Reborn To Tame The Insomniac Monster
I thought my best friend Mila and my lover Preston were my only salvation from Essex Langley, the ruthless billionaire who kept me caged in his estate.
I trusted them blindly when they planned my grand escape.
But it was all a cruel setup.
Mila deliberately leaked the plan to Essex's guards to win his favor, and Preston only wanted my family's shares to pay off his massive debts.
When we were caught in the rose garden, Preston shoved me toward the guards and ran for his life.
"You're insane if you think I actually loved a freak like you!"
I was dragged back into the manor, my ribs cracking under heavy boots.
I bled out on the freezing marble floor, staring into Essex’s unhinged, mad eyes as I took my last agonizing breath.
Until the moment I died, I couldn't accept it.
I had ruined my own life, adopting a hideous punk look with fake tattoos and piercings just to make Essex hate me, all for two people who saw me as nothing but a sacrificial lamb.
Why was my blind rebellion rewarded with such a brutal betrayal?
Opening my eyes again, the white-hot pain was gone.
I was back in the freezing bedroom on my eighteenth birthday, the very night Mila would come to orchestrate my ruin.
I looked at the rebellious, smudged stranger in the mirror.
This time, I calmly washed off the black makeup, took out my lip ring, and put on a pristine white dress.
If fighting the devil got me killed, then in this life, I would tame him and make them all pay.
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Chapter 5
The living room was dark, lit only by a single floor lamp in the corner. The shadows stretched long across the Persian rug, making the space feel smaller, more claustrophobic.
Essex walked over to the bar cart. The crystal decanter clinked against the glass as he poured a generous amount of amber liquid. He didn't offer Clora a drink. He just turned and leaned against the cart, swirling the whiskey in his glass, his eyes never leaving her face.
Clora stood near the doorway. Her hands were clammy, and she wiped them discreetly on her nightgown. The silence was suffocating. She couldn't read him. Was he angry? Amused? Planning her punishment?
He took a slow sip of his drink, his gaze heavy and assessing. Finally, he spoke.
"Interesting performance."
Clora's stomach dropped. He didn't believe her. Of course he didn't. He was too smart for that.
She lowered her eyes, letting her shoulders slump. She had to commit to the bit. "I meant every word," she said softly.
Essex let out a low, humorless laugh. It was a harsh sound that scraped against her nerves. "Every word? That's funny. Just three days ago, you were screaming that I was a monster who deserved to rot in hell. Now you're singing my praises to your ex-lover?"
He set his glass down on the cart with a sharp clink. He pushed off the bar and walked toward her. Each step was deliberate, his heavy footsteps making the floorboards creak.
Clora's instinct screamed at her to back up, but she forced herself to hold her ground. She couldn't show weakness now. Not after what she just said in the garden.
But her body betrayed her. As he got closer, the sheer force of his presence pushed her back. One step. Two steps. Until her back hit the cold, hard plaster of the wall.
Essex didn't stop. He stepped into her personal space, crowding her. He planted one hand flat against the wall beside her head, caging her in. The heat radiating off his body was a stark contrast to the cold wall at her back.
He leaned down, his face inches from hers. His breath was warm, smelling of expensive whiskey and mint. His eyes were dark, bottomless pits that seemed to swallow the light.
"Tell me the truth, Clora," he murmured, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. "What game are you playing now?"
Clora looked up at him. She could see the suspicion in his eyes, the hardened edge of a man who trusted no one. Words weren't going to work. He was too used to lies.
She had to do something drastic. Something he would never expect.
Before she could talk herself out of it, Clora reached up. She grabbed the lapels of his suit jacket, pulling herself up on her tiptoes. She closed the distance between them and pressed her lips to his.
It was clumsy. It was desperate. It was the kiss of a woman throwing herself off a cliff and hoping someone would catch her.
Essex went rigid. Every muscle in his body locked up. For a split second, he was completely frozen, shocked into stillness.
Then, the beast woke up.
His free hand snaked around her waist, pulling her flush against his chest. He took control of the kiss, his mouth moving against hers with a brutal, punishing force. It wasn't romantic. It was a claim. He was angry, and he was taking it out on her lips.
Clora's hands gripped his jacket tighter, her knuckles white. It hurt. His grip was bruising, his lips demanding. She felt like she was drowning, unable to catch a breath. But she didn't push him away. She took it. She let him pour all his rage and suspicion into the kiss.
Just when she thought she might actually pass out from lack of air, something changed.
The pressure eased. The brutal force softened into something else. His lips stopped demanding and started... searching. His grip on her waist loosened, his thumb rubbing a slow circle against her spine.
He broke the kiss, but didn't pull away. His breathing was harsh, his forehead resting against hers. His eyes were closed, but she could feel the tension radiating from him, a lifetime of sleepless nights and coiled rage warring with a sudden, profound exhaustion. He looked like a man on the verge of collapsing.
