Waited Past Tense

Seven years ago, I signed a mate contract as Luna. For my mother’s dying wish and for the Pack’s stability, I personally pushed a man with nothing to his name onto the Alpha throne. I held the Pack together for him, expanded our businesses, and handled the filthy negotiations and the deals no one wanted to see in the light. Everyone said— I was calm, I was formidable, I was qualified. Just… not much like a “gentle mate.” Until that day. I stood in the bedroom and watched my Alpha husband lay his hand over my paralyzed stepsister’s slightly rounded belly. They told me it was for the greater good of the Pack. That child would be registered under my name. He would call me Mother. I didn’t cry. I didn’t scream. I just waited for the seven-year term to hit its end and activated the trust clause my mother left behind. Accounts frozen. Capital withdrawn. The wolf empire I built with my own hands collapsed overnight. By the time he knelt in the ruins and finally understood what he’d lost— I had already taken back my mother’s last name, dissolved the mate bond, and stepped onto a new territory.

When her first love died, my wife jumped from the cruise ship to end her life on our honeymoon. That was when I realized she had never let go of Tyler. Reborn back to our teenage years, she didn’t hesitate to shake off my hand and walk straight toward her first love. I watched them leave together, then turned away. From that moment on, our lives became two parallel lines that would never cross. Ten years later, we meet again at a lavish gala in Rivendell. She was now the rising star of high society, proudly clinging to Tyler’s arm as they made their entrance. When she saw me crash the gala in search of someone, she couldn’t help but advise me. “Why are you still obsessed with me? Even if you’ve waited ten years, I’ll never love you.” I ignored her and pulled my son out of the corner where he had been sneaking cake. Her eyes instantly redden as she grabs my hand in a panic. “You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you? Didn’t you say you’d only ever love me in this life?”

“You were born to be mine… so why make me beg for what’s already mine?” Luca growled, confusion flashing in his eyes. Kiki laughed bitterly. “See? Just look at you. The entitlement. You’re behaving exactly like the Moon Goddess’s puppet… dancing to her sick little tune.” —— Kiki never believed in the mate bond. She’d watched it destroy her mother watched love turn into death the moment her father’s heart stopped beating. That was the day she swore she’d never let the bond control her. So she made a choice. To love on her own terms. To choose her own mate. And for a while, it worked. Dan was everything she wanted loving, loyal, and just as skeptical of fate as she was. But the Moon Goddess doesn’t like rebellion. Because the same night Kiki discovered she was pregnant, Dan’s fated mate walked into his life. And he didn’t think twice before choosing her. Now, broken and betrayed, Kiki’s life collides with Luca’s the ruthless Alpha King who’s waited his whole life for a mate who doesn’t want him. But Luca isn’t the kind of man to take no for an answer. And the Moon Goddess never plays fair.

When a wife cheats on their husband and gets pregnant with another man's child, the husband will usually chase her out of the home and ask for a divorce. However, Leon Wolf's situation is a little different. He is 26 years old this year, and he has been married for three years. He lives with his wife and her family who treat him like a slave most of the time. One day, his wife told him that she got pregnant, and he was chased out of the home. Filled with resentment and humiliation over how he had been treated, he found himself wandering all the way to the cemetery, where he saw two men attempting to assassinate a beautiful woman. In his bid to save her, Leon received a fatal stab wound on his chest and dragged one of the men with him into a nearby river…Leon did not resurface even though the woman had waited for a long time, so she believed that Leon had probably drowned. Before she left, she called out optimistically to the river, "My name is Iris Young. If you're still alive, come and see me sometime…"Beneath the water's surface, a soft voice said, "Iris… What a beautiful name…"

At the company holiday party raffle, I'd barely stepped on stage when my superior, Victor Grant, shoved a crumpled slip into my hand. "Special prize for our top sales guy. Go on, open it. Let's show everyone." All eyes were on me as I unfolded it. Scrawled across the paper: [VIP janitor status unlocked—every toilet in the company, three days.] The room lost it—laughter everywhere. Victor crossed his arms, grinning. "Fair, right? Everyone knows you climbed the ranks hooking up with rich cougars. Gotta avoid hard feelings for the others, yeah? While the rest of us take a break, you can get busy. You're not gonna back out, are you?" The crowd cracked up. My girlfriend—and CEO—Rachel Sullivan stood off to the side, watching. Didn't say a word. Everyone waited for me to explode. Instead, I just nodded. Next day, over 300 refund requests hit. Cash flow flatlined. Victor and Rachel begged me to talk the buyers down. I shrugged. "Nah. Don't wanna save the company and make my performance too good. That'd just cause more ' hard feelings,' right?"

