Until Death

Three years ago, I broke up with my girlfriend—Audrey Hades—while she was on the verge of going bankrupt. Immediately after, I got engaged to her biggest rival, Clara Sterling. Later, she turns into a celebrated and adored rising star of the business world. She allows people around her to mock and label me as a gold-digger who leeches off rich women. But what she doesn't know is that I've been dead for three years.

I'm cursed with the most deadly spell of the werewolf pack—leaving me with only a month left to live. However, no one in my family knows about this. Ever since they'd adopted Natali Fisher, an orphan who greatly resembles my older sister, they've poured all their love and attention into her—and stopped caring about me. And at that very moment, I'm curled up in a corner of the woodshed, with blood steadily dripping from the corners of my lips. Dad, Mom, and my older brother, Kent Greene, probably think that I'm throwing another tantrum and am deliberately hiding from them. But that isn't the case this time. They are currently outside cooking Natali's favorite mushroom soup in the courtyard. Their happy laughter fills the air, painting the picture of a warm, loving family. Maybe I could even believe this is a happy family if I weren't about to die soon.

When my brother Beau Campbell and I drowned together at the age of four, I was the only one who survived. From that day on, my mother came to loathe me. She would often creep into my room at night with colorful "candies" in her hand, trying to pry open my mouth. However, Dad always stopped her just in time. Later, I cut off my long hair and threw away all my dresses, desperately trying to become Beau's shadow. Only then would Mom spare me a glance. Three years passed, and Mom got pregnant again. She said it was Beau coming back to us. I was happy for her and told myself it was good that Beau was back. After all, it also meant this family no longer needed the stand-in who had lived in his place. So, I found the same "candies" Mom once tried to force into my mouth, and I quietly swallowed them.

A blizzard erupted without warning, and the glacial mountains began to collapse. My instinct screamed at me to shift and run, to let my Inner Wolf take over and flee—but it was too late. The storm swept in, laced with a strange silver dust that hung heavy in the air. It was like an invisible chain, binding me tightly, locking away my wolf. Worse still, my strength was nearly gone. As captain of the Silvermoon Patrol, I had been out on the tundra all night. Hours ago, I had fought off a vicious ambush by Rogues, and my body still bore the wounds—deep, bleeding, and far from healed. I could feel it: my wolf energy had been pushed past its limit. Maxin, my Inner Wolf, was silent now, his strength depleted and unresponsive. My limbs were going numb, my body sinking into the snow as the roar of the wind drowned everything else out. But I wasn’t afraid. Because I knew he would come. My boyfriend—the head of the tribe's Search and Rescue Unit—had never failed a mission. I believed with all my heart that he would find me. And yet… he didn’t come himself. He sent a rookie instead, while he went after Daisy, whom he believed had been caught in an avalanche. But Daisy hadn’t been in danger at all. She merely wanted a dramatic way to confess her love to him. Three days later, Xander finally found me, buried deep beneath the frozen layers. He froze at the sight—my body, encased in ice, unmoving. He couldn’t believe it: the fierce, relentless warrior he knew, dead beneath the snow. He reached out to touch me… but the ice cracked. And before he could react, my body slipped into the depths of the glacier, vanishing into the abyss.

"Selene, your bloodline is too lowly. You don't deserve to be a Luna! You must let your Alpha mark his sister-in-law!" My mother-in-law despises me because I'm a lowly Omega. When my mate's brother dies in an accident, my mother-in-law wants me to allow my mate, Eugene Latham, to have pups with his sister-in-law, Kristy Unwin, because of her superior bloodline. Otherwise, Eugene will lose his right to become Alpha! Eugene wraps his arms around me tenderly and says, "You're the only one in my heart, but you need to understand that the pack can't go without an Alpha. I'll announce to everyone that you're my Luna once Kristy's pregnant and I become Alpha, okay?" I love him deeply, so I believe him. However, when Eugene goes from sleeping with Kristy once a month to sleeping with me once a month, I realize he's no longer a mate who belonged to me alone. When Kristy announces that she's pregnant and that she and Eugene are going to get married, I'm the only one who's kept in the dark. My heart shatters into pieces when I see the glimmering Luna's ring on her finger. If this is what Eugene wants, I'll fake my death and leave him. I won't ever return.

