Who Is Annabelle In Cruel Summer Novels & Stories

When my son and I were exiled for my family's crimes, my husband shoved divorce papers into my hands and cut all ties. I pulled my nine-year-old close and swore I would protect him no matter what. However, at dawn, when we were supposed to leave, I found a different child in his place. Panic flooded through me. Then, strange text flickered into view: [The male lead paid 50 silver for a street boy who looks vaguely similar. He sent his real son to live in luxury with his beloved!] [This cannon fodder ex-wife will waste her life searching for her real son, who'll only resent her for ruining his comfortable new life.] [Once the lead couple rises to power, she'll conveniently 'fall ill' and die. Tragic, really.] [Wait. That street boy is the deposed crown prince's orphan. The future emperor!] I stood there for a moment, taking it in. Then, I crouched down and held out my hand to the scarred child trembling before me. "Come with mom, little one. It's time to go."

The marking ceremony had reached the moment when the Luna crown should be exchanged, but my mate in name only still refused to lower his head. Once Drake Blackwood bit the side of my neck and completed the marking, our 66th ceremony would finally become real. Yet his eyes stayed fixed on his phone, and he did not even look at me. All because his widowed sister-in-law, Scarlett Moore, had posted a claim-release statement an hour earlier. Her late husband had been Drake’s older brother. Under pack law, Drake was obligated to protect her. Attached to her post was a ticket for a private pack flight, showing that she would land in an hour. Drake suddenly rose and announced in a low voice to the elders and pack members that the marking ceremony would be postponed. Then he left me standing there alone, turning me into a joke before the entire pack. I calmly packed away the Luna crown, calmly apologized to the guests, and calmly saw everyone off. After that, I opened Scarlett’s latest post on the MoonNet feed. In the photo, Drake stood beside her, holding out a newly hunted moonstone. I gave a bitter smile and called my birth parents through the private pack link. “Father, Mother, I’m willing to come back now.” “I’ll accept the marriage alliance for the Frostvale Pack.”

For four years I was his secretary, and for four years I warmed his bed. I knew everything, from his family business to the secrets he whispered to me at night. But to him, I was nothing more than a toy he could summon whenever he pleased. The moment his first love, Sofia Costa, flew back into the country, he humiliated me without a second thought. He kissed her in a Sicilian church, abandoned me on a rain-soaked road with a gash ten inches long on my calf, and later dismissed me with a cold, cutting line. He said I was someone unimportant, someone he could simply ignore. She waved the tulip plush he'd given her in front of me. "I'm the only one he loves. You were just a stand-in." While I rebuilt my life in Chicago and finally found some peace, this ruthless Mafia don knelt outside my door, eyes red with emotion. "Elena, come back to me." I kicked his hand away with a smile. "Your so-called devotion disgusts me."

In the second month of my relationship with my best friend Sophie Vaughn's older brother, Elias Vaughn, Thanksgiving arrives. Sophie leans in, eyes gleaming with mischief. "Elias is bringing his girlfriend home for the holiday. Let's see what all the fuss is about." I take my time getting ready, heart fluttering with hope. Just maybe, I'll finally be formally introduced as his girlfriend. But the moment I step inside, I see him with another elegant, beautiful woman, smiling as he introduces her to his parents. "This is my girlfriend," he says. He then inadvertently looks over at me, stiffening for a moment, clearly caught off guard. But just as quickly, he recovers and turns to the woman beside him. "That woman over there is my sister's friend and a part-time student. You could say she's a maid in our household." A maid? As it turns out, I'm nothing more than someone for him to kiss and sleep with. I was never someone worthy of standing by his side publicly. I turn away and board the train back to Ashcroft University, choosing my future over another night in his bedroom.

During the pack's wilderness training, my adopted sister, Tessa, shoved me from a cliffside thick with wolfsbane. My Alpha, Fenrir, turned and left with Tessa feigning injury in his arms, leaving me for dead at the bottom of the ravine. I died instantly, but my soul lingered, watching everything with cold detachment. I watched as Tessa's tearful complaints swayed him into blaming me for my own disappearance. "Will Selene ever stop causing me trouble?" "She's weak and always looking for trouble. How could she possibly be fit to be our Luna?" He had no idea I was already dead at the bottom of that cliff choked with wolfsbane. Five whole days. The poison hit my bloodstream like liquid fire, racing through my veins with merciless speed. As my body decayed under the moonlight, my love for him faded with it. The title of Luna, the magnificent coronation I had dreamed of, everything I once cherished was now meaningless. The Selene who loved him was well and truly dead.

