The Unwanted Pact With My Enemy
To keep her art scholarship, Vesper had to complete a life-size woodcarving for her final project.
But her randomly assigned model was Slade Forrester, the arrogant basketball captain who had shattered her grandfather's priceless antique carving tools freshman year without a single apology.
When Vesper blackmailed him with a ten-thousand-dollar property damage claim to force him into the studio, Slade mercilessly turned the tables.
"I'll be your model, but you're going to do something for me in return."
He demanded she carve a custom piece to help him woo a girl who hated his guts, and forced Vesper to act as his personal spy.
The target turned out to be Vesper's own roommate.
To make matters worse, Slade caught onto Vesper's terrifyingly deep, secret crush on his polite roommate, Julian.
He ruthlessly weaponized her anxiety, mocking her stuttering panic and trapping her in a twisted mutual-blackmail deal that left her completely suffocated.
Exhausted, humiliated, and desperate to escape this nightmare, Vesper logged onto the university portal at 2 AM to register for a quiet online elective where she wouldn't have to see anyone.
But the system lagged, locking her out of every normal class and leaving only one open seat in a brutal varsity physical conditioning course.
With her required credits and scholarship on the line, she had absolutely no choice but to hit register.
Then the syllabus loaded on her screen.
The Teaching Assistant for the class was Slade Forrester.
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Chapter 4
Vesper stepped back instantly. Her shoulder blades hit the cold tile wall behind her.
"What do you want?" she asked, her voice tight.
Slade's smirk vanished. He reached into his pocket, pulled out his phone, and tapped the screen a few times. He turned it around and held it out to her.
Vesper squinted. It was a blurry, low-resolution photo of a wooden sculpture. It depicted a delicate rose enclosed in a glass-like wooden dome, with a semi-abstract figure of the Little Prince kneeling beside it.
"I need a custom piece," Slade said, his tone entirely serious now. He shifted his weight, looking almost defensive for a fraction of a second. "I'm going to use it to ask a girl to the Winter Formal next month. And before you say anything, this one is different. Normal stuff doesn't work on her. She thinks I'm just some dumb jock who expects everyone to fall at his feet. I need to prove her wrong, and handing her some store-bought garbage isn't going to cut it."
Vesper stared at the screen, her mind struggling to process the request. "Why?"
Slade rubbed the back of his neck, looking away for a split second. "I don't care how long it takes," Slade said, his eyes snapping back to hers. "If you have it done before the Formal, I will sit on that stupid stool in your studio for the rest of the semester."
Vesper did the math in her head. Sixty hours of lost sleep versus keeping her scholarship and avoiding the NCAA nightmare.
She looked up at him. She extended her right hand. "Deal."
Slade looked at her hand for a second before wrapping his large fingers around hers. His palm was hot. Too hot. The heat burned against her calloused skin, sending a strange jolt up her arm.
They dropped their hands quickly.
"Give me your number," Slade said, pulling up his contacts. "I need to know you're actually working on it."
Vesper rattled off her digits. She watched as he typed Angry Sculptor into his phone.
She rolled her eyes, pulled out her own phone, and saved his number as Bankrupt ATM.
"See you in class," Slade said. He turned and walked away, his heavy footsteps echoing down the hall.
Vesper let out a long, shaky breath. The tension drained from her muscles, leaving her exhausted.
She walked out of the arena. Light snow had begun to fall, the icy flakes melting against her hot cheeks.
When she finally pushed open the door to her dorm room, the lights were dim.
Rowan was sitting on her bed, staring at her phone screen with a massive, goofy smile on her face.
"What's so funny?" Vesper asked, shrugging off her heavy coat.
Rowan jumped. She instantly locked her phone and shoved it under her pillow. "Nothing! Just a stupid dog video."
Vesper frowned. Rowan looked flushed and panicked, but Vesper was too physically drained to interrogate her.
She walked over to her desk and clicked on her small brass reading lamp. She pulled out her thick sketchbook and a graphite pencil.
She started sketching the rose. The curves of the petals flowed easily onto the paper.
As she shaded the Little Prince, her mind drifted to Julian. She imagined carving something this beautiful for him. Would he look at her the way he looked at his textbooks-with that gentle, focused attention?
She shook her head violently. She needed to focus on Slade's order.
Vesper kept drawing. The scratch of the pencil was the only sound in the room. She worked until her vision blurred, eventually resting her head on the desk and falling into a deep, dreamless sleep.
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8.8
I am the best esports jungler in the league, but I've been hiding a severe wrist injury just to keep my team alive in the semifinals.
Right in the middle of the crucial tie-breaker game, our mid-laner deliberately walked into the enemy team and died without casting a single defensive spell.
He was match-fixing for offshore betting sites, throwing away our entire season for a massive payout.
Because of his betrayal, we had to sub in two terrified rookies, and we were absolutely slaughtered. The stadium crowd booed us out of the arena. The internet exploded with pure vitriol, trending hashtags calling me a washed-up fraud who hid on the bench to save my own stats. The media demanded I retire immediately. My physical therapist gave me a grim ultimatum: my shredded nerves only allow me four hours of playtime a day before my right hand completely locks up.
I destroyed my own body for this team, only to be sold out by a coward and crucified by the very fans I bled for. Why should my legacy end in total disgrace because of someone else's greed?
I refuse to step down. I forced the traitor out, ignored management's safe roster choices, and locked my eyes on the most toxic, universally hated streamer on the platform.
"He's a walking PR nightmare," my coach warned.
I don't care. He is an arrogant, unhinged killer in the game, and I am going to make him mine.
