

For five years, Gideon—my brother's Beta—and I had a secret.We were supposed to announce our mating at the pack's Winter Solstice festival.Instead, he breathed hot against my ear."Babe, we've been sleeping together for five years. I'm bored with you. Find someone else for the marking ceremony, alright?"I didn't cry. I just gave a calm, simple nod. "Alright."Only because in my last life, I had begged him through tears to complete the bond.After he finally marked me, he grew cold.He never again woke me by rubbing his stubbled chin against my forehead.Even when we made love, he kept his eyes shut, as if he were wit for my life, he left me.He was going to comfort his savior, Aveline. The old wound she suffered saving him had relapsed, sending her into a mental spiral. In that moment, I finally understood.A mark I had to beg for was nothing but a curse, a wound that would never heal.This time, I pulled away with a smile, removing his hand from my waist. "You're right. I'm tired of it, too. We're done."h someone else, just using my body.When I was in agony giving birth to our pup, fighting

Shaw Group executive Elliot Lowe is pushed down by his father-in-law, humiliated by his wife's sisters, and thrown out like an outsider. Heartbroken, he quits and takes the company's core resources with him, driving Shaw Group the edge of collapse. When the Shaw family comes crawling with pleas and threats, he shuts them down one by one, sues the ones trying to extort him, and watches the family fall apart. On his deathbed, Liam Shaw regrets everything and leaves Elliot the family estate, and Elliot takes over to rebuild it. In a marriage of convenience with charity liaison Joy Jensen, he discovers she's actually an undercover enemy, but she switches sides at the last moment. After betrayal and redemption on both sides, they start over on one simple promise not to leave each other.

Seth Stroud, the embodiment of Earth's will, possesses extraordinary talent, breaking through to the Martial God Realm at age ten, though no one believed it. Driven by duty, he helps Sancta Union guard the Demonbane for thirty years, slaughtering demons until they fear to attack. After three decades of peace,the federation leadership and citizens firmly believe peace comes from the demons' kindness and genuine desire for harmony with humanity. Meanwhile, the upper echelons have always viewed Seth as a threat to their power and now plot to eliminate this thorn in their side.