Voice From The Stone

Since I was a kid, my parents drilled it in—you're gonna be a Corleone girl, Giovanni Corleone's property. "This is just an alliance. Don't expect anything more." That's what he said on our wedding night. So I played the part—quiet, polished, dutiful. Then year three hit, and suddenly Giovanni couldn't keep his hands off me. Every night, something new. I thought maybe—finally—he felt the same way I had all along. Then I caught him kissing his stepmom. Funny. Just the night before, he told me kissing me made him sick. "I've been practicing with her—for your sake." So yeah. All that heat? Just rehearsal for her. So I ran. Took back my life—and our unborn daughter. The Don lost his mind looking for me. Begged me to come back—with the kid. But I would not stop for him anymore. I turned and walked straight toward the stage that was always mine.

I used to work as a model, but not the typical kind. In our profession, everyone had a benefactor, someone who supported them financially. I dedicated myself to my benefactor for a year and a half, tending to his needs diligently. Despite my dedication, I was eventually abandoned. Just when I gathered my courage and decided to start afresh, he showed up again, "Do you want to date me? Officially."

When you are growing up adults usually tell you that you can be whatever you want to be, right?! I was told I would be a starving artist if I became what I wanted to be. I let their words become me. All their words. I let them dictate the person I became. I kept the real me to myself after so many years of their hatred for that person. I let little bits of my soul break away and die to keep their torment to a minimum. I learned to not rock the boat, just keep my head down and do as I was told. I was the party crasher on their life that never left. Until I shocked them when I did. Out on my own, I wasn’t as strong as I thought I was. I settled for the first “nice guy” to come along. That quickly fizzled out after a shotgun wedding. After a year alone I met Prince Charming #2 at a backyard BBQ. I didn’t know my jerk radar was still broken. Then out of nowhere, the one I had always thought was a jerk turned out to surprisingly be my Prince Charming. Being the man, I need in my life. He became everything I needed, and everything I didn’t know I wanted. Allowing me to grow and blossom as a person which inspires him to do the same. And we live happily ever after.

Selena and Xander became mates not long ago, but Xander suddenly became cold-blooded and heartless. When the mate bond between her and Xander was broken, she reached the end of her life. Yet she got nothing but even more fierce retaliation from Xander. It turned out that he was with her only to avenge his parents in the first place. Disheartened, Selena chose to end her life. "Whatever my father owed you, I'll pay it back!" The always proud Xander knelt on the ground with red-rimmed eyes, frantically begging her to come back over and over again...

Liam and I have been together for five years. We were supposed to become mates in a month. I have been planning our honeymoon because in these five years, we have never left this city. So I prepared a $100,000 trip in advance as a mating gift for Liam. When I mentioned it to him, before I even finished my words, he interrupted me impatiently, “Who asked you to plan it? For our honeymoon, I will only give you a budget of $50. We’ll just go somewhere nearby for a night.” That night, I found out he had transferred his $1 million hunting competition bonus to his childhood friend Stella, letting her use it to buy an apartment of her own. He got really mad at me, when he saw the receipt for the $100,000 I had prepaid for the honeymoon. “Who gave you the right to spend our future money on a trip?” Liam’s parents also yelled at me, “You are just a useless Omega! You can’t even shift into a werewolf form, unlike Stella, you are not good enough for our son.” But every single cent was earned by myself from my herb business. I broke up with him without any hesitation. Liam stole that trip from me and went on it with Stella instead. Seven years later, we ran into each other at the Alpha’s castle. Liam was about to become a Warrior of the pack. Meanwhile, I was on my knees, searching for something on the floor. “Mia, you broke up with me over a $50 honeymoon fund back then. Now, you are working as a maid? You’re in this mess because of your own choices.” In fact, I was looking for my pup’s favorite toy. It had rolled under one of the tables earlier. “Is that so? Don’t you even know who the Luna of this castle is?”

“Reject us,” Kellen commanded. “No.” The word slipped from Daciana's lips. The murmurs in the crowd grew louder, shock spreading like wildfire. The triplets’ eyes widened in disbelief, their confident masks slipping. Kellen’s hands balled into fists, his jaw clenched tight as he glared at her. “What do you mean, no?” Axel’s voice broke through the noise, disbelief clear in his tone. “You’ve always hated us. You don’t want this. Reject us!” “I won't reject you” Daciana stood her ground, she had never had this kind of leverage over them before, For years, they had been in control, tormenting her at every turn. But now… now they were at her mercy. They were begging for rejection? That wasn't going to happen. She would make sure they paid for everything they've done. This mate bond they desperately wanted to break…. will not happen! **** When she didn't get her wolf on her eighteenth birthday, Daciana became an element of mockery in her pack. Everybody hated her and the students at school derived joy in bullying and making her life miserable. Daciana has hated the royal triplets all her life. She wanted nothing to do with them, and they equally hated and made her life hell. She wished to have nothing to do with them, but fate played a quick one on her, and she got mated to all three of them. The triplets, having no power to reject her, asked her to reject them, but Daciana, knowing the leverage she had, refused with the sole aim of making them pay for everything they did to her. But how long will she be able to play this game? Will she win, or will she be pulled into their seductive web now that they didn't want to let her go?

A few extra pounds shattered her marriage, or perhaps love never existed within those four walls she used to call "home"?. Adeline did not know. The truth was that her husband had once told her he could not stand her anymore. "Ugly," "Fat," were words she would never forget. She, who had dedicated ten years of her life to that ingrate, and who had given him three handsome sons, now suffers the scorn of that person who had sworn to love and protect her. But life did not end with a divorce, and she would discover it in the arms of another man...

At my wedding, a video of my fiancé cheating was exposed. I didn't make a scene; just turned around and walked away, left him to clean up the mess himself. I went back to my room and kissed my younger boyfriend. We were halfway through when we got interrupted. My fiancé stormed in, face red with shame and rage. "Is this really the time? All you can think about is kissing?" I smacked my lips, still savoring the moment. "Weren't you the one who introduced us?"

Married but not loved. After getting pregnant, Tessa returns to the life of her ex-husband. Not only to seek revenge on Darius, but to steal him away from his mistress, Martha. Will she succeed now that the two are married and have a child?

My ex-best friend's birthday is also my mother's death anniversary. When I see Susan Lloyd picking a birthday cake with Hans Luther, I know she's going to snatch my husband after snatching my father from me. I won't let her get away with it, though. I don't want to follow in my mother's footsteps and be forced to jump off a building. So, after ruining Susan's birthday party, I leave the divorce agreement I've prepared and move out of my marital home. It's been less than seven hours since the incident. In that time, I've spent one hour packing, one hour getting to the train station, and three hours getting to my grandmother's house. In my final two hours, I convince my grandmother to let me stay. Hans, I don't want you anymore.