Rejecting The Pack: I Need One Mate
In our beast world, females are treated as nothing more than precious breeding stock to keep the pack strong. As the pack's best Mender, I spent all my time focusing on my healing herbs, completely ignoring my maturity ritual.
But tonight, the blind pack elder grabbed my wrist and delivered a chilling ultimatum.
If I don't choose my mates by the next Full Moon, the Council of Elders will force a match and assign them to me.
The threat is already suffocating. Arrogant, elite warriors like Caleb Quinn are pacing outside my door like starving wolves, stalking my porch and using pack business to corner me. At home, the reality of multiple mates is even worse. My mother has two mates—my father, the strongest Alpha, and my cold, intellectual step-father. Their toxic, murderous jealousy turns our house into a daily war zone. They literally unleash suffocating killing intent on innocent cubs just for hugging my mother.
I am disgusted by this sick, possessive obsession. I refuse to let my life become a battlefield of jealous males fighting over who gets to guard my door, and I absolutely refuse to be forced into a harem by the Elders.
So, I made a declaration that shocked my entire family and broke every pack tradition.
"I will only ever take one mate."
And to make sure none of those predatory warriors can touch me, I set an impossible trap.
"Whoever wants me must defeat my father first."
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Chapter 5
Evan roared. He didn't think. He just charged, the bone knife raised, ready to carve Caleb into pieces.
Kala's hand shot out. She didn't grab his collar; instead, her fingers moved like lightning, precisely clamping down on the meridian points of Evan's wrist. A sharp numbness shot up Evan's arm, instantly dissipating his forward momentum. Using his own weight against him, Kala smoothly redirected his force, making him stumble backward and land hard on his butt.
"Why?" Evan yelled, twisting his head to look up at her. His face was a mask of frustration and confusion. "Why are you stopping me? He's trespassing!"
Kala didn't answer him directly. She looked at Armond, catching his eye. She gave a tiny, almost imperceptible shake of her head.
Armond's jaw clenched. The urge to rip Caleb limb from limb was screaming in his blood. But his daughter asked for patience. He forced himself to stand still, a pillar of lethal threat, his aura pressing heavily against the porch.
Kala took a deep breath. She pulled Evan to his feet and dragged him a few steps away, lowering her voice.
"Look at what he's holding," Kala hissed into Evan's ear.
Evan glared at the porch. "I don't care what he's holding."
"That is Pearl-grass," Kala said sharply. "It's extremely rare. Augusta Frye needs it for her potions. If you attack him now, you are the one causing trouble. The Council will use it against us. Against Father."
Evan froze. He hadn't noticed the herbs. He had only seen the enemy. His shoulders slumped slightly, the fire in his eyes dimming.
"He's still a creep," Evan muttered stubbornly.
Kala sighed. She cupped Evan's face with both hands, forcing him to look her in the eyes. Her gaze was serious, stripping away all the teasing.
"Listen to me, Evan," Kala said, her voice low and firm. "I am not some naive girl who will be bought by a few weeds and sweet words. I know exactly what I want."
Evan blinked, suddenly paying attention.
Kala pointed a finger at Armond, who stood like an iron tower behind them. "I want someone like Father. Mature. Steady. Not some impulsive, arrogant pup who thinks fighting is the only way to prove himself."
Armond, who had been radiating murderous intent, suddenly perked up. The corners of his mouth twitched violently upward. The killing intent vanished, replaced by a smug, almost arrogant pride. He puffed out his chest.
Evan looked at his father's ridiculous, proud expression and rolled his eyes hard. But the anger in his chest finally settled. Caleb was nothing like Armond. Caleb was a joke.
"Put the knife away," Kala ordered, releasing Evan's face. "Keep the Padilla dignity."
Evan slid the bone knife back into its sheath. He walked over to stand beside Armond, mimicking his father's protective stance.
Kala turned back to the porch. The warmth in her eyes vanished, replaced by the impenetrable mask of official courtesy. She walked up the wooden steps, stopping just out of arm's reach from Caleb.
Caleb had watched the entire exchange. A flicker of jealousy crossed his features before he masked it. He held out the Pearl-grass, the stems wrapped in broad leaves.
"The Council of Elders asked me to deliver this to you," Caleb said, his voice low and smooth, using the official errand as a shield for his presence. He tried to sound gentle, but the intensity in his eyes betrayed him. "They said Augusta Frye desperately needs it for her potions, and I volunteered to climb the Broken Cliff to get it for you."
Kala looked at the glowing herbs. The dew on them sparkled. It was a calculated move. He was trying to buy her gratitude with her duty.
She didn't reach for them. She simply stared at Caleb, her face unreadable.
Behind her, the air grew thick. Armond and Evan were staring holes into Caleb's hands, ready to pounce if he made a single wrong move.
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8.1
She thought patience would earn her love.
She was wrong.
After years of waiting for her best friend to finally see her, she meets the one man she should never want-his older brother. Dark, forbidden, and dangerously perceptive, he sees through every excuse she's ever made for being overlooked.
Now she must choose between a safe fantasy that keeps breaking her heart and a dangerous truth that offers no escape once it begins.
Because the brother who looks at her like that?
He doesn't believe in halfway love.
8.6
Today was my father's grand second wedding, but for me, it was the anniversary of my mother's death.
