This Was A Man

Adrian Moretti’s adopted sister—She knew perfectly well that I suffered from severe asthma and could not be exposed to smoke or strong scents. Yet during the yacht reception, she deliberately dragged me onto the open deck, where cigars burned nonstop and the wind howled. Within seconds, my chest tightened. When I reached for my inhaler, my blood ran cold. It was empty. I collapsed against the railing, gasping violently, my lungs burning as if they were collapsing in on themselves. She crouched beside me and smiled. “You’re always so dramatic. It’s just a little smoke. You don’t need to act like you’re dying,” she said softly. “You’re too weak. You need to build some tolerance.” I looked toward Adrian, my vision already blurring. “Adrian,” I choked. “Give me my inhaler. If I don’t use it right now, I’m going to suffocate.” He frowned slightly. “Don’t you think you’re overreacting?” he said coldly. “I’ve never heard of anyone dying from a bit of smoke. She’s right—you’re always seeking attention. We finally gathered tonight, and you’re ruining it.” My heart dropped. I fumbled for my phone and called my mother. “Mom,” I sobbed, barely able to breathe. “I’m being bullied… and I can’t breathe.” My voice shook violently.

For five years of marriage, David was the perfect husband everyone envied. He gave me endless gold cards and pampering, only when mentioning children, his eyes were bone-chillingly cold. Until the day I was diagnosed with a brain tumor and accidentally got pregnant, I broke his lie that had lasted five years: he never traveled on business, but secretly financed a flower shop called “Sylvia” without telling me. The girl in the shop, Emry, had a face identical to my sister‘s, and she stroked her slightly protruding belly, calling him “baby‘s dad” coquettishly. I chose to leave [Three years later] I became the most dazzling new star in Milan‘s architecture world. When we met again, I appeared at a celebrity dinner on the arm of my real brother Eric, with a child beside me who had a pair of eyes exactly like his. This once cold and aloof plutocrat now stopped my car in the rain. He knelt in the mud with red eyes, tugging on the corner of my skirt, and begged humbly, “Alice, please... look at me again.” I just gently brushed the child‘s broken hair from his forehead, without even pausing to glance at him. “Sir, you‘ve mistaken me for someone else. My husband died in that fire three years ago.”

"Here's 1 million dollars. Take it, leave the Star Moon Pack, and go somewhere my son will never find you." My boyfriend's mother looked at me with scorn as she handed over a check. If this had happened in the past, I would have told her that I loved her son—not because he was an Alpha, not for the title of Luna, and certainly not for his family's vast fortune. I loved him because of the deep bond we shared. I was carrying his pup. We were supposed to become mates and build a happy life together. But now, he was about to hold a bonding ceremony with another woman. He was planning to mark her and let her bear his pup. He said it was all just to appease the Pack's elders and his parents. What they didn't know was that as the daughter of the Alpha of the Golden River Pack, I'd never need a bond to gain status, power, or wealth. So now that he'd chosen someone else, the only thing left for me to do was to walk away with dignity.

Before our fifth mating anniversary, I was just about to tell my mate that I was about to inherit the pack my Alpha father left behind, when I saw him embracing and kissing the she-wolf who once bullied me. "This game has been going on for five years. It's time to end it." "Watching her come and go like a dog whenever called is really boring. What a fool. A fake mating certificate was enough to fool her completely. Did she really think an orphan like her could marry into the Shadowmoon Pack and become Luna? If she hadn't looked decent back then, I wouldn't have bothered with this charade." I felt like I'd fallen into an ice cave, sobbing uncontrollably. So the salvation that pulled me out of the bullying abyss was nothing but his amusing joke from beginning to end. If that's the case, I don't want this false love anymore.

Her father and stepmother died, leaving her to the brutal hands of her step brother. Her stepbrother is heartless. He treats her as a maid, is it a torture? She however discovers that she has been sold. Sold to a Ruthless Mafia, just to serve as a settlement for her stepbrother's debt. Now she fears her life. Would her life take a turn for the worse or for the best?

Our blood-oath ceremony was on the horizon. But my fated mate, Darius, told me he had to forge a blood bond with another woman. Livia. He claimed her life force was unraveling. That without his blood, she would fade to nothing. I fought him. But the next day, he moved Livia directly into the Prince's Chambers in the Coven’s castle. That was the suite reserved for the future Prince’s mate. My suite. He tried to soothe me, sinking to his knees, his crimson eyes pleading. “Once she’s stable, I swear I’ll break the bond. You are my only eternity. You always will be.” But then Livia found me. She showed me the fresh, golden mark on her wrist—the symbol of an Eternal Bond. They had already completed the sacred rite. Long before Darius ever confessed to me. My heart shattered to ash. I dragged my nail across the calendar, carving a vicious X over the date that was supposed to be our blood-oath ceremony. Then I opened the encrypted message from the Vienna Coven Academy. “I accept. I’ll leave on the day of our ceremony.”

Raven Valkhor never fit the mold, she wasn't slim and petite like most girls in the pack and could flip over guys twice her age without blinking. Her biggest tormentor was her adoptive brother and the Alpha's son, Dante. But at sixteen their relationship took a HUGE shift when he spent most nights between her legs She tried to let him go because he was in a situationship with her bestie, but he stuck on harder than glue until it was finally time to inherit the alpha's title, and he decided that he had ‘outgrown’ her. He rejects her and the baby, and she still has to go to school with the pointing fingers, but a new student transfers in, and one look is enough to tell her that her heart is about to go on another tumultuous rollercoaster. Dante doesn't want her to move on and now she's stuck in entanglement and passion. Will she move on to a fresh flame or back to the one that burnt her?

True is an ex assassin,Joe, Josephine is an actress,with a secret disorder,which makes her want to live the life of her characters. True's grandad might not make it quarter way through the new year,and requests one thing from True. That he gets himself a girlfriend. Will True be able to find someone he can truly relate to and can Joe find solace somewhere and learn her who she really is? Can they both work together,pretending to be a couple and get the one thing they both need from the world. Can they both find freedom?

A burglar breaks into our home, taking my mother-in-law and me captive. He stabs my mother-in-law's eyes, blinding her. Then, he slices her tongue and strips her, even putting on a live stream to air the whole thing. He claims that he'll auction my mother-in-law's organs if we can't pay the ransom of ten million dollars. The live stream infuriates the Internet, and everyone starts searching for my husband, the city's wealthiest man. No one knows he's on a luxury cruise ship, holding an engagement ceremony with his childhood friend. He snarls, "What a dumb excuse to trick me out of my money! I'll burn the money for them when they're dead!"

Elena and Holden's story is told in the novel. Two people who are destined to spend their whole lives together aside their differences. Before they are husband and wife, they meet each other. They do not even manage to impress one someone because they're lost in their own worlds.