My name is Carmela Romano. My wedding to Enzo Moretti, the mafia boss, comes with a price tag of hundreds of millions. The extravagant affair leaves the world utterly astonished. Enzo declares his love with a sky full of fireworks and fills the venue with a million roses. The ten-carat ring on my finger gleams brilliantly, outshining everything around me. Everyone envies our love story. But one day, everything falls apart. After a brutal attack by a rival gang, I suffer a miscarriage. To my disbelief, Enzo is absent, preoccupied with a parent-teacher meeting for Luca Vitale—the son of his childhood sweetheart. After 66 unanswered calls, Enzo finally texts me. "I'm at Luca's parent-teacher meeting. Stop calling me!" "Luca grew up without a father. I'm only helping him this once. There's no reason to make a scene!" Blood seeps out beneath me, and the agony in my stomach is unbearable. I can only sink deeper into despair. The child I've waited for all these years is gone. The snow falls heavier with every passing moment. I close my eyes, yearning to escape this world with my baby. But miraculously, a patrolling officer discovers me, barely clinging to life. When I wake in the hospital, one thought burns in my mind. "I want a divorce. Enzo, I'm done with you."

Malia Baker was the disgrace of her own family. Being wolfless, she had to deal with bullying from her brothers and all the members of the pack in which she lived. On her eighteenth birthday, she met the man she believed to be the man of her life, her predestined mate. Joshua Brown was the future Alpha of the pack. A respected, kind man who accepted Malia with open arms. Just a year later, he went to fight in a war. Malia waited anxiously for five long years until her beloved returned... with another pregnant woman. She rejected him and was sent by her ex-mate's family to the pack ruled by Jaden Brown, the Alpha King. Jaden Brown won the position of King Alpha after fighting for this. His friend Lilith, his faithful shieldmaiden, was the one who predicted the boy's future and helped him on his way to glory. Known as cruel and bloodthirsty, he takes down all his enemies. He had never met his mate until Malia Baker appeared floating near his pack's beach. She found her second chance mate in him. He found his companion in her, but he doesn't trust her family. Will the two be able to stay together? Will Malia be able to trust again?

  "There is no escape for you. I have waited a long time for you,mate. I will not let you go this time." I gasped and placed my palm over my heart, doubling over. I felt it. Strong and unbreakable, a cord that connected our bodies, minds and souls to each other's. It reached out, connecting me to him, over time, over space, over realms. I felt his power fuse with mine and cuddle around my ice, making me warm. Fire to my ice. Ice to his fire. I didn't need to see him to know it was him. My dragon growled again with mixed emotions coursing through her. I joined in with a snarl and lifted my head, anger of a woman and beast merging into something cataclysmic.      I thrummed my fingers in the air and I raised my head. Our eyes met and I resisted the urge to double over at the sensation in my chest. With Fae vision, he looked even more gorgeous than any being should be. So sensual. So dark. So powerful. My mate. I searched his turquoise depths for answers, hoping I was wrong, but they said it all. He was my mate. And he'd hurt me. I'll kill him.

In the tenth year of my marriage to a genius pianist, I came down with a strange illness. A month ago, my husband missed my birthday party to care for his ailing sister-in-law. Night after night, I had waited for him to return home. But that night I forgot to wait at all and went to bed early. Half a month ago, he attended an important performance with his sister-in-law. I had always been petty and prone to jealousy, yet this time I didn't get angry. I simply went home in silence. Three days ago, I fell seriously ill with a burning fever. My husband rushed back from out of town in a panic—but only to tend to his sister-in-law, whose hand had been scalded. When we ran into each other at the hospital, I was strangely calm. I, who used to be fiercely jealous, felt nothing at all. I forgot the promise we had made to grow old together. I even forgot how he once fretted over me for days when I'd scraped a bit of skin. It wasn't until he said he wanted to bring his sister-in-law home and take care of her for the rest of his life that I—my memories riddled with holes—summoned the system at last. "I want to go home."

After being reborn and trapped by wild boars, I no longer waited for my mate to save me. Instead, I chose to save myself. In my previous life, when Ariel and I were both surrounded by wild boars, he saved the pregnant me, and that delay cost Ariel her life. From that day on, Ian’s burning love for me turned into cold hatred. Not only was I hated by him, but I was also blamed by the elders, who held me responsible for the deaths of their pure-blood pack members. They claimed I had deliberately led Ariel into boar territory, causing her death. To punish me, they threw me into a cave to “cool off”, a place that hid the last surviving boar king hunted by the pack. I stared at its blood-red eyes in terror, begging for help, yet no one believed me. In the end, the terrifying boar king overpowered me. My body, along with the pup in my womb, was pierced by its massive tusks and swallowed whole. When I opened my eyes again, I had been reborn on the very day of the boar attack. Ian had also been reborn, and this time, he chose to save Ariel. Little did he know that this choice would drive him mad with regret.