My new stepmother, Marley, who was only four years older than me, cornered me. To establish her dominance as the new Luna, she ordered her servants to force me to my knees and violently ripped my late mother's necklace from my neck.
It was the only memento my mother had left me. Marley sneered, threw it to the ground, and shattered the gems. When I scrambled to pick up the broken pieces, she dug her high-heeled shoe into the back of my hand, mocking me as dirty trash. No one stepped in to help. My father was too busy celebrating his new marriage under the dazzling lights, completely erasing my mother's memory and leaving me to be abused in my own pack.
My heart was full of grievance and despair. Why did my mother's lifelong devotion end with her grave desolate and her daughter humiliated? I swore I would never become a weak, discarded she-wolf whose life depended on a man.
Desperate to escape the suffocating wedding, I ran outside and stumbled right into the chest of a terrifying stranger.
"No one should ever touch what is precious to you."
His golden eyes blazed with fury as sparks instantly shot through my veins. He was Kade Blackwood, the ruthless Alpha of the feared Blood Moon Pack—and my fated mate.
9.5
One night, I was a girl seeking vengeance in a velvet mask. He was the stranger who took me against a cold stone wall, his touch a silent, lethal promise.
Now, he is Caspian Blackwood-the most feared architecture professor at Aethelgard. When my "perfect" boyfriend, Dominic Calloway, cheats on me and sabotages my degree, Caspian offers a lifeline with a razor-thin edge: Be his silent, nude model for thirty days.
The rules are absolute. I must wear a silk mask and a weighted collar. I must never speak. I must hold the poses he demands until my muscles scream for mercy. In the lecture hall, he ignores me with arctic indifference. In the studio, his gaze is a physical weight, stripping me faster than his hands ever could. But as the charcoal scratches against the paper, I realize the "deal" isn't just for art. It's for the soul I accidentally gave him in the dark. Will the deal destroy his career, or consume me first?
7.5
I was Nyx, a top-tier covert operative. But when I opened my eyes, I was trapped in the unfamiliar, overweight body of a bullied girl named Eliza.
Before I could even process the body swap, the bedroom door splintered open. I was in bed with Julian Malone, a wealthy military heir, both of us heavily drugged. Cameras flashed wildly. It was a vicious setup to ruin his career, and I was the bait.
To save his family's reputation, Julian was forced to marry me. But the moment the wedding was over, he abandoned me. His elite family treated me like a disease. His mother froze my only bank account, trying to starve me into submission.
I even intercepted a private conversation between his parents.
"Once she's in a private facility, she loses all legal standing. We can sign anything we want on her behalf."
They planned to lock me up in a mental asylum and erase my existence entirely to get rid of the "trailer park trash."
To them, I was just a weak, pathetic pawn they could crush without a second thought. They thought they had backed a helpless girl into a corner.
They had no idea they had just declared war on a lethal weapon.
I didn't cry or beg. Instead, I bypassed their state-of-the-art security, cracked their safe, and stole the financial secrets that could destroy their entire empire.
"I want five hundred thousand dollars, or these files go to the IRS."
This time, I was playing by my own rules.
9.6
When a global anomaly awakens dormant powers within them, a neuroscientist, a physicist, and an artist discover they are connected by a force that defies time itself. Mert sees the memories of strangers. Elena witnesses the fabric of reality crack. Kai paints symbols from a past he never knew. Thrown together by fate, they are not alone. Across the globe, others are awakening too-gifted with extraordinary abilities. But they are not the only ones. A powerful cabal-a ruthless financier, a tech mogul, and a charismatic influencer-sees the anomaly not as a warning, but as a weapon. Their ambition shatters the timeline, scattering the group across history: from the smog-choked streets of Victorian London to a transhumanist future, and into a terrifying parallel present. Broken into three teams, the group must hunt their enemies through time itself. To survive, they must master their new powers and forge bonds of love and loyalty strong enough to bend the laws of physics. Their final battle will not be fought in any single era, but at the crossroads of all realities, where the key to existence-the very heart of time-is at stake.
7.5
After spending five grueling years securing the Madden Pack's empire, I thought my Alpha mate and I were finally building a perfect family.
But on my birthday, I returned home to find a thick, impenetrable wall of ice in our Mate bond.
Caden had completely shut me out to throw a lavish party for my half-sister, Adalynn.
He let Adalynn pollute our penthouse with her cheap perfume and brainwash my five-year-old daughter, Elara.
"Auntie Adalynn is a million times better than Mommy!"
Elara chirped happily to a camera, while Caden watched with a doting smile.
He publicly humiliated me, commanded the servants to ignore me, and deliberately fed Elara severe allergens just to spite my maternal rules.
When my pup ended up in the pack hospital gasping for air, Caden confiscated her tablet and roared at her to stop crying for the mother who "abandoned" her.
My heart shattered into a million irreparable pieces.
I couldn't understand how the man destined to protect my soul could twist my love into cruelty and use our helpless cub as a punching bag for his ego.
But the weeping, pathetic Luna died right there.
I calmly signed the divorce papers, surrendered all my assets, and walked out into the cold night.
Opening my encrypted laptop, I reclaimed my hidden identity as the global elite hacker "Ghost" and initiated a lethal protocol.
It was time to burn his entire world to the ground.