good with your hands

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.”

Vivian, the bankrupt heiress, walks in on her fiancé and her best friend plotting to pull her father's ventilator plug at their engagement party. While fleeing, she falls into the arms of her fiancé's uncle—Alistair, the "Tyrant of Wall Street." He offers to save her father in exchange for a binding marriage contract. Vivian fights back: she gets her fiancé drunk and ruins his reputation, and sends her best friend to prison. But she mistakenly believes Alistair is the one who killed her mother, and teams up with foreign investors to short his conglomerate. When the truth comes to light—he is the boy who saved her from a fire ten years ago, his back bearing burns that never healed—the two powerhouses join forces. She takes control of the financial empire in the open, while he secretly deploys phantom funds to counterattack. The scumbag fiancé goes bankrupt, the best friend descends into madness, and the mastermind behind it all is left without access to medical care. At the pinnacle of their victory, he kneels and fastens a necklace around her ankle: "I am willing to be your prisoner." She lifts his chin with a smile: "We have been each other's captives all along."

On our seventh wedding anniversary, I was straddling my Mafia husband, Lucian, kissing him deeply. My fingers fumbled in the pocket of my expensive silk dress, searching for the pregnancy test I'd hidden there. I wanted to save the news of my unexpected pregnancy for the end of the evening. Lucian's right-hand man, Marco, asked with a suggestive smile in Italian: "Don, your new little canary, Sophia. How does she taste?" Lucian's mocking laughter vibrated through my chest, sending a chill down my spine. He replied, also in Italian: "Like an unripe peach. Fresh and tender." His hand was still caressing my waist, but his gaze was distant. "Just keep this between us. If my Donna finds out, I'm a dead man." His men chuckled knowingly, raising their glasses and swearing their silence. The warmth in my blood turned to ice, inch by inch. The one thing they didn’t know was that my grandmother was from Sicily, so I understood every word. I forced myself to remain calm, keeping the perfect smile of a Donna fixed in place, but the hand holding my champagne flute trembled. Instead of making a scene, I opened my phone, found the invitation I had received a few days ago for a private international medical research project, and tapped "Accept." In three days, I would disappear from Lucian's world completely.

Three days before my marking ceremony, someone set fire to the bridal shop while I was inside trying on my ceremonial dress. Alpha Marcus threw the arsonist into the pack prison, sentencing them to the harshest punishment our laws allowed. I lay in the hospital bed, my body covered in third-degree burns, refusing to wake fully as the reality of my disfigurement sank in. In my semi-conscious state, I heard Marcus speaking with the pack's healing witch. "Alpha, we can still heal her completely with the ancient magic. If we wait any longer, Sarah will bear these scars for life! You just want Miss Rachel to be your Luna at the marking ceremony. This is cruel beyond measure!" "Let her keep the scars. I'll provide for her for the rest of her life, but if she's healed, she'll definitely cause trouble at the marking ceremony." "I promised Rachel that her pup would be welcomed into the pack with full honors. Only when Sarah is completely disfigured will she be grateful enough to raise Rachel's child as her own. The scars are necessary - at least this way, she won't dare mistreat the pup." In the corner of the room, where no one was watching, a tear slid down my burned cheek. So this was the truth. The marking ceremony I'd dreamed of was nothing but a lie. The mate bond I longed for would be my death sentence. If that's how it had to be, I would give him what he wanted.

After my fiance’s childhood friend found out I was born with a heart condition, she secretly poured a high-dose energy drink into my champagne. The moment I drank it, my heart started racing, and stabbing pain spread through my chest. In a panic, I tore open my only emergency medication, but the water I used to take it had been swapped with strong lemon water. As soon as I drank it, my face went pale. I lost all strength and collapsed to the ground. “Lemon water’s full of vitamin C. It helps with hangovers and keeps you healthy.” Charlotte Whitmore laughed so hard she nearly doubled over. With her arms crossed, she looked at my fiance, Ethan Cross, the boss of the Rolling Stones. “Ethan, your fiancee’s acting is incredible! “I’ve been a doctor for years, and I’ve never seen anyone react like this to a little champagne and lemon water.” I bit my lip until I tasted blood. The pain made my eyes sting, and I clutched Ethan’s leg. “Honey, please, call an ambulance! I can’t take it anymore…” For a moment, his expression wavered, but the guests quickly cut in. “Come on, stop pretending! Nobody dies from a bit of champagne and lemon water.” “Yeah, you’re just jealous Charlotte got promoted and didn’t want to toast to her.” Ethan’s face turned cold again. He yanked my hand off and stepped away. “Charlotte’s a doctor. You’ll be fine with her here.” I stopped begging and texted my father asking for help

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.

