Trapped By The Phantom: His Little Lamb
I woke up to the screech of a megaphone and realized I had transmigrated into a YA novel called *Roses Under Thorns*.
I wasn't the beloved heroine. I was Chloe Carrillo, a disposable scholarship student whose only purpose was to die in a tragic car crash to advance the plot.
Desperate to survive, I tried to become invisible. But fate played a sick joke, making me the roommate of the female lead and drawing the suffocating, obsessive attention of her powerful brother, Dean Gibbs.
While desperately avoiding Dean's controlling grasp, my nightmare worsened. An untraceable cyberstalker began hunting me.
He called me "Little Lamb." He left a burner phone in my secret library hideout, sent photos of me taken from ceiling vents, and texted me the moment I stepped out of the dorm shower.
"The water looks warm. Enjoy your shower."
The police couldn't help, and asking Dean meant trading one terrifying cage for another. I didn't understand why this was happening. I was supposed to be a nobody, yet I was trapped in an invisible web, monitored every second of my life.
Refusing to be a victim, I tracked down the university's legendary phantom hacker, Ashton Bridges.
I handed him my devices, begging him to trace the stalker, thinking I had finally found a safe ally.
I didn't know that as soon as the lab door closed behind me, he pulled up a live camera feed of my bedroom, his lips curving into a predatory smile.
"Little Lamb, you walked right into my arms."
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Chapter 8
"No!" I lunged across the bed, grabbing Hannah's arm before she could dial. "Hannah, please! Don't call him!"
She stared at me, her expression a mix of confusion and frustration. "Why not? Chloe, this is serious. This guy is a psycho. Dean can help. He has connections, he can hire people-"
"I can't deal with Dean right now," I pleaded, my voice raw from crying. "He... he suffocates me. He asks too many questions. He looks at me like I'm a specimen. I can't handle him on top of this."
Hannah's brow furrowed. "Dean is intense, but he cares. He would never let someone hurt you."
"You don't understand," I whispered, pulling my knees up to my chest. "Being around him feels like being trapped. Just like this stalker. I feel like I have no control. I can't trade one cage for another."
Hannah sat down on the edge of the bed, her hand still holding her phone. She looked at me, really looked at me, and for the first time, I saw a flicker of understanding in her eyes.
"Okay," she said slowly. "I get it. You don't want Dean. But, Chloe, you can't fight this alone. The police can't help. Changing your number doesn't work. This guy is a hacker, or something. You need a professional."
I buried my face in my hands. I knew she was right. I was out of my depth. This wasn't a physical threat I could run from. It was digital. It was invisible. And it was everywhere.
"What other choice do I have?" I asked, my voice muffled.
"Let Dean find someone," Hannah urged. "He knows cybersecurity experts. He knows private investigators. He doesn't have to be the one dealing with it directly. He can just pull the strings."
The idea made my skin crawl, but the terror of the shower text was still fresh in my mind. I couldn't live like this. I couldn't function knowing that every move I made was being recorded and analyzed.
"Just this once," Hannah said, her tone softening. "Let him help. And I'll make sure he keeps his distance. I'll be the middleman. You won't even have to talk to him."
I looked up at her. Her eyes were sincere, desperate to help me. She was a good friend. The best. And I was shutting her out because of my own paranoia.
Maybe she was right. Maybe I could use Dean's resources without getting entangled in his web. A transaction. A business deal. I give him the problem, he fixes it, and I walk away.
"Okay," I said, the word tasting like ash in my mouth. "Okay. But just the resources. I don't want him in my room. I don't want him questioning me. Just... find the guy."
Hannah let out a breath she had been holding. "Thank you. I promise, I'll handle it."
She picked up her phone again, her thumbs flying over the screen. She drafted a text to Dean and held it out for me to see.
"Hey. Chloe is being cyberstalked by a serious creep. Cops are useless. Can we get a pro on this ASAP?"
The words stared back at me. It was a cry for help. It was an invitation. It was a door opening that I wasn't sure I could ever close.
"Is that okay?" Hannah asked.
I stared at the screen. Dean's face flashed in my mind,The cold blue eyes, The commanding voice.
But then, another image flashed. The photo of me in the library,The text about the shower,The constant, suffocating fear.
I had to choose. The devil I knew, or the devil I didn't.
I closed my eyes. "Send it."
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7.7
Nora's life turned into a nightmare after she was banished from her pack by her own husband. She was subjected to mockery, abuse and humiliation before being cast out with nothing.
Faced with the cruelty of a world that had never once been kind to her, the moon goddess decided to bless her with her fated mate.
The same man she watched slaughter others without a single trace of mercy. The man who was twice as cold and twice as ruthless as the husband who destroyed her.
Yet he would not let her go. She found herself stuck between the husband who used her and the ruthless mate who wanted her but refused to admit it. Two powerful men. One woman who was never supposed to survive any of it. And a moon goddess who was not done with her yet.
7.2
Elara Vex had everything-a flawless ice core, the title of prodigy, and a place at the pinnacle of the High Tower. But in one brutal night, it was all ripped away. Her mentor tore the core from her chest. Her fiancé drove a sword through her back. Her own sister smiled as she bled out on the cold marble floor.
When Elara wakes, she's years in the past, mere hours before her core is scheduled to be stolen. This time, she won't be anyone's sacrificial lamb. She shatters her own core with forbidden blood magic and forges something far more terrifying in its place-a bottomless, ravenous Chaos Core that devours magic itself.
Now, branded a worthless cripple and cast into the deadly Abyss, Elara is pulled from the darkness by the outcasts of Elysium Academy-a school for heretics, psychopaths, and everything the Tower despises. Under the tutelage of a reclusive principal who knew her murdered mother, Elara will master her forbidden power and uncover the Tower's darkest secrets.
