chuck girard lay your burden down

Nina Warner accidentally releases a genie who gifts her one wish of swearing kinship with anyone. Anyone at all.Without hesitating, she names God as her sworn elder brother. She is now cosmically protected—harm her and receive three times the damage back. She returns home to find her birth mother and younger sister have been quietly suffering for years. Her sister was bullied so relentlessly by her cousins she has become timid and withdrawn. Nina swears this would not happen again. Her uncles and cousins don't take her seriously. They should have. Mock her sister, and she sends them flying. Order her to kneel at the ancestral hall, and the place explodes. Try to steal her father's inheritance? Enjoy your hospital bed—it'll be a long stay. Word travels fast. Nobody touches the her family anymore.

I was slowly dying from Silverthorn Wolfsbane, and there was only one cure—the Miracle Elixir. But my mate, Leo Ashford, bought it and gave it to my adoptive sister, Jane Smith. He did it because he thought I was faking my illness. I gave up on the treatment and swallowed a potent painkiller instead. It would kill me in three days by shutting down my organs. In those three days, I gave up everything. I handed over the fur manufacturing business I built from the ground up to Jane, and my parents praised me for caring about my sister. I offered to sever our mate bond, and Leo praised me for finally being sensible. When I told my son he could call Jane "mommy", he happily said that his new mommy was the best! I transferred all my savings to Jane, and no one seemed to notice anything out of the ordinary. They were just pleased with my "better behavior". "Viola is finally not so bad." I wondered—would they regret it after I was gone?

In my previous life, my parents doted on my frail, sickly younger sister.For her sake, they chose a hawk beastman willing to settle in a human city as her husband.Me? They cast me into the deep sea,marrying me off to a giant shark beastman.When the apocalypse came and torrential rains drowned every human city, my parents and sister were left clinging to a rotting plank, adrift on the endless ocean.I couldn't bear to watch them die. With my giant shark husband, I dragged them down into the deep sea to safety.But resentment festered. Seeing me live comfortably while my shark beastman hunted day after day, my parents grew furious that my sister's life paled in comparison to mine. In their jealousy, they laced the fish we ate with poison and killed me.Now, given another chance at life,they've decided my sister should marry the giant shark beastman instead.My biased parents believe she will finally enjoy the blessings they once denied her.But what they don't know is this: after the cataclysm, fish become scarce. And a giant shark… does not survive on scraps. He needs flesh.

When I turn 20, my grandfather's old friend—now the richest man in the country—lays out photos of his grandsons in front of me. He says, "Pick one to be your husband." Without hesitation, I choose Nathaniel Chapman. Everyone in the room is stunned. After all, it's no secret I've always been hopelessly in love with George Chapman. I used to swear I'd marry no one but him. In my previous life, I got what I wanted—I married George. And because of that marriage, he inherited the lion's share of his grandfather's wealth. But after the wedding, he started an affair with my sister. My parents were furious and sent her abroad to study. George thought I was the one who exposed them. From then on, he hated me to my very core. Women came and went at his side, each one resembling my sister more than the last. The betrayal crushed me. I fell into deep depression. Later, he secretly replaced my medication with slow-acting poison. I died with a child in my womb—alone, bitter, and betrayed. Now, I've been reborn. This time, I choose to let them have each other. But what I don't expect is that George has been reborn too.

I grew up abroad. My mother feared I might marry a foreign man, so she arranged an engagement for me with a talented and handsome man in Flodon. She insisted that I return home to get engaged. I came back and started shopping for an engagement dress at a luxury boutique. I selected an off-white strapless gown and decided to try it on. Suddenly, a woman nearby glanced at the dress in my hand and told the saleswoman, “That’s a unique design. Let me try it.” The saleswoman immediately yanked it out of my hands. I protested indignantly, “Excuse me, I was here first. Don’t you understand the principle of ‘first come, first served’? Or do you just not care about common decency?” The woman scoffed and retorted, “This dress costs $188,000. Do you really think a broke nobody like you can even afford it? “I’m Lucas Goodwin’s sister in all but blood. He’s the chairman of Goodwin’s Group. In Flodon, the Goodwin family sets the rules.” What a coincidence! Lucas Goodwin was my fiance! I immediately called him and said, “Hey, your ‘sister in all but blood’ just stole my engagement dress. Do something about it.”

I was eight months pregnant and had just gone into labor, but my Alpha mate, Damien, locked me in a silver cage in the basement to delay my labor. When I cried out for help, he just told me to wait. Because his late brother's mate, Victoria, was also giving birth that day. The Pack Seer had foretold that only the firstborn pup would be blessed by the Moon Goddess and become the future Alpha. "The title belongs to Victoria's child," he said. "She lost Marcus. She has nothing. You already have all my love, Elena. The silver cage will make sure you deliver after her." The contractions were torture. I begged him to take me to the clinic. He grabbed my chin and forced me to look at him. "Stop pretending. I should've known you never loved me. All you've ever cared about is wealth and status!" "To force your labor early, just to steal what belongs to my nephew… You're truly wicked." Pale and trembling, I whispered: "The pup is coming, I can't stop it. Please, I'll make a blood oath. I don't care about the inheritance. I only love you!" He scoffed."If you loved me, you wouldn’t have forced Victoria into that contract to give up her pup’s birthright. I'll come back for you after she delivers. After all, that's my pup in there, too." He stood guard outside Victoria's delivery room. Only after he saw the newborn pup in her arms did he remember me. He ordered his Beta to release me. But the Beta's voice trembled. "Luna… and the pup… they're dead." And in that moment, Damien went feral.