Worth Winning Cast Novels & Stories

Today is my wedding day. When we reach the ring-swapping ceremony, my wife, Ariana Holmes, suspends the ceremony for three minutes, simply because a man has barged into the venue. He glares at Ariana darkly. "Ariana Holmes, you've tattooed my heart on your chest, yet now you're marrying another man? Are you forcing me to carve my heart out of your body?" As soon as his words fall, he lifted the blade in his hand. Realization dawns on me. It turns out that the heart tattooed on Ariana's chest isn't mine, but rather, her first love's. At that moment, Ariana, who was all docile and quiet earlier, shudders violently. She slides the ring onto my finger haphazardly before rushing toward Ivan Hatfield. "What the hell do you want from me, Ivan?"

I was raised to believe that love meant endurance. That if I loved him enough, I could survive anything. For seven years, I was stationed at the border—alone, bleeding, freezing, nearly dying more times than I can count. Every transfer request I submitted was denied. Every time I asked why, I was told the same thing: the family needed me. The alliance came first. Others needed protection more than I did. What I didn’t know was this— Every sacrifice I made was approved by the man who claimed to love me. Adrian Holt, the Don who raised me, protected me, promised I would be his Donna one day… He was the one signing my name away year after year. He chose widows. He chose alliances. He chose power. And he chose for me—without ever asking. Because he was certain of one thing: That no matter what he did, I would never leave him. He believed love meant I would understand. That loyalty meant silence. That I would forgive anything—as long as he said he loved me. So when I finally walked away, I didn’t argue. I didn’t beg. I disappeared. And that was the moment his world collapsed. Now he’s tearing through cities, alliances, and his own sanity trying to find me— Too late realizing that love is not sacrifice when only one person bleeds. This is not a story about redemption. It’s a story about what happens after you lose the woman who endured everything… And finally chose herself.

I use a full decade just to be able to stand by Claude Thorne's side as an equal. In the past, I used to be an outsider who was often ignored by others, but slowly, I've transformed into Claude's most trusted Beta as well as the future Luna. But I decide to leave Claude one month before the Luna coronation ceremony is set to begin. It's because Claude has personally placed the Luna crown, which is supposed to be mine, onto Victoria Grimm's head instead. "It's just a crown. Victoria doesn't have anyone left in this world. What's wrong with letting her wear it? You're the future Luna, so you must be more magnanimous." I never bothered crying or throwing a tantrum. Instead, I've secretly dissolved the mate bond between Claude and me. Just like that, I've graciously given away the position as Claude's mate to Victoria magnanimously, like the way Claude wants me to be. But he goes nuts instead. He tracks me all the way to the human society in an attempt to patch things up with me. But what he doesn't expect to see is Silas Wulfric, the legendary Alpha King, getting down on one knee in front of me. "Heather, since that blind fool is incapable of crowning you as his Luna, allow me to make you the Luna Queen."

Cecilia Laurent’s husband, Lyon Melville, was known across North Ameria’s underground circles as the biggest womanizer. As the current Don of the Melville family, the women who wanted to get close to him would line up from New Yorke to Rondon. He never turned anyone away from his bed. Cecilia had been married to Lyon for five years. The taunting messages and intimate photos from his mistresses were enough to fill the storage on three of her encrypted phones. Cecilia showed no mercy. After the photos of Lyon in the car with a model were made public, she had the sports car dismantled completely. When he went out to sea with an actress to watch fireworks, she had the yacht blown to nothing. She blacklisted every woman who tried to cling to him. She overturned tables at family banquets. She risked every bit of dignity she had as the Melville family’s Donna in the hope that he would come back to her. Lyon allowed it. He let the rumors spread without denying anything. For five years, Cecilia was the joke of the family and the entire underworld. When the New Year came around, Cecilia received her first “gift” of the year. It was an intimate photo of Lyon in bed with another woman. At nearly the same time, a headline broke across New Yorke’s social media and tabloids. [Don Melville Meets Superstar Gianna Moretti Late at Night.] Inside the banquet hall of the family estate, the band continued to play. The champagne tower reflected a cold light. Everyone was waiting for her to blow up. Her assistant expertly pulled up the PR department’s number and held the phone out to her. “Donna Melville, the PR team is waiting for your instructions. Do you want us to make this bigger, like last time?” Cecilia looked at the man in the photo. Ten minutes ago, he had held their daughter on the balcony and watched the fireworks together. She suddenly smiled. “Take it down,” she said. “I don’t want to see this on the front page in two hours.” Everyone in New Yorke knew that the Melville family’s Donna loved like a madwoman. She could lose her temper just as easily. But this time, she did not lose control. She wanted a divorce.

When Adrian and I broke up, he knelt outside my door all night. When I finally agreed to get back together, he lit a bonfire in the main hall, invited the elders to witness it, and swore I would become his Luna. Then, right at the finish line of a racetrack, he hauled a trembling, sobbing blonde girl out of the “trophy,” draped his jacket over her shoulders, and turned gentle like he’d become a different man. He looked back at me and said, “Ann, don’t make a scene. She ended up like this because of us.” The next day, he said I should atone by pack law, kneel inside a vow circle drawn with salt and silver powder, and endure my wolf soul’s backlash under the moonlight. Later, he threw me into the basement she used to live in, forced me to survive the way she did, forced me to lower my head and apologize. What he didn’t know was that there was a little pup in my belly. And I wasn’t going to tell him. I’d wait until he was most off guard, slide the divorce papers in front of him, let him sign them with his own hand, then vanish cleanly and absolutely, with my child.

