Zayden Borders 소설 & 이야기

I thought Christmas had already broken me. Betrayal, loss, and a miscarriage that shattered everything I’d built. So I did the only reckless thing a heart in ruins could do: closed my eyes, jabbed a finger at a map, and bought a ticket to wherever it landed. No plan. No hope. Just a wounded heart running from the wreckage. I wanted quiet. Snow. A place to breathe and heal. I found him instead. A man who feels too wild for this world, all heat and muscle and dark, hungry eyes. He kisses like he’s claiming something. Touches like he’s learning every secret my body holds. His strength borders on impossible. His presence, addictive. He calls me his naughty little Christmas gift. And every time he drags his mouth down my throat, I forget every reason I had to stay guarded. But the deeper I fall, the stranger things become. The room around him feels alive. The night listens when he speaks. His eyes flash with an animal glow that shouldn’t exist, and the sound he makes when he’s holding back, low, guttural, trembling the air between us doesn’t belong to any man. I should run. Ask questions. Save myself. But I’m far too gone. Even willing to be ruined by whatever he is. So I ignore the question whether I’m losing my mind, or whether the fear curling beneath the heat is real. And let him keep unwrapping me like the gift he thinks I am. Because whatever lives inside him…it’s the first thing that’s made me feel alive again.

"The Rossi family doesn't need a Don. We just need a Donna." As the only heiress of the Rossi family, this was the law that I had set when I received the Browning pistol—a pistol that resembles the ultimate authority in the Rossi family—from my Papa when he was on his deathbed. But three years ago, the police relentlessly investigated the money laundering business that my fiance, Lorenzo Moretti, was in charge of. If that business were to get exposed, the Rossi family's hundred-year-old legacy would be ruined. In order to protect my family's legacy and to allow Lorenzo to continue legalizing my family's businesses, I decided to become the scapegoat for all the crimes. On the rainy night of my arrest, I personally handed the pistol over to Lorenzo. "Protect my family for me before my return." This gave Lorenzo legitimate authority to run my family. He used the pistol to purge my subordinates and take over the family business. He even broke my law by announcing to the public that he'd become the next Don soon. An invitation with golden borders is soon leaked from the family's inner circle. Lorenzo's and another woman's names are printed on the cover. During a visit, my private lawyer says mockingly, "If you don't get out of prison now, the Rossi family might take on another man's last name for real." I just sneer in response. After that, I get bailed out of jail in advance and return home to celebrate Lorenzo's "funeral". But no matter how many times I scan my iris at the biometric scanner in the estate, the result always comes out wrong. A young woman, who's toying with the pistol, opens the door at that moment. The contempt and disdain in her eyes are plain to see. "Where the hell did a crazy woman like you come from? You came to the wrong place. This is my private turf, you know."

Selena Vanson, my adopted sister whom my brothers had brought back from the borders, has framed me. She claims that I've laced her birthday cake with wolfsbane. Hence, my brothers throw me into the silver mine, which has long since been sealed off. I scream for mercy while struggling against my bonds with all my might. But all I get is an icy judgment from Leo Wilde, my oldest brother who's the Alpha of the pack. He looks at me with hatred in his eyes, as though he's looking at a filthy beast. "Selena has been taking care of you without minding the fact that you're a low-tier Omega. Yet, you intend to poison her and even kill her wolf out of jealousy toward her blood purity! You deserve to die!" My other two brothers, Luke and Ryan Wilde, have even tied heavy rocks to my limbs for fear that I might escape. "You often act innocent and wronged, but the truth is, you have such a vile heart! Our family is embarrassed to have a lowly Omega like you!" "It's best if you die! No one here wants to see you ever again!" Even my younger brother, Rupert Wilde, who is raised by me, mocks me as well. "Lorraine, you should be sensible. Even without you around, Selly will still be nice to me. But without us, you're nothing but an abandoned mutt." After that, they close the mine's door on me. Silver powder soon rushes into my nose and mouth. I feel as though my body is lit on fire. Pain and agony soon engulf me whole. Once my brothers think that I've been punished enough and want to spare me from the torture, there's nothing left of me inside the mine pit but a pile of blood and bones.

Derek, my mate, and I were patrolling the borders of our territory when we triggered a deadly wolfsbane trap. When I opened my eyes again, we were sent back three years earlier, before the marking ceremony had ever taken place. In my previous life, we had lived in the same den for seven years. Yet the entire time, we were like two strangers forced to share the same space. He never marked me, not once, and he certainly never allowed me to breed his pups. Only later did I learn that, from the very beginning, the wolf spirit inside him had recognized only one mate—his delicate, fated partner, Aria. So this time, after being reborn, I decided to give him what he wanted. I severed our mind link on my own and then left his territory without looking back. From that moment on, we went our separate ways. Seven years later, Derek had become the most talked-about Gamma Commander in the Werewolf Alliance. That night, at the pack’s Full Moon banquet, he wrapped an arm around Aria and proudly announced their upcoming mating bond in front of everyone. Seeing me standing alone in a quiet corner, Derek let out a mocking laugh. “Selena, I know that in both lifetimes, you’ve only ever loved me. But you don’t have to keep waiting around for me like some stray dog. Aria and I are destined for each other.” I didn’t even bother looking up. Instead, I casually reached out and took the hand of the blond, blue-eyed pureblood pup standing beside me. The color drained from Derek’s face instantly. He glared at me and questioned, “You swore to the Moon Goddess! You said in this life you’d only ever be my she-wolf and only ever breed my pups!”

Sera Vale has one rule. Survive. No attachments. No illusions. No one worth losing sleep over except her brother Damien, who has always been more trouble than sense and twice as easy to love. When three men tear her door off its hinges in the middle of the night and carry her blindfolded into a world she never knew existed, Sera does what she has always done. She endures. The man waiting for her is Kael Dravon. Alpha. Cold the way deep water is cold. Dangerous the way beautiful things always are. He doesn't want her. He wants what her brother stole. Sera is leverage. One month, he tells her. Then she goes free. She tells herself she can last one month. She doesn't count on the blood bond. She doesn't count on what happens when something ancient cracks open between them, raw and unstoppable and impossible to name. She doesn't count on the way he looks at her when he thinks she isn't watching. She doesn't count on wanting to stay. Kael built his entire world on control. The last thing he needs is a human woman with quiet fire in her eyes and blood that makes his wolf forget every rule he has ever lived by. But the bond doesn't care what either of them needs. And the rival Alpha closing in from the borders isn't just hunting territory. He's hunting Sera. Because what runs in her blood is older than pack law and more powerful than anything Kael has ever had to protect. Now she must decide if the man who chained her was the only one keeping her safe all along. Bound by blood. Owned by fate. Some bonds were never meant to be broken.