Tragic Theater

My husband and his employees went on a camping trip, and his assistant posted on social media. [We drew lots for the tents, and guess who ended up with the handsome CEO!] The post showed a selfie she took. Behind her, my husband was taking his shirt off. Someone left a comment. [A man and a woman alone together? Sounds juicy.] The assistant quickly replied with a smirking emoji. [I like a little excitement!] After I liked the post, it was deleted right away. Soon, my husband called me on video. In front of his crying assistant and several employees, he scolded, “Why did you like the post?! It was just a game! Don’t be so close-minded!” As I watched him hold the assistant in arms and comforted her, I quietly hung up. After ten years of loving Caelan Sullivan, I decided then and there to let go.

My fated mate, Alpha Horton, didn't love me. He loved another omega, Chloe. In my past life, Chloe took her own life in despair over him, and Horton was convinced I had driven her to it out of jealousy. He hated me to the bone. Even bound by our mate bond, he refused to touch me. But when a rival pack’s silver bullet flew toward me, he shielded me with his own body. As his life drained away, he wrenched his cold hand from mine, his golden eyes filled with nothing but regret and disgust. "Sienna," he said, "my one regret is not rejecting you from the very beginning." After he died, the pack fell apart. Every member cursed me, screaming about why it wasn't me who died, but their great Alpha. It felt like my heart had turned to ash. I swallowed a vial of liquid silver before his grave. When I opened my eyes, I was back ten years in the past, shortly after we were mated. The cold voice of the Moon Goddess echoed in my mind. "Child, I will give you one more chance. Fulfill the three deepest wishes in Horton's heart, and in exchange for your life, your soul will earn its true freedom." I knew his wishes. To break our mate bond. To be with Chloe. To ensure the survival of the Snow Moon pack. This time, it wasn't too late. The freedom he craved, the woman he loved, the pack he swore to protect. I would give it all to him, using the very life he loathed to do it. But when I granted his every wish, in return, he wept with regret, calling me his only fated mate.

I've been looking forward to my and Kael Bennett's mating ceremony. Unfortunately, he gets attacked by Rogues, resulting in him getting poisoned with wolfsbane. He remembers everyone else in the pack. Ironically, he has forgotten all about me, his fated mate. I try to awaken his memories time and again. But not only does Kael hate my guts, but he also allows another she-wolf to rob me of everything. He merely watches as said she-wolf, Maya Walsh, kills my beloved dog. He even stands by idly when I suffer from a miscarriage and lose my uterus. In the end, he believes the slanderous gossip surrounding me and exiles me from the pack while I'm still in a weakened state. When I'm granted a chance in a new life and completely forget about the past, Kael suddenly regains his memories. He looks for me everywhere like a lunatic just so he can tell me that he remembers everything. As I stare at the remorse-filled Alpha before me, I ask, "Who are you?"

Alice Long and I were caught in the crossfire. When my boyfriend—a combat medic responsible for saving the wounded—came to our rescue, he pushed me aside. Gently cradling Alice, the girl I had shielded, he shot me a cold glance and said, "Crystal, I'm deeply disappointed in you. She needs immediate care to avoid infection!" What about me? Was I meant to die instead? When my flag-draped coffin arrived home, he had the nerve to weep openly at my memorial. This once-renowned combat medic, celebrated around the globe, never set foot outside his room again.

At eight months pregnant, I was in a car accident and delivered a stillborn child. My husband, who had always been so gentle, turned on me. He called me useless. He said I couldn't even protect our baby. He forced me into a divorce and, without looking back, rushed into a hasty marriage with his long-lost first love. Just as despair threatened to swallow me whole, Grayson Brooke—my childhood friend who had been overseas for years—returned. He confessed his feelings and promised to cherish me for the rest of my life. But in the third year of our marriage, I accidentally overheard a conversation between him and his closest friend that turned my blood to ice. "That car accident you staged—just to get the cord blood—killing Lydia's innocent baby in the process… it was too cruel, even for you." "It was a necessary evil. Only her child's cord blood could save Kayla." "But Lydia had just one month left. Kayla could have held on a little longer—" Grayson cut him off, his voice sharp and absolute. "If there was a way, why would we wait? I couldn't stand by and let Kayla suffer for one second more."

