Thirty Seventh

"Thirty million" I heard a male voice echo round the walls of the hall which silenced everyone. Who would bid that high just to buy me? "Thirty million dollars" the male voice spoke up once again, a young man striding confidently forward like he owned the very building with his bidding card raised up. He was eighty percent taller than everyone in attendance. I sucked in breath at his refined but cold appearance. His tuxedo hugged his body and showed of his impeccable muscles. His dark long hair was slick and let to fall, not a single strand out of place. He had the profile of a greek God but his features lacked warmth and empathy. His brown steel eyes burrowed into mine, a look of disgust on his face for me. "Sold!" the chairman hit the gavel on the table after a brief moment of silence since no one else was willing to bid higher. A wave of ovation took the hall, men chattering amongst themselves and whistling. "Get her ready and bring her to me" he pivoted and sharply ordered one of the armed bodyguards standing close to the podium. He owns me now. **** When a ruthless mafia lord bids for an innocent girl, can her innocense survive in the abyss of his darkness?

Alena Nicole Perez Sandoval is twenty-one years old young girl, heiress of Sandoval family along with her older sister, Avrielle Niana Perez Sandoval. She was just graduated and expected to work at their company and find love. But what happens when her parents announce her marriage with Edmund Christopher Echavez Cardinal, a thirty year old successful and feared businessman known for his coldness and being heartless when it comes to business.

After her father’s death leaves behind nothing but a ten-million-euro blood debt, Graziella is dragged into the world of the Vitale brothers, men who rule the city’s underworld with violence, power, and a loyalty that has no room for mercy, and who, by law and history, are also her stepbrothers. In their hands, debt is not something to be repaid but something to be owned, and because her father failed them, Graziella becomes the collateral they inherit, allowed to exist only as long as she remains useful and silent. For months, she survives by making herself small, enduring cruelty and indifference alike, learning that in a house built on fear, silence is not submission but survival. To the Vitale brothers, she is temporary, a problem that will eventually disappear once its value is exhausted. Everything changes when the eldest announces his political marriage, a union meant to secure alliances and erase liabilities, and Graziella realizes how easily she will be discarded. Instead of begging, she makes a single request: thirty days as their wife and queen, not as property but as a recognized presence, after which she will vanish forever. They believe she is desperate. They believe she wants protection or love. What they fail to see is that Graziella is not bargaining for affection, but for access. Because in those thirty days, she watches, listens, and learns, and by the time they understand what she has become, the quiet debt they ignored will be ready to rule them all.

Imagine being murdered by the very woman meant to protect you, your own grandmother, consumed by her lust for power. It sounds unreal, doesn’t it? But that has been my reality. This is my seventh life, seven times I have been reborn, and seven times I have died before the age of eighteen. At only five years old, I hid in a cupboard and watched through a crack as my grandmother, Lunice, gave the order that slaughtered my brothers, the royal princes of Ahenil, after news came that my father, King Ahenos, had been killed in battle. To secure her throne, she commanded the execution of every male in the royal bloodline. My mother’s maid, Martha, risked everything to smuggle me away. She raised me like her own, alongside her daughter Jane, the girl who became my light, and later, the love of my last life. But no matter where I ran or how I lived, fate found me. In each of my six past lives, my grandmother’s shadow hunted me down, ending me at eighteen. Sometimes she killed Jane too. Sometimes even Martha. Each death left me broken, yet each rebirth filled me with memories, scars, and a growing resolve. Now, in this seventh, I am no longer the helpless boy cowering behind a cupboard’s door. I carry the wisdom of six lives, the pain of countless betrayals, and the fire of vengeance that will not be quenched. This time, I will reclaim my throne. This time, I will protect those I love. And when October comes, the cursed month of my death, the world will remember my name. I am the rightful heir, the cursed prince reborn. And this time… I will defy fate itself.

I wanted to prove myself to my gold digging two faced boyfriend that I wasn’t the boring, naive nerd he described who was only obsessed with work. I knew how to have fun, I knew how to be desirable. So I accepted my best friend's offer to go on a thirty days cruise in a ship in the middle of the ocean. I had it all planned out. I was going to be a different person. Find a hot man to be with until my ex boyfriend regretted ever saying all those demeaning things about me BUT, there was a mistake. I boarded the wrong ship and that was where my nightmare began. Werewolves were real. They weren’t myths or fiction and if they find out there’s a human in their midst, I’d become toast. So I must blend in, play the long game until my thirty days are over and I could get the hell out of there. But my plan is not all so perfect. I’ve caught the eyes of a powerful, dangerously beautiful Alpha who’s made it his mission to break me until everyone finds out what I truly am. Filth. And I find myself unable to resist his wicked charms. I’m treading on dangerous territory and I’m unable to stop the waves from drowning me.

After my father’s death, I decided to divorce my husband, Captain Marcus Hale, and stay in Pine Ridge Village forever. On the first day, I tricked Marcus into signing the divorce papers. On the fifth day, I handed in my resignation to my old unit at Fort Haven. On the seventh day, I cooked a full table of food and said farewell to all my friends. Frowning, Marcus accused me of making the very meal his childhood sweetheart, Julia Summers, hated. I stood up and raised my glass to toast her. From this day on, Marcus and I would have nothing more to do with each other. Half a month later, I saw Marcus returning from a mission in Pine Ridge Village. Only this time, the country evening breeze brought tears to his eyes.

In the seventh year of our marriage, I caught Nolan Garrison kissing his secretary at a bar. He called me shortly after I walked away. "It was just a friendly kiss! What’s with the attitude?" he snapped through the phone. I could hear his friends in the background teasing him and saying that I would be madly jealous while pleading for him not to leave me tonight as usual. Before hanging up, Nolan warned me that he wouldn’t come home if I didn’t apologize. However, I wasn’t bothered by his threat. I didn’t care if he decided to come home or get a divorce. Three minutes later, I posted an update on my social media: “Prioritize self-love and grant others the freedom they seek.”

DISCLAIMER! MM ROMANCE ! Caleb Foster is late. Again. Snow is still melting in his hair when he pushes open the classroom door, the cold from the rink clinging to him as thirty students turn to stare. At the front of the room, Professor Elliot Ward pauses mid-sentence. His gaze drifts to the attendance sheet, then back to the broad-shouldered hockey captain standing in the doorway. “Mr. Foster,” he says calmly. “I assume the ice rink does not operate on the same schedule as my classroom.”

My billionaire husband suffered from chronic insomnia for years. Only the sleep balm I made could help him sleep. On the night of our seventh wedding anniversary, his childhood sweetheart poured a basin of scalding water over the old camphor tree in our garden. I wept and tried to save the tree as she apologized, “I didn’t know you used its leaves to make the sleep balm.” My husband gently comforted her and ordered his men to tie me to the tree trunk instead. “What a precious tree. You’ll spend the rest of your days with it!” With my wrist fractured as a result, I filed for divorce immediately. A month later, my husband was unable to sleep late one night. He stood in the garden and stared at the withered camphor tree.

Damien who was known as a ruthless alpha was waiting for his mate for thirty years. He had three Lunas but all were dead. There was a rumor that he killed his mate. But Lilia who was betrothed to another alpha come out to be his mate. What will he do to win her back? and what will be her fate? What will Lilia decide when she would know that she was not her first Luna. And what will happen when she would get to know that he killed his mate.