Sweethearts Outfit

My adopted sister, an Omega who has always seemed delicate, harmless, and wolf-less, vanishes the night before full moon. Everyone, including my parents and my mate—the Alpha who's supposed to protect me—blames me for driving her away. They drag me to the Memory Offering altar, bind my wolf in silver chains, and demand the truth from my memories. Little do they know that my body has been laced with 99 silver needles, buried deep under my skin, each one driven in by the hand of the innocent girl they adore the most. The silverbane has seeped through my blood, eating away at my bones and my wolf spirit. I don't have long. So, I seize control. I invoke the oldest rite in the pack, the Memory Offering, to let them see the truth with their own eyes. For three years, I've been the one who was framed, humiliated, and tortured. Meanwhile, my so-called gentle sister is the real monster behind it all. By the time the truth is revealed, the silverbane has devoured my soul. Bathed in the blinding white light of the rite, I die on that cold, stone altar, with a pain that cuts to the bone and a peace that feels almost like freedom.

I've been with Hansen Fullerton for seven years. One day, he tells me he's sick of me and dumps me for a younger, more vivacious woman. I don't kick up a fuss this time. Instead, I throw away my ring and cut up the wedding gown I've just bought. Then, I take a red-eye flight away from Gold City. His friends place bets on how long it'll take for me to return and beg for reconciliation. Hansen sneers. "She'll be back in less than three days, crying and begging me to take her back." However, more than three days pass without any news from me. Hansen loses his cool and calls me for the first time. "You'd better come back once you've had enough of this, Christine." All he hears is a man's low chuckle on the other end of the line. "You shouldn't have taken this long to pacify a woman, Mr. Fullerton. Look at how someone's already taken her away from you." Hansen snarls, "Tell Christine to answer the phone!" Landon Shore lowers his head to kiss me. "She can't—she's still out of it. I have to kiss her awake first."

Rowan Remington finally accepted my marriage proposal.  He told me to dress up, saying he had prepared a surprise for me.  But when I arrived in my finest attire, Rowan did not present himself as the groom.  Turning to my half-sister, Lisa, with a playful smile, he said, “You always complain that weddings are tedious and dull. Today, I’ll show you an interesting one. What do you think?”  Just then, my elder half-brother, Miles, loudly declared, “The wedding is on hold!”  Suddenly, my childhood friend, Nathan Keller hurled a water balloon—prepared in advance—at me and it smashed down on my head, completely drenching me.  Rowan arched a teasing brow at me. “It was just a joke, Tessa. You didn’t actually think I was going to marry you, did you?”  The so-called wedding was nothing more than a farcical performance to entertain Lisa, who was suffering from depression.  As I stood in stunned silence, Rowan chuckled and added, “If you’re that desperate to get married, why not pick someone from the guests and tie the knot right now?”  So, I did.  I walked down the aisle with a new groom in hand.  That’s when they panicked.

On my birthday, the dining table was loaded with all my favorites. My mom had been cooking and baking the entire afternoon, insisting everything be perfect for when Mike got home from work so we could celebrate together. But then, he called and said his first love had been drugged at a bar, and he had to go help her. I stopped him and begged him not to go. Mike snapped at me. "Jesus, Em, don’t pull this jealous wife crap. She’s alone, defenseless, and unconscious—I can't let some random dude take advantage of her!" My mother heard those words and was so enraged that she had a heart attack. She died on the spot. Just like that, my mom died on my birthday. I called Mike, asking him to attend my mom's funeral. But before he could reply, I saw Cathy Miller's latest Instagram post, captioned: [Mikey… after all these years, it was always you.] Mike had liked it. My thumb moved before my brain caught up, typing out the only words that mattered: [A homewrecker and a lying bastard. Hope you rot together.]

It was on our wedding night when my husband stole my heartblood to save his childhood sweetheart. His lips were on my forehead as his dagger carved my chest open. "Good girl. This is the last time, I promise," he breathed bewitchingly, his scalding tears dripping on my skin. "Once she's better, let's consummate our marriage." That was what he said, but I had heard it countless times before. In my despair, I used my last ounce of strength to tug on his sleeve. He urgently drained my blood to save another woman, not even looking my way as he did. What he didn't know was that it was my last drop of heartblood. And I was going to die.

When I'm 25, I learn about Hendrick Jefferson living it up with my stepsister, Yvette Rivera. So, I go to my father and ask to marry Hendrick's brother, Jeremy Jefferson. In my past life, I married Hendrick as I wished, yet he hooked up with Yvette the day after our wedding. He brought her everywhere with him, announcing to the world that she was his female companion. He told her to smash the necklace my late mother left for me and indulged in her when she pushed me into the pool. He even hired online trolls to spread rumors about me. Yvette came to me to gloat. "I'm the one Ricky loves—he only married you to make his family shut up! He didn't want to touch you when you were younger, let alone now that you're 25 and old. You need to learn to know your place!" Now that I've been reborn, I decide to give them what they want. Unexpectedly, Hendrick crashes my wedding with Jeremy, claiming that I'm the one he truly loves.

The day Joe Tanner’s parents died and his classmates cornered him in cruel bullying, I was the one who jumped into the river to save him—and lost my heart to him in that moment. For the next ten years, I poured everything I had into him. I hid my own admission letter to Great Eastern University. I washed dishes until my hands cracked, hauled bricks until my shoulders bled, even sold the pocket watch my mother left me—all so he could study without worry. I watched him rise from a ridiculed illegitimate child to a celebrated professor at the very peak of academia. All I ever wanted in return was a home we could call ours. But the day he achieved success, he forgot the woman who had built his world. So, I made my choice— If he could abandon my love, then I would walk away without looking back.

Leonard Burton and I are childhood sweethearts, bound by a family-arranged marriage. After we marry, we live a loving, harmonious life. In a terrible accident, he even gives up his only chance at survival to save me. After Leonard's death, we find a journal among his belongings. In it, he records the three years he was missing after falling off a cliff—years spent with another woman he deeply loved. But his parents had forcibly separated them and arranged our marriage instead. Unbeknownst to anyone, he had continued to protect that woman from afar, silently and faithfully. At the funeral, Leonard's mother, Charlotte Newman, is inconsolable. "Leonard, it's all my fault. Would you still be alive if I'd let you marry Yelena back then?" His father, Samuel Burton, glares at me with hatred. "He fell off that cliff saving you. He died in that crash shielding you. Why do you bring him nothing but harm? Why aren't you the one who's dead?" Yes, why is it not me who's dead? I look at Leonard's familiar, smiling face on his gravestone before running at it and smashing my head on it. When I open my eyes again, I'm taken back to when he just returned from that small fishing village. This time, I choose to let him go and give him what he wants. Finally, I see Leonard again.

Due to one phone call, Carl Lorde left me behind in a deserted area on the highway, even though I had been pregnant for four months. I walked to a rest area to ask for help, but in the end, I was unable to keep the baby. I broke down and called Carl, but he kept rejecting my calls. The next day, his childhood friend posted an intimate photo of them lying side by side in bed, with a caption. [With just one call, you’d come over to my side no matter what.] Everyone was waiting for me, Carl’s girlfriend, to make a joke of myself. However, I just wiped away my tears, liked the post, and commented, [Congratulations, you two are a match made in the trash dump. I hope you rot in hell together.]

My girlfriend keeps saying that she comes from a poor family, but she gives her childhood sweetheart a yacht on our anniversary. I text her to ask about this, but all she does is berate me. "Who do you think you are? How dare you stick your nose into my business! I'll give anyone whatever I want. My money, my call. Get lost!" Unbeknownst to her, I'm covered in blood on the other end of the line.