"What... did you do?" he rasped, his voice thick and disoriented. He wasn't accusing her; he sounded genuinely confused, as if his own body had betrayed him.
Before Clora could answer, his knees buckled slightly. He stumbled, his full weight leaning into her. Panicked, she guided his dead weight toward the large leather sofa nearby. He practically fell onto it, pulling her down with him. He landed heavily on the cushions, his head lolling to the side, his eyes fluttering shut. Within seconds, his breathing evened out, deepening into the slow, rhythmic pattern of true sleep.
Clora stared at him in utter disbelief. He hadn't vanished into sleep standing up; he had fought it, confused by the sudden wave of peace, and had only succumbed once he was off his feet. Essex Langley, the insomniac tyrant who barely slept three hours a night and woke up screaming from nightmares, had fallen asleep on the sofa, his head resting mere inches from her lap.
In her last life, she had spent years locked in this house with him. She had known about his insomnia, the pills he took, the doctors who came and went. But she had never seen him sleep like this. Not once.
A crazy, impossible question sparked in her brain. What just happened? Was it the kiss? Was her presence, her touch, somehow the one thing that could shut off his racing mind? She looked down at the dark head resting near her. In this quiet room, with his defenses completely down, he didn't look like a monster. He looked broken.
A slow, calculating smile spread across Clora's face. The thought wasn't fully formed, not yet a weapon, but a seed of an idea. This was more than a survival tactic. This was leverage. And she had just stumbled upon the key.
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9.4
I thought the Burch family gave me a loving home when they took me out of the orphanage.
But when the global deep freeze apocalypse hit, my adoptive parents mercilessly kicked me out of the bunker to freeze to death.
As I lay dying in the snow, covered in horrific purple frostbite, my adoptive sister Kendal walked past me in a pristine designer jacket.
Around her neck was my only childhood possession—an antique gold necklace my adoptive mother had ripped off my neck to give to her.
Kendal gloated, bragging that my pendant held a magical space with infinite supplies and fresh food while the rest of the world starved.
I realized I had spent years emptying my life savings to fund their luxury cars and fake medical emergencies.
They had drained my bank accounts, stolen my bloodline's heirloom, and used my magical lifeline to live like royalty while leaving me to die.
I took my last ragged breath in that blinding blizzard, consumed by a toxic hatred.
Why was I so hopelessly weak? Why did I let them take everything from me?
Opening my eyes again, the painful frostbite scars were gone. My skin was warm.
I grabbed my phone. The screen lit up: November 12.
It was exactly three days before the world ended.
When my adoptive mother called, faking a tearful emergency to demand another thirty thousand dollars, I smiled coldly.
"Just tell me where to send the money, Mom."
This time, I'm taking my space back, and I'm going to drain them dry.
9.2
At the absolute summit of her pop-star career, the stage collapsed beneath Catherine's feet, plunging her into a mechanical black hole.
When she opened her eyes, she wasn't in a hospital, but a savage, primitive forest.
Before a fire-breathing beast could tear her apart, a massive black snake crushed it with a single strike.
The terrifying serpent then transformed into Amon, a towering, heavily scarred man with golden slitted eyes, who swore his life to protect her.
He brought her to his tribe, but instead of safety, they were met with ravenous hunger and disgust.
The tribe's males stared at Catherine's fragile human body like a rare breeding prize, while treating Amon like garbage.
"He's a cursed, cold-blooded freak! His rut will tear you to pieces!"
The Chief sneered, pointing a thick, accusing finger at Amon.
"By tribal law, you must mate with our strongest tiger and bear shifters to give us powerful cubs!"
Humiliated, Amon's broad shoulders slumped, his fists trembling in suffocating shame as he prepared to back away.
Catherine's heart pounded with fierce, burning anger.
When she was about to be eaten, Amon was the only one who bled for her.
Where were these arrogant bullies then? Why should she let them treat her savior like a monster?
As the tribe's strongest warriors swarmed forward to claim her, Catherine stepped directly in front of Amon's lethal claws.
"I don't need any of you," she declared, her voice cutting through the chaos.
"I will mate with Amon and take his beast mark today!"
8.8
"Werewolves are just a fantasy. They can't exist in the real world. You don't have to say such absurd things just to claim my son as yours. Alpha, my ass!" -- Noreen.
"You left me speechless, miss, and therefore you must take responsibility. I couldn't have sex with anyone after that night you marked me. Now, be my Luna, and I'll give you the world. Besides, even without a DNA test, he's definitely my son. He has a strong Alpha aura." -- Alpha Thiery. "He's my heir, the next Alpha of my pack!"
