Reborn From Ashes: The King's Ruthless Queen
The house was a living inferno, the heat devouring the air in my lungs as I clutched my five-year-old daughter to my chest. Emily was dead weight, her skin already cooling even as the room turned into a furnace of orange and black.
Through the stinging smoke, I saw my husband, Kenney, crawling toward the door with a wet handkerchief pressed to his face. He didn't look back at the crib, and he didn't call my name; he was simply leaving us to burn.
I lunged forward and grabbed his ankle, my nightgown catching fire, but he didn't reach down to save me. He recoiled in horror at the sight of my burning hair and our dead child, kicking me back with a panicked shriek.
"Let go!" he shrieked.
I died as a massive, flaming timber snapped from the ceiling and crushed us both into silence. I couldn't believe that the man I loved would leave his family to die just to save his own skin, but the rage I felt was colder than the death that followed.
But then the burning stopped instantly, replaced by a cold so sharp it made my teeth ache. I gasped, jerking upright in my bed to find the velvet duvet cool under my palms and the nursery quiet, with Emily still breathing softly in her crib.
I had returned to the winter morning two years before the fire, the exact day Kenney finalized the deal to sell me to the King for a promotion. As Kenney stepped into the room with a practiced mask of concern, I realized I was no longer the victim of this story.
"A nightmare, my love?" he asked, reaching out to touch my shoulder.
I flinched away, my eyes burning with a hatred he couldn't yet understand. Tonight was the Winter Masquerade, the night he planned to offer me to the King as a prize, but this time, I was going to turn his social ladder into a gallows.
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Chapter 8
He closed the door behind him. The sound of the lock sliding home was deafening in the quiet room.
She stood up slowly. She placed the book on the table and sank into a deep curtsy.
"Rise," he didn't say.
Instead, he crossed the room in three strides. She saw his boots stop in front of her face.
He reached out with his riding crop. He placed the cool leather tip under her chin and lifted.
She was forced to look up. To meet his eyes.
They were storm-gray, swirling with conflict. He was looking at her face, searching for her.
"Uncanny," he murmured. "Except for the eyes."
She let her lip tremble. Just a little. She widened her eyes, letting the moisture gather there. Fear. He wanted fear.
"Your Majesty?" she whispered.
He dropped the crop. He turned away, pacing to the fireplace. "Pour me a drink."
She moved to the sideboard. Her hands shook as she lifted the decanter. Wine splashed onto the polished wood.
"Clumsy," he noted, not looking around.
"I'm nervous," she said. "I've never been sold before."
He froze. He turned slowly to face her.
"Sold?"
"My husband," she said, wiping the spilled wine with a napkin. "He traded me. For a position in the Cabinet."
Alaric laughed. It was a harsh bark. "He did. And you agreed."
He walked back to her, looming over her. "Why? Why would a woman agree to such a thing?"
"For my daughter," she said.
She looked him straight in the eye. The fear was gone. This was the truth.
"Kenney is a weak man," she said. "He would have let us starve. Or worse. I did what I had to do to ensure Emily has a roof over her head."
Alaric stared at her. The anger in his face softened, just a fraction.
"Adella..." he started, then stopped. "She had no choice either."
He sighed, running a hand through his hair. The monster receded, leaving a tired man.
"Sit down," he said, gesturing to the table. "Eat."
Dinner was brought in. They ate in silence. The only sound was the crackling of the fire.
"Do you play the piano?" he asked suddenly.
She knew the right answer. Adella was a virtuoso.
"No," she said.
He frowned. "Do you paint?"
"No."
"What do you do, then?" he asked, irritated. "Besides look like a ghost?"
She put down her fork. "I count."
"You count?"
"I manage the household accounts. I track the price of coal. I calculate how long a sack of flour will last." She took a sip of wine. "I am a practical woman, Your Majesty. I deal in reality, not art."