I was born broken. My Alpha mother was the one who branded me. She said emotion was a sin. A weakness. Especially for a werewolf. Especially for an Alpha’s heir. The day we were born, she clamped emotion-suppressing collars around our necks. Mine and my twin sister's. The slightest flicker of emotion, and the collar flashed red. My mother would then push the button, injecting me with a diluted "silver solution" to suppress my feelings. But my sister Cassia's collar? Always a calm, steady blue. Even when she shattered Mom's precious moonstone, it just pulsed gently. And me? I’d just whisper, "Mom, the thunder scares me," and my collar would erupt in a violent red. Then came the sting of silver poison burning through my blood.. I used to argue. But Mom always said the same thing. "The data doesn't lie. Pain is a teacher. This is for your own good." After thousands of these injections, I started to believe it, too. That I was born out of control. The night of the alliance's Moon Goddess Festival, Mom was taking my sister to the rooftop party. Something scared me during the day. The collar flashed red, and my mother started the punishment. But this time, the collar malfunctioned. It shot a dose a thousand times stronger into my neck. I collapsed on the carpet, begging, "Mother, the collar... it hurts so much... help me." My collar was flashing a frantic red. My mother just looked down at me, drenched in a cold sweat, and pressed the button for the maximum dose. "You'd lose control like this just for attention? You're a lost cause." She turned, took my sister, and slammed the door. I couldn't help but think, Mom must be right. The collar is red. It doesn't really hurt. I'm just being dramatic, looking for pity again. I'm sorry, Mom. In my next life, I'll be the perfect daughter you always wanted.

On my eighteenth birthday, the High King summoned the heirs of the four great clans—the Vampires, the Werewolves, the High Serpent Clan, and the Merfolk. He laid their portraits before me and said, "Choose one to be your bondmate." I did not hesitate. I pointed to Damon—the werewolf with no noble bloodline, born in a forgotten corner of the realm. The entire court erupted in disbelief. Everyone knew who I used to love. Alpha Iris—the heir of the most powerful Lycan bloodline. For seven years, I chased him with blind devotion. No matter how harshly he treated me, I never gave up. I confessed to him over and over, sometimes right in the royal court. I even performed a blood-binding ritual—slitting my wrist—to earn the right to marry him. In my previous life, I got what I wanted—I married him and we performed the mate bonding ceremony. With that union, he inherited the High King's resources and rose to become the ruler of all four clans. However, what I did not expect was that after our wedding, he turned around and marked my adoptive sister. My parents were furious and sent her away. From that day on, Iris hated me with a vengeance. He surrounded himself with women who all looked eerily like her. One by one, they came—each more vicious than the last. With his silent approval, they tore me down, piece by piece, until I was nothing more than a joke—no longer the queen I once was. The suffering pushed me into severe depression. Only suppressants keep my wolf form from spiraling out of control. Until one day, my medication was replaced with a slow-acting poison. He was the one who did it. I died alone, locked away in the cold palace, a child still growing inside me. However, fate gave me another chance. In this life, I would not make the same mistake. When the High King once again asked me to choose a partner for the marriage alliance, I chose Damon—the one no one ever noticed—without even blinking.

On my eighteenth birthday, the High King summoned the heirs of the four great clans—the Vampires, the Werewolves, the High Serpent Clan, and the Merfolk. He laid their portraits before me and said, "Choose one to be your bondmate." I did not hesitate. I pointed to Damon—the werewolf with no noble bloodline, born in a forgotten corner of the realm. The entire court erupted in disbelief. Everyone knew who I used to love. Alpha Iris—the heir of the most powerful Lycan bloodline. For seven years, I chased him with blind devotion. No matter how harshly he treated me, I never gave up. I confessed to him over and over, sometimes right in the royal court. I even performed a blood-binding ritual—slitting my wrist—to earn the right to marry him. In my previous life, I got what I wanted—I married him and we performed the mate bonding ceremony. With that union, he inherited the High King's resources and rose to become the ruler of all four clans. However, what I did not expect was that after our wedding, he turned around and marked my adoptive sister. My parents were furious and sent her away. From that day on, Iris hated me with a vengeance. He surrounded himself with women who all looked eerily like her. One by one, they came—each more vicious than the last. With his silent approval, they tore me down, piece by piece, until I was nothing more than a joke—no longer the queen I once was. The suffering pushed me into severe depression. Only suppressants keep my wolf form from spiraling out of control. Until one day, my medication was replaced with a slow-acting poison. He was the one who did it. I died alone, locked away in the cold palace, a child still growing inside me. However, fate gave me another chance. In this life, I would not make the same mistake. When the High King once again asked me to choose a partner for the marriage alliance, I chose Damon—the one no one ever noticed—without even blinking.