Why Do I Even Bother

That winter, our whole family went skiing in Aespen, Amestia. It was a popular spot for werewolf nobles and the wealthy. Then, the avalanche struck. My father's first instinct was to scoop up Summer—his sleeping adopted daughter—and flee. My mother, panicked, still made sure to grab the stray puppy Summer had found. They returned to the Moonshadow Pack that same night, posting a flood of photos online and rejoicing over their miraculous escape. Not one of them remembered me. Their biological daughter was still buried beneath the snow, waiting for rescue. When I was finally rescued, I did not look back. I took my mentor's offer to study abroad and left the pack behind. I moved to Cascade City to study medicine. No more pleading, no more shrinking myself in hopes of earning back my family's love. Yet they only seemed more disgruntled. "Rose, why aren't you competing with Summer for our attention anymore?"

"Yes, apologize. I'm not the reason you're so tall, you don't even see the people below you, your narcissistic Highness!" I blurted angrily, with a hint of sarcasm. My confidence soon waned drastically and the regret bounced in. My first day in Brownston and here I was, already making trouble. "Mundanes and being problematic," he muttered, turning to leave immediately. That did it. I could have sworn a puff of smoke its way out of my ears accompanied by the overwhelming surge of anger that rose from the depth of my stomach. I hurled at him my saddle bag with all the energy my slim hands could gather and it landed right across his pale face. ** Alexis—a Trueblood who had lived forever in a void of endless time bumps into Dawn, a college student who sought adventure. Was his tedious life about to get more intriguing? What were the hardships that came with the existence of a mundane in his life?

When the Earth slipped into a relentless, record-breaking heat, I exhausted everything I had to develop a constant-temperature shelter. Yet, my fiancée, Janine O’Connor, insisted on wearing a bikini and going out to sunbathe with her personal secretary. In my previous life, I stopped her. I warned her that an apocalyptic heatwave was coming, and that countless people would be burned to death simply by being exposed to the heat. However, her personal secretary looked as though he had suffered a great injustice. “I’m sorry, Will,” he said. “But I can’t bear to see Miss Janine stuck in a shelter for the rest of her life. I’ve done my research. This is a period of natural selection for the Earth. Only by adapting quickly to the environment can people truly survive.” Even so, I threatened my own life and forcibly brought Janine back into the shelter. Relying on the shelter I built, Janine survived the apocalypse and rapidly built a survivor base. However, on the second day after she became the base’s leader, she had me hanged outside the shelter and burned alive. “If you hadn’t forced me to come back, Mark wouldn’t have been devastated and killed himself in the heat! He was about to develop a new type of shelter, yet you stole all the credit! I’ll make you pay with your life!” Even after my death, her hatred didn’t fade. She ordered someone to skin me and turn my hide into a rug, stepping on it every day. When I opened my eyes again, I was back to the day I tried to stop her from sunbathing with Mark Davis.

I fell in love with my brother's combat training instructor, the Alpha of the Stormfang Pack. He was very kind to me. I pursued him for eight years, thinking that he wanted me to be his mate. But he betrayed my sincerity, ignored my efforts, and even used my love to pursue his childhood sweetheart. Realizing the truth, I chose to leave. But he regretted it and did everything possible to win me back, but everything was too late by then.

The day my birth parents found me, the reunion banquet they threw turned into their funeral. My parents and their adopted daughter, Leila, died of food poisoning that night. The only one who survived was my older brother, Alpha Kian. He didn’t like sweets, so he never touched the cake. The cake that I handed to them myself. “So you want to take Leila’s place. “You’re just jealous because she got all our love! “She was the only one who ever accepted you, and you still killed her!” Those were Kian’s exact words as he shouted at me right outside the hospital room. From that day on, I became a sinner. To make up for it, I barely slept four hours a night and worked five jobs just to buy back the villa the rival pack seized during the chaos. However, the day I finally saved up enough, I saw my dead parents throwing a birthday party for Leila in that very villa. Kian stood among them, looking at her with a warmth I didn’t recognize. My mother said, “Isn’t today also Lily’s birthday? It’s been eight years. Maybe it’s time to forgive her.” However, Kian didn’t hesitate to refuse. “No. Even though Leila sniffed out the wolfsbane and saved you, we agreed that Lily gets ten years. “We can’t risk her ever trying to poison Leila again. Not even a day less.” I clutched the diagnosis paper from the clinic tightly and laughed through my tears. I knew I wouldn’t get to ten years. I was already dying.