I was eight months pregnant and had just gone into labor, but my Alpha mate, Damien, locked me in a silver cage in the basement to delay my labor. When I cried out for help, he just told me to wait. Because his late brother's mate, Victoria, was also giving birth that day. The Pack Seer had foretold that only the firstborn pup would be blessed by the Moon Goddess and become the future Alpha. "The title belongs to Victoria's child," he said. "She lost Marcus. She has nothing. You already have all my love, Elena. The silver cage will make sure you deliver after her." The contractions were torture. I begged him to take me to the clinic. He grabbed my chin and forced me to look at him. "Stop pretending. I should've known you never loved me. All you've ever cared about is wealth and status!" "To force your labor early, just to steal what belongs to my nephew… You're truly wicked." Pale and trembling, I whispered: "The pup is coming, I can't stop it. Please, I'll make a blood oath. I don't care about the inheritance. I only love you!" He scoffed."If you loved me, you wouldn’t have forced Victoria into that contract to give up her pup’s birthright. I'll come back for you after she delivers. After all, that's my pup in there, too." He stood guard outside Victoria's delivery room. Only after he saw the newborn pup in her arms did he remember me. He ordered his Beta to release me. But the Beta's voice trembled. "Luna… and the pup… they're dead." And in that moment, Damien went feral.

A unique video went viral overnight. In the video, on a snow-capped mountain peak, my boyfriend, Ted Moretti, knelt on one knee, his expression tender. Amidst applause, the ring on her finger sparkled; it was the ring of the Moretti family's future bride. Within hours, the video topped various trending charts. People hailed it as the most romantic proposal of the year. Anya Rossi later posted a message. "I've been looking forward to this wedding for so long, and now it's finally happening! Thank you!" The comment section was instantly flooded with excited exclamations. "A Mafia family heir and an ordinary woman? I love it!" "It's like something out of a novel." "So enviable." I went to my boyfriend to confirm. Before I could even speak, I heard him talking to a close friend in the study. “Do I have any other choice?” Ted said, a hint of annoyance in his voice. “If I don’t marry her, her gambler father will sell her off.” His friend hesitated. “But what about Carly? She’s been with you for so many years. Aren’t you worried she might lose her mind?” Ted chuckled, unconcerned. “So what if she’s angry? Carly and I have been together for six years. She won’t leave. She can’t leave.” At that moment, something deep inside me seemed to freeze completely. A month later On the same day Ted and Carly got married, I married another man. Our wedding processions met downtown. According to custom, we exchanged bouquets between the two passing wedding cars, and our windows rolled down simultaneously. That’s when Ted saw me. I was wearing a white wedding dress. Not behind him. But in another man’s arms. After knowing Ted Moretti for so many years, his consistently perfect composure crumbled for the first time.

While I try on various wedding rings, my fiance, Don Demetrio Farese, who has tagged along, suddenly snatches the ring from my fingertip. "You already lost a finger, Lucia. The ring will look ugly on you. Carlotta, on the other hand, looks beautiful with a ring on her finger." Then, Demetrio fishes out a photo featuring him sinking down on one knee while sliding a ring onto Carlotta Rini's finger. My chest tightens. "What are you trying to say?" "Let Carlotta wear the wedding ring. You've already lost a finger anyway—you don’t need it." Pain slowly spreads from my chest to the rest of my body. For a moment, I almost lose my balance. The truth is, Demetrio's mortal enemy is the one who severed my finger by shooting at it. Back then, I only got shot because I had shielded Demetrio from the bullet.

Three days into the silent treatment, Derrick—my fiancé and CEO—greenlit his assistant's pitch for a self-driving road trip. He expected me to flip, like always. I didn't. A month later, he came back and saw it—I wasn't the same. He backed Molly, stole my project, and thought I'd explode. I didn't. I just helped her draft the proposal. He trashed everything I built, just so she could snag her year-end bonus. I didn't fight back. Took the blame, took the hit. Molly was all smug. "See? Told you. You can't go at Yara head-on. Give her the silent treatment—she folds. She's scared of losing you. That's why she's playing nice." Derrick ate it up. Called her smart. Then he pulled me aside—offered a raise, a promotion, even a fancy wedding. First time he'd ever brought it up. But he missed one detail: he'd already signed off on my resignation while he was off playing road trip king. And I'd already dumped him. That was it. Clean cut. Nothing left.

We were supposed to be in love for eternity. But my vampire fiancé, Caius, has stood me up at our blood-bonding ceremony thirty-three times. The first time, the girl he’d sired, Evangeline, lost control during a hunt. He raced to her side, leaving me alone in the church under the blood moon. The second time, he vanished mid-ceremony because Evangeline was being bullied by another clan. He left me to face the elders’ mockery alone. After that, his little fledgling always had some fresh disaster for him to avert. And he always had an excuse: “I sired her. She’s like a child to me.” Then I saw the fresh bite marks on their necks. They had shared blood—the ultimate intimacy between mates. My heart turned to ash. It was time to burn our betrothal to the ground. The day I finally disappeared, he went mad, tearing our world apart to find me.