried and searched the whole world for me.

“Are you reading my mind right now?” he asks me while coming closer. “No, I am not.” “I wish you were. So that you can know how you have consumed my mind, how much I think about you. How I want to hold you and care for you. This is what has been going through my mind from the first day I saw you at our border with a protruding belly.” *** Lyra thought marriage to the Alpha would be her salvation, a chance to escape her father’s suffocating control. But when she overhears a deadly plan—one that marks her and her unborn child as pawns in a sinister power play—she makes the only choice that can save her life. With nothing but a cloak to hide her secret and no one to trust, Lyra runs. In a world where loyalty is tested and alliances shift like shadows, Lyra finds refuge in a rival pack, only to uncover gifts she never knew she possessed. But as her powers grow, so do the dangers lurking in the dark. While Damian, her estranged husband, searches for answers about his missing wife and child, and the truth behind his parents’ deaths—an even greater threat looms over them all. Yet some secrets refuse to stay hidden.

My mate Derek, Alpha of the SilverCrest Pack, secretly marked me two years ago. But he still hasn't held our mating ceremony to publicly announce my position. I've been working as his "assistant," helping him manage pack affairs all this time. Every time Derek cheats with his childhood sweetheart, Vivian, he promises to finally hold our mating ceremony. Two years. Ten promised ceremonies. Ten broken promises. The first time, he said Vivian's dog had died. "I can't hold a celebration while she's grieving," he told me, his eyes not quite meeting mine. "It wouldn't be right." The second time, Vivian had a stomach ache. He left the ceremony venue minutes before it was supposed to start, rushing off to cook soup for his precious childhood friend. After that, each scheduled mating ceremony fell through because his childhood sweetheart always had some kind of emergency. I've cried. I've screamed. I've begged. Derek always gives me the same answer: "Viv and I are just friends. You're my true mate. Taking care of pack members is your responsibility too. Don't be so jealous." After the tenth canceled ceremony, I finally gave up. I slid the mate bond dissolution papers across his desk. "The Alpha Council has approved our request to break the mate bond," I said, my voice steadier than I expected. "You and I are no longer connected." That’s when the powerful Alpha went crazy...

My Alpha mate Kieran ordered our eight-year-old son to burn my mother alive because his Omega assistant accused me of killing her pet dog out of spite. Kieran's eyes were filled with impatience and disgust. "You're supposed to be our pack's respected Luna. Why would you target an innocent Omega? Whatever harm her pet suffered, your mother will endure the same. Your mother is paying the price for your jealousy!" I fell to my knees, begging Kieran to spare my mother. But he commanded our seven-year-old son Owen to light the fire himself. My son didn't hesitate for a second as he threw the torch into the pile of wood. "That's what you get for always going against Aunt Sera!" I screamed and cried, desperately begging them to help me put out the flames. "Please, I'm begging you, take my mother to the healing center..." "Enough, Aria. Your mother is still lying in the hospital bed. That's just a training dummy. Stop putting on this pathetic act." After saying that, father and son walked away without looking back. They didn't know that it really was my mother burning in those flames. But when I finally gave up on them and left, why did they both come crawling back, begging me to return?

“I want a divorce, Lauren. You're infertile and incomplete.” With these words, Ethan shatters three years of marriage and everything Lauren believed to be true. Betrayed, humiliated, secretly pregnant, and facing the collapse of her father's company, which ended in his tragic suicide, Lauren finds herself alone amidst the chaos. That is, until an accident nearly takes her life, and Henry Carter, a mysterious CEO, saves her. Accepting the job as his son’s nanny, Lauren discovers a man harboring secrets about a past she doesn’t remember, but that could change everything. Between grief and newfound feelings, Lauren must decide if she’s ready to trust again and risk her heart one more time.

บัวรัตนาคิดมาพักใหญ่แล้วว่าชีวิตตัวเองช่างเหมือนนิยายน้ำเน่าเสียจริง เธอเกิดเป็นอัลฟ่า แต่เพราะสังคมปิตาธิปไตยบีบให้จำต้องแต่งใครสักคนเข้ามาช่วยดูแลบริษัท ทั้งที่เรื่องทั้งหมดเธอสามารถทำได้ด้วยตัวคนเดียว ภายหลังยังต้องมารับรู้ว่าสามีอัลฟ่าของเธอเคยลักลอบมีสัมพันธ์กับโอเมก้าคนอื่น แถมโอเมก้าคนนั้นยังต้องท้อง ทั้งสองมีลูกด้วยกัน! กับนรกานต์ สามีของเธอ เดิมทีแม้จะแต่งงานกันด้วยเหตุผลทางธุรกิจโดยปราศจากความรัก ทว่าเธอก็ยังหวังว่าเขาจะให้เกียรติกันในฐานะสามีภรรยา ไม่นึกว่าหลังจากได้พบกับชลธารโอเมก้าคนนั้นอีกครั้ง นรกานต์จะมุ่งมั่นตามตื๊ออีกฝ่ายจนไม่สนภาพลักษณ์หรือหน้าตาทางสังคมใด ๆ ถ้าสามีของเธอแค่ต้องการรับผิดชอบเพียงอย่างเดียวก็ว่าไปอย่าง แต่นรกานต์กลับทำทุกอย่างเพื่อให้ได้แต่งอีกฝ่ายเข้าบ้านให้ได้ เพียงเพราะคำว่ารักคำเดียว ทำให้เธอต้องสูญเสียทุกอย่าง ถูกหักหลังจนสิ้นเนื้อประดาตัว แม้แต่ชีวิตก็เอาไม่รอด! ไม่คิดว่าหลังจากตายไป เธอจะได้รับโอกาสกลับมาเกิดใหม่อีกครั้ง ในคืนวันแต่งงานของพวกเขาทั้งสองคน เอาละ กับชลธารคนนั้น เธอถือว่าอีกฝ่ายก็เป็นเหยื่อราคะของนรกานต์เหมือนกันจึงยังพอปล่อยไปได้ แต่สามีสุนัขของเธอคนนี้ต้องได้รับบทเรียนอย่างสาสม!