An earthquake struck suddenly during our honeymoon. I suggested that we flee immediately. My husband’s former lover mocked me for being cowardly and paranoid. So, my husband dismissed my fears. I had no choice but to continue sightseeing with them. A fractured steel frame crashed down with an earsplitting clang and smashed into his former lover. She clung to me desperately as the rebars drove into my ribs one by one. Before I could cry out, my husband kicked me down when he saw his former lover in danger. “You wretch! If you hadn’t suggested this honeymoon spot, Lena wouldn’t have gotten hurt! “You knew there’d be an earthquake today. You did this on purpose!” The rebars pierced deeper into my ribs and made every breath I took excruciatingly painful. My husband pushed me aside, lifted his former lover into his arms, and stormed off without glancing back. “Before the aftershock hits, I’m taking Lena to the hospital! Then, I’ll call for rescue. “Stay here and reflect on your actions. This is your punishment for scheming against Lena!” I waited all night. He did not know that the torrential rains of the monsoon season had flooded the area. What awaited him was the bloated corpse of a pregnant woman.

Five years after we broke up, my ex bought the company I worked for and suddenly became my direct boss. The project plan I'd stayed up nights working on—nearly killing myself to finish—was handed to someone else without a word. My teammates were split apart, and I became his go-to example when he wanted to tear someone down. I was the laughingstock of the office. Shawn Lubbard said it was the price I had to pay for betraying him. Finally, I asked him what it would take for him to leave me alone. His reply? "Only if you die." Feeling crushed, I drove a knife into my chest right in front of him. Maybe this terrible life should have ended long ago.

I have been dating my manager boyfriend, Caleb Frost, for five years. He calls off our wedding 52 times for Gina Lowe, an aspiring actress on the set. On the day I am ready to give up on him and walk away, Gina falsely accuses me of using expired makeup on her that caused an allergic reaction. So Caleb shoves me into a sealed cellar and locks me inside. As he pushes me down, his face is twisted in disgust. "It's one thing to pick on Gina, but to use expired makeup on her and cause an allergy? Do you know how important an artist's face is? "Stay down there and think about your wrongdoings." With that, he drags the crying Gina to the hospital. The cellar's air vent is blocked. Every breath I take grows harder until I suffocate to death inside. Three days later, Caleb remembers me only after attending a gathering with Gina. But little does he know, I am already dead from the lack of oxygen in that dark cellar.

My husband's first love had been trapped in a car for an hour. After they pulled her out, his rage shifted onto me. “It’s your fault she got hurt,” he spat, his eyes blazing as he grabbed me. Before I could make sense of what was happening, he forced me into a wooden box, slamming the lid down with a deafening crack. “You’re going to feel every ounce of the pain she went through,” he hissed, nailing it shut. I pounded on the walls, my screams tearing through the air. “Please, I didn’t do anything! Let me out!” My throat burned with the effort, my fists aching, but nothing stopped him. “Stay in there until you’ve figured out how to act like a decent human being,” he said, his voice cold, dripping with contempt. Hours passed. My body twisted unnaturally in the tight space, bones throbbing as blood smeared the wood beneath me. I whispered into the dark, the pain unbearable. "Please… just let me out…" But he didn’t care. A week later, he returned, his laughter echoing with hers as they entered the house, carefree from their trip. He finally opened the box. But by then, I was already gone. The woman he locked away was no longer breathing, no longer pleading. Just a cold, silent corpse.

I spent five years patching the cracks in Jonathan Blackwood—the Blackwood Pack’s legendary Alpha—until his first love, Isabella, “rise from the dead.” Jonathan dropped me in a heartbeat, dragging our two pups to her side. Blinded, they saw only Isabella’s shine—never her evil, never my heartbreak. At last, I woke up. I filed the bond-dissolution in silence and walked away—leaving everything, even my pups, to that foolish Alpha and the calculating she-wolf. When his wish was granted and her mask fell, Isabella’s cruelty began to fill Jonathan’s hollow chest with doubt and regret. He knelt before me, punished her, and begged me to return. I only looked at him with pity. “The one who hurt me most was never her. It was you.”