Unattainable

After her first love died, Sophia Hayes hated me for ten years. I tried to win back her favor every day, but she only responded with cold sneers. "If you really want to make me happy, why don't you just die?" Her words were like daggers to my heart. It was a shock when she died in a pool of blood while trying to save me from an oncoming truck. With her final gaze fixed on me, she whispered, "If only I had never met you." Her mother was inconsolable with grief at the funeral. "I should have let Sophia be with Ethan Brooks. I never should have forced her to marry you!" Her father also looked at me with hatred in his eyes. "Sophia saved your life three times. She was such a wonderful person. Why couldn't it have been you who died instead?" Everyone regretted that Sophia had married me—myself included. I was driven away from the funeral, completely devastated. Three years later, I traveled back to the past after a time machine was invented. This time, I chose to sever all connections with Sophia, giving everyone the version of history they truly desired.

Ever since I lost my Alpha, Kael, in a brutal fight with some nasty rogues, I've been raising our young son, Finn, all by myself. My old pack has been pushing me to take a new Alpha, you know, so Finn and I would have protection. But I truly believed my Mate Bond with Kael was unbreakable. Then, on the Blood Moon ceremony, the fifth anniversary of Kael's “sacrifice,” I overheard Kael's father, old Alpha Marcus, tearing into Kael's quiet twin brother, Ronan: “Kael! You damn wolf! It was Ronan who went down on Blood Moon Cliff five years ago! He was the cursed one! You faked your death, lived as Ronan, all to protect Alina? You lied to the whole pack, to your sacred mate, and your own flesh and blood! Was it worth it?!” “For five years, Elara has raised Finn from a tiny pup all alone. You gave your so-called 'niece' a fake 'father,' but did you ever think? The day you put on Ronan's mask, Finn lost his real father for good!” I felt like I'd been struck by lightning. After Kael “died,” Ronan had been the dutiful uncle, “looking after” Finn and me. I never dreamed he was Kael in disguise. And he did all this just to protect Alina, Ronan's destined mate, who was already pregnant?! That night, under the bright moon, I snuck away and sent a message to my cousin, the Head Beta of the Silver-Moon Pack: “Tell your Alpha Lucian that I, Elara, accept his courtship offer.”

My son, Tim, was kidnapped by a group of rogues. My husband, Alpha Kieran, spared no effort, using every resource at his disposal to find him. Finally, he tracked him down to an pub training center nearby. But when Tim regained consciousness, he discovered that he was disabled. As the only son of Kieran, destined to inherit his father’s title, he couldn’t bear the reality of his condition. Despair consumed him, and in his grief, he attempted to take his own life by drowning himself in the lake within our territory. I arrived too late. By the time I pulled him from the water, my strength was nearly gone. Kieran rushed me to the pack hospital, holding me close as he whispered into my ear, "Please, Selene, stay with me. I cannot lose you too." But after my surgery, as I lay in bed, I overheard Kieran speaking to his Beta, Damon, in the hallway. "Alpha, sacrificing the rescue mission that could have saved Tim seemed… excessive. Finding another heart donor wouldn’t have been impossible. Using Tim’s—he was your only son with Luna Selene." "I allowed him to be born because I knew he could save my daughter. I’ve already raised him long enough. It’s only right that he gives me what I need now." "And the doctor said siblings have a better chance of surviving heart transplants. Ana is my most precious child—I won’t risk her suffering another heart attack." Kieran’s words shattered me. He was my fated mate, the love of my life. Yet he had sacrificed our son—our son—to save the bastard child he had with his mistress. The marriage I once cherished, the fated mate I once believed in, had now become my own personal hell.

After going bankrupt, I do the unthinkable for my gravely ill younger brother, Ricky Ashford, and climb into the bed of Damien Blackwood, the notorious mafia boss. When his smoldering gaze sweeps over my shirtless body, I stay perfectly still. The reason is that I'm afraid to set off this infamous man in front of me. However, the next instant, his lips are everywhere on my skin, and the night dissolves into a wild, reckless blur. For three years, I endure every torment in his bed. Thoughts of escape and even suicide cross my mind, but the fact that my brother is fighting for his life in the ICU keeps me going. One day, I accidentally overhear him speaking with his childhood friend, Chloe Sterling. "How long do you plan to toy with your enemy's daughter? You're not falling for her, are you?" "Don't be absurd." "And what about her sickly brother?" "He died long ago." The last thread holding me together snaps. Now, there is no reason left to live. As I prepare to end my life by burning charcoal, tears well up in his eyes as he pleads for me not to leave.

