I AM THE LUNA QUEEN
went to sleep a nobody. I woke up a Queen.
One night I was just a broke, exhausted college girl. The next, I opened my eyes in silk sheets, with strangers bowing and calling me Luna Queen. The face in the mirror is mine. The body is mine. But the life isn't. The bruises on my wrists tell a story I don't remember, and the King I'm bound to doesn't love me-he loathes me.
They whisper that his mistress rules the palace. They say the Queen was weak. Silent. Broken. But that was before me.
Now I must survive a palace that wants me dead, a King whose touch burns as much as it scars, and a kingdom waiting for me to fail. The old Luna Queen bowed to cruelty.
I am not her.
And if this King thinks I'll kneel, he's about to learn what a true Queen is made of.
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Chapter 4
Hazel's POV
The sound of the door opening nearly sent me into cardiac arrest. My heart jumped to my throat, and I almost screamed-until I realized it was just the women again.
Only this time, they weren't empty-handed.
Each carried something-a tray stacked with the richest food I'd ever seen, and several glossy boxes tied with gold ribbons. The smell of roasted meat and fresh bread hit me, warm and buttery, so real it made my stomach twist painfully.
But did I look like I had an appetite right now?
"Your Majesty," the eldest woman said softly, setting the tray on the table. "We've brought your meal, and your nightgowns. You are to choose one for tonight."
"Nightgowns?" I repeated, blinking. "For what?"
Her eyes flicked to the others before meeting mine again. "For the King," she said. "You'll be meeting him tonight. Did you forget already?"
My stomach dropped. "Meeting him?" My voice cracked. "As in-tonight? Like tonight tonight?"
"Yes, my Queen. We'll help you prepare when it's time."
Prepare. As if I were some offering being dressed for sacrifice.
Before I could say another word, they bowed low and slipped out of the room, silent as ghosts.
I stared at the boxes. Then at the food.
My brain screamed don't eat it. But my stomach growled loud enough to echo.
I sighed. "Fine. If this is a dream, at least it's a dream with nice food."
The first bite hit my tongue, and I nearly moaned. Whatever this was-chicken? heaven?-it melted in my mouth. I didn't realize how hungry I was until I was scraping the plate clean.
And then, like the idiot I apparently was, I turned to the boxes.
The first one popped open with a click-and I froze.
Inside was silk. Black, thin, and scandalous enough to make a stripper blush. My face burned.
"What the actual hell is this?"
I opened the second box. Worse. The third-don't even ask. By the fifth, I was staring at a pile of lace and regret.
They expected me to wear this... for a man who hates his queen?
I kicked the boxes off the bed and flopped backward, staring at the ceiling. "This is insane. Completely insane."
I didn't know when I drifted off, but the next thing I heard was a knock.
I shot upright, breath catching.
"Come in," I said, trying to sound brave.
The women entered again, the eldest speaking first. "It's time, my Queen."
My throat went dry. "Time for what?"
"To prepare you," she said simply.
My heart pounded so hard I thought it might burst. I stumbled to my feet, my mind spinning. I wanted to run, scream, anything-but instead, I found myself walking to the bathroom as they instructed.
The moment the water hit my skin, I wished I could drown in it. The steam filled the air, warm and heavy, and I pressed my hands to my face. This was really happening.
My first time. With a stranger.
A king who didn't even want me.
I wanted to cry-but no. No.
I was Hazel Truman. And Hazel Truman did not cower.
When I stepped out, they were waiting with towels, perfume, and lotions that smelled like money. Their hands worked fast-rubbing oil into my skin, twisting my hair into something soft and elegant. Every second felt heavier, like I was being wrapped in fear.
"Perfect," the eldest woman whispered as she tied the sash of my robe. "You look beautiful, my Queen. The King won't be able to resist you."
I forced a smile. "Yeah. What a joy."
They didn't catch the sarcasm-or pretended not to.
When they finally led me through the hallways, I tried to focus on breathing. The palace was even larger than I expected, with endless corridors. The scent of burning candles and fresh roses filled the air.