He looked at her. Really looked at her. For the first time, he wasn't seeing Adella. He was seeing Imogene.
"Reality," he mused. "I have very little of that around me."
He stood up and walked behind her chair. He placed his hands on her shoulders. His grip was heavy, warm.
She stiffened.
He leaned down, his mouth close to her ear. "Don't try to be her. You can't. Be yourself. It might be... amusing."
She held her breath. Was he going to kiss her? Was he going to take her right here on the rug?
He squeezed her shoulders, then let go.
"Sleep well, Mrs. Lloyd," he said.
He walked to the door.
"Tomorrow," he said without turning back. "We ride. Be ready at dawn."
The door closed.
She slumped back in the chair. She touched her shoulder where his hand had been.
He hadn't touched her. Not in that way.
It was more dangerous than if he had. He was interested.
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9.2
Clara was drowning in student debt and barely making rent when she downloaded a fantasy mobile game to escape reality.
Inside the game, an exiled prince named Alex was freezing to death. Pitying him, she spent her last few dollars on microtransactions to fix his shelter and cure his poison.
But the game was far too real.
Every time she paid, the prince reacted. When she complained aloud about going broke, the in-game army suddenly halted, as if the prince had heard her voice.
Then, the terrifying real-world consequences hit.
Clara woke up to find her water glass and a box of Kleenex had vanished from her locked bedroom overnight.
She frantically searched the tiny apartment, her heart pounding in her chest.
She thought she was losing her mind. Had she thrown them out in her sleep? Was there a stalker hiding in her home?
How could physical objects just disappear into thin air behind a deadbolted door?
Until she looked at her nightstand.
Sitting exactly where her missing items used to be was a glowing, weightless crystal cup that defied all logic.
And on her laptop screen, the exiled prince was carefully holding her Kleenex box, offering a mountain of real gold on an altar.
She hadn't just downloaded a mobile game; she had opened a cross-dimensional trade route with a desperate future king.
9.7
Elara Voss was rejected by her Alpha on the night of the Blood Moon - cast aside as a nobody with no wolf, no rank, and no future. She ran. But fate had other plans.
In the human world, she collides with Damien Crest - cold, ruthless billionaire by day, the last living Shadowking by night. He offers her a contract marriage. She has nowhere else to go.
But ancient markings are awakening on her skin. A god is whispering her name. And Kael, the fearsome Werewolf High King, has declared across all supernatural realms that she is his fated mate.
Two kings. Two worlds. One woman who was never supposed to matter.
They all rejected her once. Now they'll burn their empires down to claim her.
7.6
A jagged spike of agony woke Kiana up in a filthy stone room.
She had transmigrated into the body of a notorious, exiled matriarch in a brutal wasteland.
Before she could even process her new reality, she saw a massive, bloodied man huddled in the corner, trembling in absolute terror.
Foreign memories detonated in her brain: the original Kiana swinging a spiked whip, laughing as she tore his flesh open.
He was her husband, and she was a monster who tortured her own consorts.
The situation was a complete death trap.
Another husband stormed in, throwing down a marriage contract and demanding to sever their ties, which would leave her to be eaten by mutated beasts.
Outside, her third husband lay dying from a toxic wound while the rest of the tribe mocked her, eagerly waiting for her downfall.
Scanning her own body, Kiana discovered her face was covered in ugly purple bruises.
The original host hadn't just been naturally insane; she had been secretly fed a chronic poison by political enemies, destroying her beauty and driving her mad until she was exiled.
As a survivor from a modern apocalypse, the sight of broken, enslaved men made her skin crawl.
She refused to die in this savage wasteland as a pawn in someone else's twisted game.
Kiana tossed the contract back to the furious man.
"Give me three months. I will save him, and I swear I won't touch you."
With her apocalyptic healing powers and a newly awakened Spatial System, she was going to rewrite the rules of this primitive world.