When the Five Academies Ranking Tournament arrives, Seraphina Vex stands in the arena, draped in white saintess robes, ready to claim ultimate glory. She doesn't know that a ghost from her past has clawed her way back from hell. She doesn't know that Elara is coming-and this time, the prodigal sister isn't asking for mercy. She's bringing chaos.
8.4
My mate, Alpha Santino, brought another woman into our home. She was a pregnant Omega, the widow of his fallen Beta, and he swore to protect her above all others.
He gave her my seat of honor, left our bed cold each night to soothe her feigned nightmares, and ignored me completely. I was the Luna of the Blackstone Pack, but I was becoming a ghost in my own life.
The final betrayal happened in my own bedroom. She stood over my vanity and deliberately shattered my mother's sacred moonstone necklace, the last piece of my family I had left.
When Santino burst in, he didn't see my heartbreak. He saw only her fake tears.
"What did you do to her?!" he roared, his voice laced with the Alpha's Command, a sacred power he used to crush my will.
Then, for her, he did the unforgivable. He raised his hand and struck me, his mate.
In that instant, the love I had desperately clung to turned to ice. The man I had sworn my life to had not only betrayed me but had defiled the sacred bond the Goddess herself had blessed.
As the pain of his betrayal ripped through me, something ancient and powerful awakened in my blood. I rose to my feet and spoke the words that would destroy his world and begin mine.
"I, Alessia Bianchi, reject you, Santino Moretti, as my mate."
7.1
The captain is dead to the world. And I'm the only one holding the kill switch.
Ethan Carter, the "Glacier of Silvercrest," was the most feared Alpha to ever step onto the ice. Now, he's nothing but a shell-a broken, comatose legend trapped in his own body.
My life? It was supposed to be simple. Graduate, survive the pack's bottom-tier status, and pay off my father's ruinous blood-debts. Instead, the pack elders handed me a contract soaked in cold, hard malice: I am the designated "Stabilizer." My only job is to touch him, scent him, and keep his wolf from flatlining.
I thought I was just a glorified nurse. I didn't realize the Alpha was listening.
When Ethan finally wakes, he isn't the hero the Kingdom of Valeria remembers. He's a starving predator with amber eyes that burn holes through my defenses and a temperament that makes the frost in the mansion seem warm. He hates the bargain, he hates the pack, and-most dangerously-he hates the way his scent turns wild whenever I'm near.
He wants me out of his sight. I want to be out of his reach.
But in a pack built on secrets, someone is still trying to finish the job they started on his life. Now, the man who wants me gone is the only one who can protect me. And as the rink turns into a battlefield, I'm realizing the most dangerous thing about the Alpha isn't his temper... it's the fact that once he claims a mate, he doesn't know how to let go.
Frozen hearts are meant to shatter. But in the fire of this pack, we're both going to burn.
7.3
For a thousand years, the Vora beastmen have been cursed by a madness-a burning sickness in their blood that only one thing can soothe: the legendary 'Blood-Blessed,' a human female whose very scent is a living cure.
When a virus wiped out nearly all females, their desperate hunt for this mythical girl turned into a brutal conquest. They crushed our fallen human kingdoms, reducing us to breathing meat under their cruel "Livestock Codex."
To save my little sister from being branded for their elite breeding auction, I took her place in the male-only death draft.
Disguised as a boy, I was thrown into a pitch-black labyrinth, a living sacrifice meant to feed their ultimate nightmare: the feral, half-dragon Mad King.
He tore our steel cage apart like wet paper. I pressed my back against the freezing wall, watching in horror as he slaughtered the screaming men around me.
He ripped the filthy coat from my body, exposing my true gender. As his crimson eyes locked onto my throat and he opened his jaws for the kill, my rage burned away my fear.
I was a pureblood heiress of a dead empire, but I would not die cowering like an animal. I gripped a shard of glass, ready to aim for his eye.
But as he lunged, the glass sliced my palm. The moment my blood hit the air, the legend became my reality. The sweet, intoxicating scent that flooded the dark wasn't just my pheromones-it was the living cure.
The terrifying, apocalyptic tyrant froze mid-strike. He dropped his massive body to his knees, his fangs retracting as he gently, desperately licked my bleeding hand.
His chaotic red eyes darkened with an absolute, world-ending obsession as he pulled my fragile body against his burning chest.
"Mine."
I was meant to be his final meal. They called me the Blood-Blessed. He called me his Queen.
7.7
I trusted the wrong people in my past life.
My supposed lover and my sweet sister conspired against me, locking me inside a burning warehouse to die.
But the man I had spent my life hating, my ruthless captor Damien Sterling, rushed straight into that inferno and burned alive just to try and save me.
In my past life, I was utterly blind. I believed Julian's forged documents and Scarlett's fake affection. I even tried to assassinate Damien with a silver dagger they provided, breaking the heart of the only man who truly loved me. I died choking on thick ash, realizing too late who the real monsters were.
Why was I so incredibly foolish? Why did I let their vicious manipulation turn me into a weapon against the one person who would sacrifice absolutely everything for me?
Opening my eyes again, the phantom smell of smoke vanished.
I was sitting in the bloody water of Damien's bathtub, right after my staged suicide attempt.
When my sister sneaked into my penthouse suite and handed me the dagger to kill him again, I didn't hesitate.
I grabbed her hand tightly and plunged the sharp blade directly into my own shoulder.
"Please don't kill me, Scarlett!"
This time, I will ruthlessly ruin them both, and I will never let Damien go.