8.3
EDEN
8.3
Elianila, an AI Architect, is part of an elite team tasked with designing a global system meant to prevent threats, manage disasters, and distribute resources to vulnerable regions. After five years of tireless work with her colleagues, she uncovers disturbing anomalies, code-named, X-variables, that flag individuals according to criteria she never programmed.
As Elianila digs deeper to understand what the X-variables measure and where their origin, she finds herself in direct conflict with the authorities. Soon, the System marks her and her daughter as threats - targets to be eliminated.
With a small band of colleagues and dissidents, Elianila goes on the run, hiding in places beyond the Systems reach. As they evade surveillance, they race against time to warn others, expose the truth, and fight back against the omnipresent authority of the System.
9.4
My retirement was finally approved, and I was supposed to be sipping drinks on a sunny beach.
Instead, a cold system voice forced me into a nightmare scenario: "Cursed Mates Who Want Me Dead." I woke up in a stinking cave, trapped in the body of a psychopathic tribal princess.
The memories that flooded my brain made me sick. The original owner of this body had forcibly marked seven of the continent's most powerful beast-men and reduced them to tortured pets. She had ripped the shimmering scales off Jordi the Merfolk prince, gouged out a proud wolf-man's power crystal, and snapped an eagle-man's magnificent wings.
Now, Jordi was a mutilated, terrified mess hiding in a corner. He was so traumatized that he tried to slit his own throat just to escape me. His sister was actively trying to assassinate me.
To make matters worse, the system warned me that if I didn't heal these seven ticking time bombs, my soul would be erased. Yet the future timeline clearly showed that these men would eventually unite, burn my tribe to the ground, and dismember me alive.
I was paying for a monster's sins. Every time I tried to show mercy, they thought it was a sick new torture method. Words were useless, and my very presence was a trigger.
But I am a Tier-S operative, and I don't play the victim. I forced the system to unlock my powers and strapped on my tactical gear.
"Stay here and don't starve."
I left the trembling Merfolk behind and walked into the deadly primitive forest, heading straight for the powerful Oasis Tribe to take back his stolen scales by force.
7.2
I am a top-tier Alpha from another universe, but a spatial jump error dropped me straight into a high-security military isolation chamber.
Right in front of me was a terrifying, silver-haired wolf-beastman Admiral, completely losing his mind to a lethal biological heat cycle.
To survive in this strange dimension where my powers were restricted, I had to pretend to be a helpless, terrified girl.
Surprisingly, my mere presence and scent instantly cured his incurable madness.
But this backfired horribly. He became obsessively possessive, treating me like a fragile, priceless treasure.
When I managed to sneak out to the city's lawless slums to gather intel and accidentally saved a dying panther boy, the Admiral went completely feral.
He brought an entire war fleet, blotting out the sky, just to "rescue" me.
He nearly slaughtered the boy out of blind jealousy, forcing me to throw myself into his arms and cry fake tears to stop the bloodshed.
"I'm taking you home. No one will ever hurt you again."
He brought me to his flagship's secret medical bay and ordered the Empire's chief doctor to run a full genetic classification test on me.
I panicked. If they discovered my true identity as an off-world Alpha, I would be dissected or executed.
I immediately commanded my AI system to fake my blood data, aiming for a perfectly average, forgettable Omega result.
But as the machine processed my blood, the alarms blared, and the system overloaded.
The old doctor fell to his knees in absolute worship, and the terrifying Admiral looked at me with wild, starving eyes.
My system had overcompensated. I wasn't registered as average. I was just classified as the only SSSSS-grade Omega in the history of the universe.
8.8
Genevieve already died once. A silver stake. A half-blood's betrayal. Never again.
She wakes up three years before the prophecy. Her power is intact. Her knowledge is complete. She could destroy everyone who wronged her.
But that sounds like effort.
So instead, she plays weak. She trips. She cries. She hides under desks. She tells everyone: "Sorry, I'm just a weak little vampire."
Let Rosalie and her cheat system think they're winning. Let them steal the glory. Genevieve just wants to nap and eat blood pudding.
Too bad no one believes her.
Now the students are torn between mocking her and idolizing her. Rosalie's system is crashing. And Genevieve's "useless" act is accidentally building a legend she never wanted.
She just wanted to be trash.
Why won't anyone let her?
7.7
Kaitlynn's mother forced her to entertain Jorden, a cold, overbearing professional esports captain who she only remembered as an annoying, mud-eating brat.
She despised him in real life, saving all her admiration for "Hex," the god-tier player in her favorite MMO who constantly spoiled her with thousand-dollar rare items.
Trapped in Jorden's luxury car during a forced errand, Kaitlynn couldn't stand his arrogant attitude anymore.
She proudly bragged about Hex, claiming her online master's mechanics were vastly superior to any so-called professional player.
"He's the absolute ceiling," she declared defensively. "He's way better than you."
Jorden just smirked, his dark eyes dismissing her entirely.
"Sounds like a nerd living in his mom's basement."
Kaitlynn was furious, ready to scream at him, until his work phone suddenly rang.
Right in front of her, he casually commanded his team using an extremely rare, high-tier strategy exclusive to her game.
Kaitlynn's mind completely short-circuited.
Why would the captain of North America's biggest esports organization know Aethelgard's secret meta?
And why did his commanding, ruthless voice suddenly sound exactly like the low, comforting chuckle that echoed in her headset every night?
As Jorden's gaze dropped to the rare assassin class keychain resting on her lap, a wicked, knowing smile flashed across his face.
The untouchable esports tyrant had just realized his rebellious real-life enemy was his deeply pampered in-game student, and her peaceful double life was about to end.