9.6
Antoinette stood on the manicured church lawn, the blinding summer sun stabbing her eyes. The funeral service for her parents had just ended.
A hand wrapped around her trembling shoulder, carrying the sharp, cloying scent of Fabian Cash's cologne. It was the exact same cologne her fiancé wore the night he locked her in a burning house to die in her previous life.
Now, wearing a mask of sorrowful devotion, Fabian tried to drag her to his car to control her parents' massive life insurance payout.
When she shoved him away in pure nausea, his mother Eleanor immediately shrieked to the crowd, deploying her usual guilt trip.
"She's lost her mind! The girl has completely snapped!"
The townspeople whispered and pointed fingers, watching Fabian play the victim as he tightened his bruising grip on her wrist, claiming she was hysterical and needed to be locked away.
Antoinette stared at the mother and son who had conspired to steal her family's estate and end her life. The rage inside her felt like battery acid pumping through her veins.
They didn't care if she lived or died; they only cared about the money. How could she let them strip her of everything again?
She didn't hesitate. She swung with every bit of strength she possessed, slapping Fabian across the face in front of the entire town.
"The engagement is over," she announced coldly.
Then, she turned her back on her greedy ex-fiancé and walked straight toward the terrifyingly powerful billionaire Hiram Graves, ready to let the world burn.
8.6
In my past life, I was the weak Luna everyone despised.
A fake daughter!
A disposable pawn!!
A girl my family happily executed!!!
They forced me to marry my brother to protect the family's reputation. They feared the world will know that their Alpha Son was born Impotent- they made me carry the blame of-
"A HEN THAT CANNOT LAY EGGS!!"
I obeyed them... and it cost me my life!
Their real daughter framed me countless times. My husband who was also my brother and we grew up together never believed me... They called me fake and treated me like a servant. She framed me and made the wolf world see my shame. I died trying to save my life from them.
But I woke up 10 years before my death.
This time, I refused to play their game.
After accepting the marriage to my brother...
I went behind them to meet my mate. The most feared man in our CLAN. His Uncle.
The crippled Lycan lord in disguise who once asked me to marry him.
He thought I had come to reject our bond like my past life but this time. --------I stood before him with a dangerous deal.
"Do you still want to stay the crippled Uncle in the shadows?" I asked, in a serious tone.
He replied. "I don't know what you are saying."
I knelt down placing my hands on his lap."Tomorrow morning they will be here. Do you dare to come claim your mate?"
This Time!!......I' Elena Alvarez, will Light fire to their World.
7.3
Ciel Miller opened her eyes to the blinding lights of a Manhattan ballroom, realizing she had been reborn on the exact night her life was ruined.
On the stage, the billionaire patriarch of the Chavez family was proudly announcing her engagement to his arrogant grandson, Harry.
In her past life, Ciel had blindly accepted his outstretched hand. That single step plunged her into a suffocating marriage filled with public humiliation and psychological torture, slowly draining her life away until she died. Harry had treated her like a pathetic stray dog, flaunting his absolute ownership while systematically destroying her.
Now, as the polite applause echoed, Harry extended his hand with a sickening smirk, waiting for her to lower her head and submit.
Instead, Ciel stood perfectly rigid and publicly rejected him in front of the entire New York elite.
Harry's face drained of color, while his family quickly mocked her.
"This is a cheap, embarrassing trick to get his attention," his sister sneered.
Harry's arrogant smirk crawled back. He fully believed she was just throwing a childish tantrum to make him jealous, convinced she was absolutely nothing without his wealth and status.
But Ciel looked at the man who had killed her in her past life with freezing disgust.
Then, she turned to the powerful patriarch and dropped a bombshell that left the entire ballroom gasping for air.
"If the family insists on taking care of me, I will marry into the Chavez family."
"But I want to marry the comatose war hero. I want to marry General Deacon Chavez."
She would rather spend the rest of her life with a "vegetable" than wake up next to a monster.