I've been in a relationship with my brother's best friend, Emilio Slater, for three years, but he's never been willing to make our relationship public. Still, I never doubt his love for me. After all, he's been with 99 women before, yet he stops looking at anyone else because of me. Even if I have a slight cold, he drops billion-dollar projects and rushes home to take care of me. But on my birthday, when I'm excitedly preparing to share the news of my pregnancy with Emilio, he forgets my birthday for the first time and vanishes without a trace. The housekeeper tells me he's gone to pick up someone important from the airport. I rush there and see him holding flowers, his face full of nervous anticipation, waiting for a woman—one who looks strikingly like me. Later, my brother tells me she's Emilio's first love, the one he can never forget. Emilio defied his parents for her, and he fell apart after she dumped him. He sought out 99 women who resembled her to fill the void. My brother speaks with admiration for Emilio's deep devotion, unaware that I'm one of those stand-ins. I watch Emilio and his first love for a long, long time. Then, I return to the hospital without hesitation. "Doctor, I don't want this child anymore."

Damian, my destined partner, is the alpha that all wolf girls dream of. For him, I went alone to the North, his pack. But for three years after we signed the contract, he remained chaste, staying at least three feet away from me, refusing to mate with me. I thought he was just busy with the affairs of the wolf pack and had no time to care about me. Until I stumbled upon Damian pinning Lyra, his sister, against a rough tree trunk, his mouth savagely devouring her lips like a wild beast. "You know I long for you, Lyra!" he roared. "Why did you force that boring Selena on me?!" At last I understood. The only person he truly loved was Lyra. He hurt me again and again for Lyra, and even when we were trapped in the forest and almost swallowed by the shadow plague, he ran away with Lyra in his arms without looking back. "Whether Selena can escape or not has nothing to do with me. You are the most important person in my world!" I was heartbroken, but he wanted to complete the final mark with me because of guilt. He didn't know that I had already dripped my heart's blood on the moonstone the day I found out about his affair with Lyra. Our mate bond had been completely broken long ago.

I spiked the drink of Daniel Falkner, Belcaster's big shot, three years ago. After that night of madness, he doesn't punish me. Instead, he takes my waist in his hands and drives into me until my legs go weak, calling me "princess", again and again. But just as I'm about to confess, Serena Jarman, the woman he never gets over, returns. For her sake, he lets me get hit by a car, makes me watch Mom's keepsake get left to a stray, and even throws me into jail with his own hands. By the time I'm shattered and boarding a flight to Velport to marry someone else, Daniel is tearing Belcaster apart just to find me.

I gave him three years of my life, only to be treated as nothing more than a substitute—worse than a dog. When his so-called white moonlight returned, he kicked me aside without hesitation. Fine. I agreed to the family alliance and married the most powerful Alpha of the North. Now he regrets it, begging me to return? Too late. They plotted against me with wolfsbane, wanting me to die in a filthy wine cellar. But my Mate—the true King of the North—tore the entire estate apart just to save me. They tried to steal my Alpha bloodline with dark sorcery. I made them taste exile, cast out as Rogues, despised by all. And him? He knelt before me, begging for forgiveness. I leaned safely in my Mate’s arms and watched him be banished forever. “Ansel,” I told him coldly, “open your eyes. I am the one and only Luna of the North.”

A pack of Rogues holds my mother, Celia Hale, hostage and clutches an iron chest like it's treasure. Lillian Parker, my mate's first love, points at the chest through her tears. "That chest… It's all I have left of my mother." However, the boulder above my mother's head is already loose, and it could crush her at any moment. I desperately beg my mate and the Alpha of the Silvermoon pack, Ares Hamilton. "Save my mom first! Please!" He just glances at me with a frown. "Celia's a strong she-wolf. She'll be fine. Margaret is already gone. That chest matters more." With that, he gestures for most of the fighters to move toward the chest. Only two young werewolves, barely steady on their feet, reluctantly step toward Celia. I stare at him in disbelief. In the end, they recover the chest, but my mother is dead.

3 years ago, the Southern witch sealed the mate bond between Dylan and me with her spell. She said that if we still truly loved each other after 3 years, the bond would remain. Otherwise, it would be broken. During these years, I helped him become the Alpha of our pack as his Luna. But in his heart, there was someone else, his childhood sweetheart, Eleanor. When Eleanor found out that we had started our mate bond, she chose to leave with another werewolf. Dylan was drunk and cried out her name in my arms. His wolf claws scratched me. At that moment, my arm was bleeding, so was my heart. But I believed that he would gradually fall in love with me as time went on. I thought 3 years would be quite enough for that. When the 3 years are almost up, Eleanor returned. Dylan dropped an important meeting to meet with her. We lost $2 billion because of that. Dylan started being by her side every day, just like before. I used to be so afraid that when the time came, we wouldn’t be in love, and that I might lose Dylan. 7 days later, our mate bond would be gone. This time, I didn’t care anymore. It was just a countdown for me to become the Alpha Queen of my own pack.