what were the vikings really like

I am diagnosed with severe systemic lupus erythematosus, and I only have three days left to live. When my husband rejects my 188th plea for help, I take my test results and enter the hospice care center. "Hello, I'd like to schedule my own cremation process and apply for government aid." Ten minutes later, they arrive. Before I can speak, my lawyer husband, Jasper Horton, coldly slaps me across the face. "You're faking a terminal illness just to steal attention from Janice?" My doctor brother, Casey Carter, snatches the medical report from my hand and scoffs at it. "Lupus? If you're going to fake being sick, at least make it believable. Only one in a million people gets this." I endure the pain in my body, return to the counter, and hand in the application form and my medical records once more. The staff member sees the butterfly-shaped rash on my wrist and sympathizes with me. "I have no family left," I say. "I'm requesting cremation in three days, location doesn't matter. I just don't want my death to burden anyone."

Yasmin Cole loses everything to the stepmother and stepsister who spent years quietly dismantling her life from the inside. Her own father throws her out. She survives years of displacement with one thing intact, which is the intention to come back. When she does, she is ready. The moment she sees her stepsister on the arm of her former fiance Shaun Wyatt, she doesn't flinch. She recognizes it immediately for what it is—the perfect opening. They handed her exactly the weapon she needed to take everything back.

Breanna spent eighteen bleak years in an orphanage, struggling daily just to survive while facing constant scorn and abuse. That is, until the day the Chase family sent for her, revealing that she was their long-lost daughter. Overjoyed, she imagined finally finding warmth and a true home. But returning to the Chase household, she discovered that family wasn't what she expected. Her stepsister Luciana appeared gentle and kind, but hid a cunning heart. With unwavering eyes and a single belief,Breanna vowed to clear her name and reclaim everything that was rightfully hers.

Nina Grant had always been doted on by her dad, Warren Grant. But in the end, she finally understood that this was her dad's conspiracy. Everyone thought Warren was a great husband and a great father, but actually, he married Nina's mom only because her dad, Zion Smith, was the Chancellor.When Warren finally got what he wanted, he got the entire Smith family killed. After coming back to life, Nina promised she'd never be bullied again and protect everyone she loved.

When Lynn died, Minna's father met a tragic end at the hands of her half-sister, who shoved him off a high-rise building in front of her own eyes. The man Minna loved most, Ethan, was the one who personally ensured her imprisonment. Enduring three years of torment behind bars, Minna was left shattered by Ethan's parting words: "Take good care of her." Determined to reclaim all that was lost, Minna emerges from her incarceration, vowing to restore what was taken away.

Yarden Zeller is an ordinary food delivery guy, raising his daughter Dora on his own. Dora suffers from a congenital heart condition,making their life a constant struggle. Wendy Smith, Yarden's ex-wife, divorced him after having an affair with Quentin Stone and took most of the family's wealth, leaving Yarden and Dora in hardship. On Dora's sixth birthday, Wendy suddenly reaches out, claiming she's bankrupt and asking to stay with Yarden for a night. Faced with this unexpected request, what will he decide?

Fabian Lynch has been framed, and his entire family was wiped out by a mysterious person. In his darkest hour, a young woman pulled him from the brink. Five years later, he makes a grand comeback as the Northern King, excelling in both medicine and martial arts. He not only seeks his savior to repay the favor but also strikes back fiercely at his enemies. He vows to exact revenge for what has happened to him in the past. However, things aren't as simple as they seem to be...

Lexi Jones signs up for the "Kitty LoveSim" system, a virtual romance game where completing missions earns real-world cash. All she has to do is finish the final task to cash out and exit the game. Committed to doing the job right, Lexi unexpectedly ends up marrying Scott Fuller—the heir to the Fuller empire. What starts as a mission quickly spirals into a wild ride full of awkward laughs, unexpected tenderness,and genuine connection. By the end, Lexi walks away with both the grand prize and a love she never saw coming.

As the Monster Age arrived and special abilities awakened, what awaited humanity was the end of the world. At the brink of the apocalypse, Frank Channing was sent back in time to the second year of the Monster Age. There, he awakened the Infinite Devouring System, allowing him to gain growth points by hunting the monsters. Along with it came a mysterious serpent-shaped mark on his arm. It could transform him into a powerful serpentine creature capable of wielding the very forces of the monster—seemingly tied to the secrets of the Blood Moon. From the system, Frank learned that he carried the mission of saving the world.

