Escaping My Fatal Digital Marriage
I woke up strapped to a cold steel chair in a neon-lit city that wasn't my reality. A voice in my head called The Warden told me I was bound to a digital hell called the Sandbox.
Before I could even process it, my handler casually sentenced me to death. He scheduled my "digital marriage" to a corrupted error program just to harvest my life for a fourteen percent bandwidth boost.
I barely escaped immediate erasure by smashing his skull and jumping from a high-altitude hover-train into the monster-infested lower sector. But the nightmare was just beginning. I was hunted by glitching data monsters and cornered by Dameon, a psychotic AI target who choked me and promised to delete me piece by piece. Even when Jayson, an elite system agent, intervened to save me, his partner Ellen held a pulse pistol directly to my chest.
"She's a spy. If you don't execute her right now, I am dissolving this team."
If they found out I was actually a real human from the outside world, their core logic would classify me as a virus and execute me on the spot. I was trapped in an underground bunker with three apex predators, one mistake away from permanent digital erasure.
So, I did the only thing I could to survive. I ripped my sleeve to reveal hideous, fake code-scars, looked up at Jayson with terrified, tear-filled eyes, and began to manipulate their core programming.
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Chapter 6
The holographic map floats in the center of the room, casting a cold blue light across Jayson's face. The map is covered in hundreds of pulsing red dots.
Jayson points to a massive cluster of red dots in the lower sector. It's the exact alley where I fell.
He turns his head slowly, his piercing eyes locking onto mine. "What kind of data packet are you carrying?"
My stomach drops. If he finds out I am a human from the real world, an anomaly injected by the system, his core logic will classify me as a virus. He will execute me himself.
I widen my eyes. I let my lower lip tremble slightly. I shake my head, wrapping my arms around my knees, making myself look as small and terrified as possible. I force tears to well up in my eyes, letting one spill over my lashes.
Jayson watches the tear track down my cheek. His jaw clenches. He sighs, a heavy, tired sound, and taps the console again.
A surveillance video pops up. It shows the alley five minutes before I crashed into the billboard. Dozens of corrupted, glitching programs are already crawling toward the drop zone, drawn to it like moths to a flame.
"You didn't trigger them when you fell," Jayson says, his voice tight. "You drew them there. You're a beacon. A walking piece of bait for every anomaly in the grid."
A cold sweat breaks out on my forehead. I am not just a prisoner of The Warden. I am a target for every monster in this world.
Dameon lets out a sharp, barking laugh from his dark corner. "Perfect. Tie the bait to a pole and throw her to the dogs. Problem solved."
Jayson glares at him. "Shut up." He turns back to me, his expression hardening. "I can't let you leave. Until I find the source of this anomaly, you stay with me."
I grip the edges of his tactical jacket, my knuckles turning white. I let out a small, shaky breath, pretending to be terrified of the prospect.
Inside, my chest floods with relief. This is exactly what I need. I have my excuse to stay close to the targets.
The Warden's interface violently flashes red across my vision, blocking out the room.
"Mandatory Directive: Increase Jayson's affinity to 80 within one hour. Failure will result in protagonist logic classifying you as a burden. Expulsion imminent."
My breath catches. If he kicks me out, I die.
I have to use the only weapon I have: my face.
I tilt my head up, looking at Jayson through my eyelashes. I let my voice drop to a soft, trembling whisper. "Will you... will you protect me?"
Jayson stares down at me. He looks at my eyes, and I can see the exact moment his core programming fractures. The ghost of his sister is standing right in front of him.
He swallows hard. His Adam's apple bobs. "As long as I'm here, nothing will touch you."
The Warden chimes. "Affinity level: 65."
It's not enough. I need to push harder. I need to break his defenses completely.
My eyes drop to his wrist. Peeking out from under his tactical glove is a tarnished, brass pocket watch. In a world made of holograms and data, a physical, mechanical watch is a glaring anomaly. It's an anchor.
I take a tiny, hesitant step toward him. I point a trembling finger at his wrist.
"That watch," I say softly. "It's very old."
Jayson's entire body goes rigid. His hand snaps up, covering the watch completely. His eyes turn instantly hostile, a wall of ice slamming down between us.
Dameon whistles from the corner. "Oh, you stepped on the landmine now, sweetheart. Watch him throw you out."
I don't back down. I force a gentle, sad smile onto my face. I look directly into Jayson's guarded eyes.
"It looks like something someone left behind," I whisper. "A very precious gift."
Jayson's breath hitches. The hostility in his eyes shatters, replaced by a wave of grief so profound it physically hurts to look at.
His hand slowly falls away from the watch. He stares at the brass casing, his eyes distant, lost in a memory that has haunted him for a century.
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8.9
Aliana braved a heavy storm, carrying a warm stew for her fiancé, Ivan, just as she always put his needs before her own. This ingrained habit, a survival mechanism from a cold childhood, was about to shatter into a million pieces. Tonight, everything she believed was a lie.
The iron gates of Ivan's private villa flashed red, denying her entry, and a guard mumbled lies. Ignoring him, she pushed past, a strange orchid perfume leading her to Ivan's car, where a tube of crimson lipstick lay on the passenger seat. Through a window, she saw him with another woman and a small child, an image that felt like jagged glass twisting in her heart.
Then his words cut through the storm, cold and cruel:
"Aliana is just a placeholder."