Noreen Winchester never imagined that her reckless, unprotected sex with a mysterious, charming man, on the night her ex-boyfriend married her cousin, would transport her to a world she had previously only considered a fantasy.
That one-night stand caused Alpha Thiery to lose all sexual desire after a beautiful, sexy woman bit his mark gland during a wild night at his uncle's bar three years ago.
His inner wolf claimed that the woman, whose name he didn't even know, was his mate. But the woman was a mere human, and it was impossible for him to have Luna, a mere human.
Then, after many years, the woman appeared before him again, with a boy who was every bit like himself.
The problem was, the woman was not only a mere human, but also incredibly stubborn, believing that anything related to werewolves, vampires, witches, and all supernatural creatures existed only in children's fantasy tales.
Alpha Thiery had to prove that he was a real being, not just a fairy tale creature. More than that, the child she bore was his flesh and blood, the next Alpha of his pack, and he had to have him. necessary, with her, too. Even if she was only a mere human.
7.1
The night before her wedding to Wall Street billionaire Everette Baird, Deliah Quinn stood happily in her haute couture gown.
Then, her younger sister Arvilla walked in, handed her a drugged glass of champagne, and slammed an ultrasound on the vanity.
"I'm pregnant with Everette's child," Arvilla sneered.
Before Deliah's paralyzed body could react, Arvilla dragged in a canister of industrial gasoline, soaked the bridal suite, tossed a lighter, and locked the heavy oak doors from the outside.
To escape the roaring inferno, Deliah smashed the glass balcony and threw herself into the freezing, violent waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
For five agonizing years, everyone believed the Quinn heiress was dead.
Deliah returned to New York entirely reborn—a top architectural designer and a single mother, having scrubbed her past clean and forgotten the people who destroyed her.
She only wanted a peaceful life with her five-year-old genius son, Leo.
But she had no idea her son was secretly hacking airport security cameras to find himself a wealthy stepdad.
Leo deliberately bumped into a terrifying, cold-blooded tycoon, spilling scalding coffee on his custom suit to get his attention.
When Deliah frantically rushed over to protect her son and apologize, the air in the terminal vanished.
Everette Baird stared at the exact face he had obsessively mourned for five years, his eyes turning pitch black as he crushed his phone in his bare hand.
8.1
I died on an apocalyptic battlefield, only to wake up pinned down by a lead-lined blanket of my own fat.
A violent download of memories hit me. I had transmigrated into the body of an exiled, sadistic noblewoman who was three million coins in debt.
The original owner was an absolute monster. She had purchased beastman guards just to torture them for fun. In the corner of the filthy room, a golden retriever boy cowered, his back shredded by her barbed whip. In the basement, a snake guard was frozen and scarred from constant electro-shocks. When the white tiger guard returned from hard labor, he looked at me with pure, murderous hatred, ready to tear me apart to protect the others. Even the local elites kicked down my door to mock my pathetic life and try to steal my men.
I was a decorated commander who bled for humanity. Why was I trapped in this ruined vessel, bearing the sins of a degenerate abuser?
It was all a setup by her sweet-faced cousin, Debera, who stole her royal life and sent her to this outer-rim hellhole to rot.
I gritted my teeth and plunged a military-grade gene repair serum into my arm, letting the agony burn away the black filth and weakness.
"The crazy woman you knew before is dead."
I tossed a medical kit to the trembling guards, loaded my old electromagnetic pistol, and headed for the deadly Demon Hunting Zone to start my revenge.
7.2
Aria Nightshade spent her entire life waiting for one thing: the moment her fated mate would claim her, making her Luna. But on the night of her bonding ceremony, Liam Draven rejects her in front of the entire pack-publicly, brutally, without hesitation. He chooses another woman. Leaves her shattered.
Humiliated beyond repair, Aria prepares to disappear into whatever's left of her dignity.
Then the Alpha King intervenes.
Kael Draven-feared, untouchable, a man who answers to no one-steps between them and claims her himself. Not out of mercy. Not out of love. For reasons he refuses to explain, he binds her to him with magic older than the packs themselves, then hauls her to his fortress and locks her in a tower.
Aria should be terrified.
Instead, she's angry. Defiant. And increasingly aware that the man holding her captive isn't quite what he seems.
Kael is cold, calculated, and obsessed with understanding what she is-a wolf who shouldn't have survived a bond rupture, who shouldn't be standing, who shouldn't exist. As he slowly reveals the truth about her past and her bloodline, Aria discovers that her rejection was never about her worth. It was about her power. The kind of power that could reshape the entire werewolf hierarchy.
But Liam can't accept his loss. Kael's protection becomes possession. And Aria's slow transformation from broken girl to something far more dangerous forces her to choose: remain the victim they all rejected, or rise as the Luna that will make them all bow.
Even if it means destroying everything-and everyone-she once cared about.