A reckless kiss that changes everything. Aurora thought kissing someone would be perfect to show her ex she has moved on, unknown to her it’s the beginning of an obsession. Dominic Ricci, a powerful mafia king, no one that touches him leaves him, even her, the moment she placed her lips on his, she became his, he holds secrets that could shatter her. When Dominic gives her an ultimate, stay with him for thirty days and he will ensure her safety or risk the lives of everyone she loves. Trapped in his world of secrets, Aurora realizes he is a ghost from her forgotten past. Who is he? Why is he willing to burn the world for her? How far will he go for her?

"what do you want from me?" She said she cries hoping to leave her. She struggled to keep him away, but her weak resistance did not work. “I demand what is mine, my little companion.” He answered her, pushing her hard against the wall, putting his face to her neck, sniffing at her scent, while the poor girl, who had been oblivious to his world, cried out for help. But she didn't know that no one would come to save her and face the wrath of the alpha who was fixing her on the wall. I guess it was a mistake to move to a town where secrets are blacker than dark but she didn't have a choice, right?

After confirming I was pregnant, I suddenly heard my husband’s inner voice. “This idiot is still gloating over her pregnancy. She doesn’t even know we switched out her IVF embryo. She’s nothing more than a surrogate for Elle. If Elle weren’t worried about how childbirth might endanger her life, I would’ve kicked this worthless woman out already. Just looking at her makes me sick. “Once she delivers the baby, I’ll make sure she never gets up from the operating table. Then I’ll finally marry Elle, my one true love.” My entire body went rigid. I clenched the IVF test report in my hands and looked straight at my husband. He gazed back at me with gentle eyes. “I’ll take care of you and the baby for the next few months, honey.” However, right then, his inner voice struck again. “I’ll lock that woman in a cage like a dog. I’d like to see her escape!” Shock and heartbreak crashed over me all at once because the Elle he spoke of was none other than my sister.

At 20, I became known for two things. First, I weighed over 200 pounds, yet I still ended up dating Christian Fairmont, the coldest and most unattainable man in our circle. Second, I turned down Christian's proposal, changed my name, left the country, and became the one woman no one dared mention around him—the forbidden, unattainable love he could never let go. For the next five years, Christian shut himself away in a church and refused to see anyone. Just when everyone thought he was about to become a priest, he suddenly announced his engagement. He made such a spectacle of it that even I heard about it all the way in Goldridge. That alone showed how much he valued his bride-to-be. I booked the first flight home that same night. Everyone who saw me reacted the same way. First, they stared at how completely I had changed, how much weight I had lost, how I looked like a different person. Then they sighed. "Juliana, you came back too late." Even Christian looked at me with cold, distant eyes. "When you walked away and left me behind, did you ever think that five years later, you'd regret it?" Regret? I shook my head. "I don't regret it." I was already married and had a child.

She could remember people through their smells, their voices, their accents, their everyday choices of words or through how they feel against her touch. That's exactly the meaning of socializing and making friends for someone like Meredith Kaye Santiago, a person who was suffering with prosopagnosia. To someone who couldn't remember anyone's face, dating was a no-no. She couldn't risk her heart to someone her eyes couldn't remember and her brain couldn't retain. But one night, she found herself caught up under the body of a stranger, and he's taking off her clothes. The stranger’s name was Rupert Santos, the Vulture’s vocalist and a guy with piercing on his bottom lip. She let him go all the way after he said, “Surrender your sensations”. Love hit her hard. That’s when his blurry face became clearer. And finally, she said, “I see you, Rockstar.”