My heart thudded in time with my footsteps.
Then we stopped.
Before me stood two tall brown doors-each carved with the head of a wolf. Its eyes seemed to glint in the dim light, almost alive.
"The King is waiting," the eldest said quietly.
The guards stepped forward and pushed the doors open.
My pulse roared in my ears.
I swallowed hard and stepped inside.
The doors shut behind me with a deep, echoing thud.
The room was dim-candles flickered in corners, casting golden shadows over the walls. The air smelled like roses and something darker I couldn't name.
Then I saw him.
A tall man stood by the window, his back to me.
Bare from the waist up. Only dark pants hung low on his hips. His hands rested in his pockets, shoulders broad and tense, muscles shifting with every breath.
For a moment, I just... stared.
The air between us was thick-like even the silence had weight.
Then, slowly, he turned.
And my world tilted.
The breath left my lungs in one violent rush. My body went still, completely frozen.
Because standing there-bathed in candlelight, eyes sharp and familiar-was a face I knew.
A face I could never mistake.
My voice came out in a whisper, barely audible.
"Professor...Nicholas?"
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7.3
I was tracing the gold paint on my own tombstone when a hand tapped me on the shoulder.
It was Clayton.
The same man who, five years ago, had left me bleeding out in a ditch because he didn't want to be late for my sister's engagement party.
"Die quietly, Ivy," he had said over the phone before hanging up.
Now, standing over my grave, he dropped his cheap plastic flowers in shock.
"Ivy? You're... we buried you."
They hadn't buried me.
They had buried an empty box to save face, mourning a "troubled" daughter they had actually discarded like broken trash the moment I became a liability.
Clayton's shock quickly turned to that familiar, arrogant anger.
He accused me of faking my death for attention.
He told me I was sick for putting the family through such pain.
He even reached out to grab my arm, intending to drag me back to my father to apologize.
"You're coming with me," he spat. "You owe us an explanation."
But he made a fatal mistake.
He thought he was talking to Ivy Dillard, the soft girl who cried when she skinned her knees.
He didn't notice the town car waiting at the curb, or the man stepping out of it.
Before Clayton's fingers could graze my coat, a hand made of steel caught his wrist.
Collin Richardson, the most feared Capo in Chicago, stepped between us.
"Touch my wife again," Collin whispered, his voice promising violence. "And you lose the hand."
I smiled at the terror draining the color from Clayton's face.
I didn't come back from the dead to explain myself.
I came back to bury them.
7.5
I was the adopted daughter of the wealthy Ruiz family, but the moment their true heir appeared, I was thrown away like trash.
Not long after being kicked out, my adoptive father and uncle hired a hitman to stage a fatal car crash on Mulholland Drive.
Pinned under an overturned Porsche with a shattered leg, I watched the hitman point a suppressed pistol between my eyes.
"The Ruiz family sends their regards."
Before this, my reputation had already been completely destroyed by a director, a pop idol, and a reality TV star, leaving me blacklisted and universally hated.
My adoptive family didn't just want me ruined; they wanted me permanently silenced to tie up loose ends.
The hitman pulled the trigger, and the original Alicia died in despair, tasting only rain and blood.
Until her last breath, she didn't understand.
Why did the family she loved treat her like a disposable object? Why did those three men maliciously frame her and turn the world against her?
Opening my eyes again, the fear was gone, replaced by an ancient, cosmic indifference.
I, the Arbiter, had taken over this deceased vessel.
Moving faster than the human eye, I crushed the hitman's steel gun with my bare hand and turned his soul into dust.
Looking at the memories of those who wronged this girl, I signed a contract for the very reality show they were starring in.
Since I borrowed this body, taking out the trash is a required courtesy.
8.2
At my ten-week ultrasound, I was supposed to be celebrating the future of the Falcone family. I was Isabella Falcone, wife to the most powerful Don in the south.
But when the nurse called my name, the man who stood up beside his pregnant mistress was my husband.