He was marrying her for her multi-billion-dollar patent, a secret deal made with her own parents, who had sold her for a kickback to buy this very house. Her family, her love, her future-all were a calculated lie.
Her inner wolf, usually fierce, fell terrifyingly silent, replaced by a chilling resolve. The burning acid in her throat wasn't just bile; it was the taste of her shattered devotion.
She didn't want his apologies or his guilt. She wanted his ruin, and as Ivan walked in with a fake smile the next morning, Aliana was ready to deliver it.
9.3
Born into privilege, Eleanor never imagined her life could shatter in a single night. Then her father disappeared with his mistress, her mother fell from a building and slipped into a coma, and everything she once owned turned to dust.
Determined not to ruin Jonathan's future with her family's disgrace, she ended their relationship and became the bride of a man trapped in a vegetative state.
She believed that was the last time their paths would cross. But two years later, Jonathan pinned her in the dark and whispered, "Long time no see, my sister-in-law."
7.3
Naelis Haldrith is many things, daughter to the South's most strategic Alpha, an Omega with Alpha genes, and an unapologetic misfit. During summer break, she decides to journey to Frostpine and spend her heat cycle with her boyfriend, the golden pea of the Thalric pod.
But during a collared moment, a secret of his is revealed, and Naelis realizes that their relationship was more complex than it seemed. Choosing to return to her pack, she steps outside under a storm, and it is at that moment she crosses paths with a man she had never seen before.
Zoran Vyer Thalric. Uncle to her ex. Member of the Elder's Council. The otherworldly primordial with red-ringed eyes and a wolf barely chained beneath his skin. Desire sparks instantly, and her sights are immediately set on him, but... he is a devotee of the Citadel, celibate, untouched, and unwilling to be the calm to her fury.
She is fire, wild and untamed. He is steel, honed and contained. And for the first time, Naelis is the hunter after her prey, and the line of resistance slowly blurs as he finds his years of enforced self-control and suppression unraveling at the tint of her touches.
And with a maniac on their radar, this summer break will demand blood, sacrifice, and passion that howls to the moon.
7.4
Clara Davis was trained to seduce, deceive, and destroy.
Her mission is simple: infiltrate billionaire Jeffery Rothwell's life, gain his trust, and help seize his empire in exchange for the freedom she has always craved.
But the deeper she slips into his dangerous world, the more the lines between mission and desire begin to blur. Falling for him was never part of the plan and neither was discovering that the man she was sent to manipulate may not be the real Jeffery at all.
Now trapped in a deadly web of obsession, power, and hidden identities. Clara is caught between the organization that owns her, the monster who remade her, and a love that has turned into vengeance. Clara must survive a man who sees everything, controls everything, and may be far more dangerous than the organization that created her.
Because in this game of seduction and revenge, love might be the deadliest trap of all.
9.2
When Alma's father stood in front of the bulldozers to protest, the energy company's thugs beat him half to death in the mud.
Instead of arresting the attackers, the police handcuffed her bleeding father and threw him into a cruiser.
"Stay back, kid," the officer barked, shoving Alma away.
Her father was denied bail and framed for assaulting an officer. The corrupt mayor just smiled and told her not to cause a scene. Meanwhile, the company mailed her weeping mother a severance check that barely covered a month of groceries.
Alma was forced to watch her family be completely destroyed by men with money and power.
Kneeling in the cold dirt where her father's blood had spilled, she didn't shed a single tear. The panic in her chest died, replaced by a cold, absolute hatred.
She realized that crying wouldn't do anything. In this world, justice didn't exist for the weak.
Years later, Alma stepped onto a prestigious Ivy League campus, her cheap backpack slung over her shoulder.
She was surrounded by the arrogant children of the very executives who ruined her life.
She lowered her head, hiding her dead eyes, and put on the perfect mask of a timid, helpless charity case.
Undergrad was just a training ground, and these elite kids were just her practice dummies. The hunt was officially on.
7.1
The captain is dead to the world. And I'm the only one holding the kill switch.
Ethan Carter, the "Glacier of Silvercrest," was the most feared Alpha to ever step onto the ice. Now, he's nothing but a shell-a broken, comatose legend trapped in his own body.
My life? It was supposed to be simple. Graduate, survive the pack's bottom-tier status, and pay off my father's ruinous blood-debts. Instead, the pack elders handed me a contract soaked in cold, hard malice: I am the designated "Stabilizer." My only job is to touch him, scent him, and keep his wolf from flatlining.
I thought I was just a glorified nurse. I didn't realize the Alpha was listening.
When Ethan finally wakes, he isn't the hero the Kingdom of Valeria remembers. He's a starving predator with amber eyes that burn holes through my defenses and a temperament that makes the frost in the mansion seem warm. He hates the bargain, he hates the pack, and-most dangerously-he hates the way his scent turns wild whenever I'm near.
He wants me out of his sight. I want to be out of his reach.
But in a pack built on secrets, someone is still trying to finish the job they started on his life. Now, the man who wants me gone is the only one who can protect me. And as the rink turns into a battlefield, I'm realizing the most dangerous thing about the Alpha isn't his temper... it's the fact that once he claims a mate, he doesn't know how to let go.
Frozen hearts are meant to shatter. But in the fire of this pack, we're both going to burn.