My best friend and my husband, Lorenzo Bartoli, fought every time they met. Lorenzo was the Don of the family, while my best friend was his Consigliere. She always fiercely opposed his most ruthless, high-risk decisions. Tempers explode every single time. But there was one rule that they both agreed on without any hesitation. No one was allowed to touch me. Because of them, no one in the city dared to cross me. Until the fifth month of my pregnancy, when I went down to the basement vault to organize Lorenzo's guns for him. I opened the safe to see stacks of letters, hundreds of them, all unsent. I picked one up. The moment I opened the letter, cold dread overwhelmed me. The receiver of the letter wasn't me. [My dearest Sofia…] I quickly scanned downward to the final lines of the letter. [If I don't make it back alive, everything in the Swissie accounts goes to you. As for Vittoria, she's a good woman, but I have never loved her.] With trembling hands, I tore open the rest of the letters like a hysterical woman. Three hundred of them in total. Every single one was addressed to Sofia Finzi. Sofia was not a stranger. She was my best friend.

I gave up my dream job because Alex said he needed me to help run Shadow Ridge Pack. For the next five years, he stripped my title, destroyed my projects, and humiliated me in front of everyone—all for an Omega named Madison. He called it "training me to be a proper Luna." The day I lay in bed burning with fever, and he left on "patrol" with her instead, something inside me finally broke. I submitted my Pack Severance application, and he signed it without looking, thinking it was just another approval form. A month later, he showed up at my door on his knees, begging me to come back. I gave him one condition—report Madison's betrayal to the pack council, or lose me forever. His hesitation told me everything I needed to know.

Everyone knew that the Alpha of the Silver Moon Pack loved his mate more than anything. I once thought I would be the luckiest Luna in the world. That was until six months ago, when my father’s illegitimate daughter, Ivy, returned from rogue territory. Caleb recognized her as the she-wolf who had taken a lethal blow to save him during a rogue ambush years ago. Everything changed after that. During every date, Ivy would have a "relapse" right on cue. Caleb would always offer a strained explanation about how he owed her his life. I endured it countless times, lying to myself that it was just a debt of gratitude. But at our mating ceremony, Ivy collapsed, knocking over the champagne tower. "Caleb... it hurts... my heart..." The usually composed Caleb panicked and stopped the ceremony. He looked at me with guilt. "Evelyn, Ivy’s wolf was severely injured saving me. She’s still so fragile. It’s an emergency. You’ve always been understanding—can you just let this go for now?" "Go ahead," I said calmly. "Take her to the Healer." Caleb froze, then promised hurriedly, "Once she's stable, I’ll make it up to you with an even bigger ceremony." He didn't even wait for my reply before rushing off with Ivy in his arms. I watched him leave and dialed a number I hadn't touched in years. "Alpha King Silas, I accept the five-year classified Silver Poisoning research project." When I finally disappeared, Caleb regretted everything, searching the entire world for a trace of me.

At my 25th birthday party, my childhood sweetheart got down on one knee, holding a diamond ring. "Diane, will you marry me?" I nodded, my eyes misty with tears, but just as I reached out, he slipped the ring onto my best friend's finger instead. The room went silent for a beat before erupting in laughter. "Just kidding!" Livio Becker laughed. "You didn't take it seriously, did you?" I forced a smile and looked over his shoulder at someone. "I bet he would propose tonight, and I was right. You lost the bet, so tomorrow we're getting married for real."

On the day my love fades away for good, I've finally learned something about my mate, Ethan Langley. He's not hopeless when it comes to directions—he just can't remember which path it is that leads to me. Ethan is the Alpha of the pack, whereas I'm his mate. We've been mates for ten years. But whenever I need him, he always gets lost. On the day of our marking ceremony, Ethan got lost in the pack territory. Because of that, the ceremony was delayed for another three days. Every year on the marking anniversary, Ethan would always get lost. The food in the evening banquet I always prepared would always go stone cold. When I was eight months pregnant with my pup, I sent an SOS message to him through the mind-link after I suffered from a bad fall. While Ethan screamed at me that he'd be there through the mind-link, he was physically lost in the pack territory for five hours. By the time our packmates came to my rescue, my pup was already dead. As I lay on the stone bed in the healing center, my packmates came over to comfort me. "Ethan can't navigate at all to save his life. He didn't do this on purpose. Don't get mad at him, okay? You two will still have pups in the future." I could only nod in a daze. But on the day we were supposed to attend our pup's funeral, I realized that Ethan was familiar with the road when he was behind the wheel in the SUV. He even took a detour just to drop by the residence of Lyria Jeffries, a female Beta. "Elena, there's still some time before the funeral starts. I'm going to send Lyria home first so that she can visit her family." Before I could object, the car had already stopped right outside Lyria's residence. Lyria got into the front passenger seat as though it was the most natural thing to do in the world. She wore a bright smile as she said, "Look at how well I've groomed you, Ethan! If you ever forget the way to my place, I'll make sure to skin you alive!" Only then did Lyria notice me, who sat in the backseat. She pretended to be bashful as she stuck out her tongue. "I was just kidding, Elena." I endured Lyria's "harmless" quips with a stony expression. But right after Ethan dropped Lyria off, he forgot the way to the funeral immediately. Because of that, the funeral was delayed by half an hour. As I held my pup's tiny urn, I felt my heart sinking into the pits of my stomach. It turns out that there exists someone who can be exempted from Ethan's hopeless sense of direction. It's just that… my pup and I are never the exception.