In the sterile silence of that waiting room, he chose her. He later confessed he was being blackmailed by her family-a weakness that was a death sentence in our world. That night, he moved his mistress into our home, into my bedroom, and locked me away like a prisoner in the staff quarters. He wasn't imprisoning his wife; he was guarding an asset. He needed the legitimate heir I carried to save his crumbling empire.
His betrayal was absolute when his own mother and my adoptive parents arrived while he was away. They forced me to sign divorce papers, then told me they were taking me to a clinic. His mother pulled out a gun and pointed not at my head, but at my stomach.
"We're terminating this complication," she said coldly.
As they dragged me from the house, my world went dark. But through the haze, I saw a fleet of black cars blocking the gate. An army of men poured out, led by a face I had only ever seen in a photograph. Days earlier, locked in my room, I made a single phone call to the only man more powerful than my husband: my biological father, the head of the Chicago Outfit. And he had come to collect his daughter.
8.5
"You are getting married, huh?" A shrill voice asked me from behind. "You don't look happy.'
"It's a complicated situati..." He cut me off.
"I can make you happy."
My eyes darted between his lips and eyes, he noticed my indecision and locked his lips with mine.
While battling with betrayal, Iris melts into a mafia's touch without knowing who he is. Now she must bear all the consequences that follow.
7.4
I was only fifteen when my venomous family orchestrated my doom by forcing me into an arranged marriage with mafia heir Javier Velasquez.
On our wedding night, Javier paraded strippers into our suite to show his absolute contempt, turning me into the ultimate joke of the underworld overnight.
But being a joke was a luxury compared to what came next.
Three years later, Javier needed to be a widower to marry into a heavily armed family and secure their backing for a coup.
He didn't grant me the mercy of a bullet.
Instead, he dragged me to an abandoned underground safehouse, locked me in the damp, rotting dark, and told the world I had been assassinated.
For six months, I starved in that dungeon, surviving only on the desperate hope that my family was safe.
Then, on the day of his lavish new wedding, a cruel maid kicked a plate of spoiled food onto my floor and delivered the final, fatal blow.
"Annabel is dead. Pined away and died of a broken heart two weeks ago."
My gentle mother was dead, all because she actually believed his lie about my tragic murder.
Driven by pure agony and an all-consuming hatred, I shattered crates of smuggled chemical solvents and struck a match, letting the roaring inferno turn their bloody wedding into my funeral pyre.
I thought the fire was the end.
But when I opened my eyes, the suffocating smoke vanished, replaced by the biting chill of a Long Island winter.
I was standing in the snow, back on the exact day my descent into hell began.
This time, the terrified girl was dead, and I would use their own ruthless rules to tear their empire apart.
9.8
Three women, three brothers, a single, crumpled dollar bill.
Alina's world shatters the moment she's auctioned off-and claimed by the powerful Hawthorne brothers.
Thrown into Adrian Hawthorne's cold, dangerous world, she becomes his to control... his to protect... and, terrifyingly, his to desire. He's ruthless, possessive, and hiding secrets that could destroy them both. But the deeper she falls into his world, the harder it becomes to tell if she's his prisoner-or something far more dangerous.
Because the Hawthorne brothers don't just take.
They keep.
Viviane has spent her life surviving, so when Julian Hawthorne "buys" her freedom, she knows better than to trust it. Men like him don't save people-they collect them. But Julian isn't as simple as he pretends to be, and the deeper she's pulled into his world, the more dangerous it becomes to walk away.
Especially when she realizes she might be the only thing he's ever been willing to fight for.
Lena doesn't belong to anyone-and she intends to keep it that way. Brilliant, guarded, and hiding more than anyone suspects, she enters Lucien Hawthorne's world on her own terms. But Lucien doesn't play fair, and he doesn't let go.
When her past comes crashing back, Lena is forced to face the one thing she's been running from: trusting someone who could destroy her... or save her.
Three women. Three choices.Stay. Fight.
Or burn it all down.
Because being sold was only the beginning.