Emily Gistara has the gift of 'listening' to the seasons, and because of this talent she is under threat. The plague brought by winter has everyone accusing Emily of being jinxed and hunting her down to kill. In her efforts to avoid the threat, Emily is reunited with Mikael Ethan, a mysterious traveler who is good at concocting medicines and has a mouse nose. Emily wants Ethan to concoct a cure to break her supposedly disastrous talent. However, the medicine cannot be concocted without a clear chrysanthemum flower that only grows at the foot of Mount Namika in spring. While waiting for spring to arrive, they are faced with a plague problem that must be dealt with. After the plague was over, the journey to find the antidote began. Getting to Mount Namika is never easy and big problems come one after another, more than that, secrets that have been buried come to the surface.

“You can’t keep this up forever, Aiden. One mistake, and they’ll see you for what you really are." He’s right. I’m not Aiden Ironclaw, the heir my pack needs. I’m Aria, the daughter no one wanted, forced into a disguise that could get me killed. Now I’m trapped in Wolfsbane Academy, where the strongest heirs battle to become Alpha-King. And the worst part? Kael Draven, the ruthless prodigy who should be my enemy, won’t stop pushing me, on the training field, in the trials, and in ways that make my wolf ache to be seen. If he discovers the truth, I lose everything. But if I keep hiding… I might lose myself first.

Everyone in the city knows Lena Moore award-winning investigative journalist, fearless, sharp-tongued, and impossible to intimidate. She’s built a career exposing powerful men and tearing down corrupt empires. What she doesn’t know is that the quiet man she keeps running into at her neighborhood café Eli Carter, the one who listens more than he talks, who fixes broken chairs for free and always smells faintly of ink and rain is one of those men. Eli isn’t just rich. He’s the silent owner of multiple companies, operating behind shell boards and faceless executives after his family was destroyed by public attention years ago. He chose anonymity over dominance. Their connection grows slowly. Conversations about ethics, loneliness, and truth. Late-night walks. Shared silences. Real intimacy. Then Lena is assigned a career-defining investigation. She’s hunting a mysterious billionaire whose companies are quietly reshaping the country. She’s hunting him.

I am Serena Blake, a young woman who believed love could conquer anything. But for Ethan Blackwood, I was just a temporary convenience, a wife to be discarded. Three years of cold treatment, silent humiliation, and empty promises ended the day he handed me divorce papers… while I was carrying his child. I vanished, swallowed my heartbreak, and rebuilt myself from nothing. Now, five years later, I return no longer the powerless woman he abandoned, but a self-made business strategist with secrets of my own… and a child he never knew existed. Ethan watches helplessly as I rise, as others admire what he once rejected, and as the truth of my survival slowly shatters his perfect world. He wants me back. He wants forgiveness. He wants the family he never valued. But I’ve learned that power isn’t given, it’s taken. And this time, the woman he lost holds all the cards. Will Ethan finally realize what he threw away, or is it too late for regret to undo the past?

“Why did you accept the marriage?” Audrey asked, her fingers drumming impatiently on the table.  Lucas leaned back, his gaze drifting over Audrey as a lazy chuckle escaped his throat. “It's a contract.”  A bitter smile twisted Audrey's lips. “How many months do I have to pay off the debt?” Lucas’ eyes snapped up, his brows furrowing into a shock. He hadn't expected her to be this....bold and unapologetic. He thought she would cry and plead for mercy.  “Twenty million dollars,” he muttered. “A debt even your father can't pay?”    ……………. Desperate to escape the $20 million debt her father leveraged to force her to marry Lucas Erickson, Audrey Sterling struck a deal with Thomas Whiteson, the heir of the Whiteson empire: pretend to be his fiancee for three months, and he'll pay off her debt.  But when she discovered she's an heiress to 40% share of her grandfather's company and can only claim it if she marries a man approved by her father, her world spun.  Thomas suddenly demands marriage, her father only approves of Lucas.  Trapped between loyalty to her grandfather's legacy, a deal with Thomas, and a heart falling for him, Audrey must choose: love or inheritance?