Wafting Devotion

On the day Winter Everhart suffers a miscarriage, her husband, Joshua Stroud, and their son, Terence, are out with his beloved Jessica Lynch. They watch the very performance Winter has always loved. "You're just so unreasonable. What's the point of all this?" "Dad, can you get me a new mom? She's so annoying!" On Winter's birthday, she returns from the hospital only to find Joshua celebrating Jessica's instead. Even Terence, the child she nearly gave her life to bring into the world, pledges to protect the woman who has stolen everything from her. Tears glisten in Winter's eyes as she smiles. Then, with quiet resolve, she walks away from the cage of a marriage that has bound her for five years. Joshua and Terence believe she won't survive without the Stroud family. What they don't expect is that she rises so high that they can no longer reach her. "Mr. Stroud! Mrs. Stroud's car design is now number one nationwide—Stroud Group has been completely outshone!" "Mr. Stroud! Mrs. Stroud has just won the World Championship in Artificial Intelligence Design!" "Mr. Stroud! Mrs. Stroud has been invited by a foreign president to attend a state banquet!" Regret tears Joshua apart. Dragging Terence with him, he kneels before Winter and pleads, "Honey, please give me another chance! If being your servant is what it takes, I'll do it!" But just beyond the door, a strikingly handsome man kneels on one knee, a leather collar fastened around his neck. Twining a diamond leash around Winter's palm, he vows with his gaze burning with feverish devotion, "My master, from this moment on, I bow to no one but you. Please, take me in."

She loved him to the core, and from the age of four, a name called Neil Davis took residence in her heart. For the sake of his precarious career, she even went so far as to bear children for the unfamiliar Wilson couple. Twenty years of silent devotion led to him kneeling before another woman, promising her a lifetime commitment. No one knew she was the other half on his marriage certificate, trapped in a marriage that existed only in name for many years. "Neil, you'll never know what I've sacrificed for loving you!" "Then never tell me." With that, he coldly walked away, leaving her to sit alone in the living room until dawn. It was her twenty-fourth birthday, and the divorce agreement and a five million dollar check were his gifts to her. * Married for six years, she never imagined that one day, while he indulged in passion with his "fiancée" in bed, she would be curled up in the wardrobe, losing her virginity beneath another man! She was completely naked, while the man was impeccably dressed in a suit. He forced her to peer through the crack to witness the frenzied scene on the bed. "Same position, same frequency. Guess, between him and me, who will climax first?" The man's tone was serious, and under her startled gaze, he thrust even harder, penetrating deeper. "I love you, Neil!" She bit her lip tightly, but the ecstatic cries of Neil's "fiancée" from outside the wardrobe blurred her vision. Life is so ironic— While he was making love to other women, she was hiding in the closet having an affair with that woman's uncle, Mr. Wilson. After the divorce, a child in a little suit, resembling herself and Mr. Wilson, barged into her peaceful life.

"No matter the price," I said calmly to the witch across from me, "I will buy the scroll that severs a mate bond." I am Jean Thompson, Luna of the Crescent Pack in name only, and mate—also in name only—to Alpha Felix Frost. In the five years I carried this title, I endured Felix's indifference, my in-laws' scorn, and the pack's cold neglect. All because I loved Felix. I believed, with a devotion that consumed me, that one day my sincerity would move his heart. But on the very day of our fifth anniversary—when I discovered I was carrying twins—I stumbled upon him leading the entire pack of warriors to the airport… to welcome his childhood sweetheart, Mary Lockwood. That moment shattered the last of my hope. When he returned, I hid the bond-severing scroll among a stack of business documents and set it in front of him. "What's this? If it's important, give it to me later—" Before he could finish, Mary's syrup-sweet voice slipped in between us, "Alpha, our reservation is about to begin." Felix didn't even bother to look. He pressed his handprint casually on the scroll, ending five years of our bond. Just like that, our mate bond was severed. But I walked away with more than freedom. I carried with me a secret that could shake the entire pack—two lives growing inside me. Twins, foretold to become kings of the werewolves: the Alpha heirs. Later, in a place far beyond his reach, I gained everything I had once longed for—respect, trust, and love. But Felix came back like a storm I could not escape. His eyes were bloodshot, his body trembling with fury as he trapped me against the wall. "I never agreed to sever our bond," he growled. "Where do you think you're going with my pups?"