My younger sister and I spent ten years fighting over Rowan Vale, the Alpha of Silver Ridge Pack. In my first life, I became his mate. Everyone said he was obsessed with me. Why else would he keep me carrying litters for seven years and give Silver Ridge six heirs? When I went into labor with the seventh, I nearly bled out. Rowan sent the healers away and forced wolfsbane down my throat himself. Only then did he tell me the truth. If it were not for the fact that only a daughter of the Hart bloodline could bear pureblood Alpha heirs, he said, he never would have claimed me at all. I had been useful for one thing only: giving him heirs. Now that he had enough, I had none. I died hating him. In my second life, I handed the bond papers from Silver Ridge Pack to my sister. “Go,” I told her. “You’re the one he wants.” Five years later, she was sent back to me half-starved, shaking, and marked by restraints. Through sobs, she told me Rowan had never loved her either. He had kept her because she was still a Hart daughter, because she could give him heirs, and because her scent could calm him during rut. She died less than two months later. When I opened my eyes again, I was in my third life. The unsigned bond papers from Silver Ridge Pack lay on the table between us, and my sister and I could only stare at each other. Who, exactly, did that Alpha want?

Vincenzo Moretti was Stonehaven’s youngest financial titan— a tech mogul commanding a multibillion-dollar empire, gracing the covers of business magazines as a modern legend. But only a select few knew the truth: he was also the ruthless Don controlling the East Coast mafia. To him, wealth and power were mere chips in a game. And I? I was just another pawn used to stabilize a fragile family alliance. In our ten-year marriage, he slept with my friends, my coworkers… every single person I once trusted. Then one morning, as I took our one-month-old baby for a routine checkup, Sienna Newton, his latest mistress, ran me down with her car. The baby screamed endlessly. I begged her to take us to the hospital, and when Vincenzo arrived, he looked at me with cold disdain. “Isabella,” he sneered, “when did you learn to stage accidents? “Even if you died here, I wouldn’t bat an eye.” Then he took Sienna’s hand and walked away without a backward glance. By the time I was rushed to the hospital, the child in my arms had suffocated. Upon hearing the news, my mother suffered a heart attack. She didn’t survive. I slipped into a coma for two days. When I finally woke up, I found out that Vincenzo never visited. Instead, his father, Renato Moretti, the true king of the Moretti empire, stood by my bedside. I looked at him calmly and said, “Let me go. Whatever I owed your family, I’ve repaid in full with two lives.” Later, that same Don who had once looked down on me knelt before me, begging me to come home. But I was no longer the woman who waited, silent and broken, for his change of heart. I was the Don’s wife who turned away and never looked back.

Born into wealth as a corporate puppet, Leah conceals her icy brutality beneath a facade of gentleness. To escape a toxic engagement and her controlling family, she plots a murder. When Shelly—a desperate underground fighter she once saved—crashes back into her life,drowning in gambling debts, Leah makes her a deal: become her obedient "dog." At first, Leah sees Shelly as a toy, but in this game of control and surrender, this sharpest blade becomes her only weakness. What begins as mutual exploitation spirals into an obsession that could destroy them both.

Kain Harris runs a small shop. He seems unremarkable. He is not.His abilities have quietly compounded into something the outside world, where the highest known level is thirty, has no framework to measure—wooden carvings that manifest as divine forms, comics that accelerate transcendence, a dog that devours celestial bodies, catfish soup that breeds dragons. His wife is a CEO. His admirer is a martial saint. His neighbors are the greatest cultivators in the nation, and they all know exactly what he is. The world beyond his street does not. When it eventually finds out, it will need a moment.

One hundred years after the extinction of all dragons on earth, Matthew manages to awaken as an SSS-rank Dragon Tamer—only to become a “useless genius,” considering there are no dragons for him to tame. As a result, his girlfriend abandons him; his sworn brothers look down on him; and even his usually amiable mentors cast cold, disdainful glances his way. But what no one knows is that Matthew also awakened a power known as the Dragon Rearing System. Under his care, a fiery-red dragon egg quietly hatches; and now, the legendary Five-Colored Dragons are making their return one by one!

Three years ago, Evelyn Lynn's family replaced her with a perfect AI daughter and sent her away to an elite institute, where she was remade into Unit 1314, obedient, hollow, stripped of everything that made her herself.She returns home to find the AI sister has taken over her life completely. Sweet on the surface, the robot works methodically to isolate and destroy her. But Evelyn never stops fighting from within.As the family slowly wakes up to what they lost, she reclaims herself on her own terms and becomes the light she once needed.

Jodie Walsh finds herself transmigrated into a romance novel as the ex-wife who got screwed over. The original character spent five years in an arranged marriage with a CEO tyrant, giving him everything—money, property, her whole heart—only to end up with her family destroyed and herself behind bars. And it gets worse. Her parents, best friend, childhood friends, and basically everyone connected to her was just cannon fodder in the story. Well, time for Jodie to roll up her sleeves and rewrite this mess. Mr. Hotshot CEO? She's going to see how mighty he is after bankruptcy. The pure, innocent female lead? Honey, let's add some darkness to that light. Her parents jumping to their deaths? Not in her version. They'll be doing the disco on her ex-mother-in-law's grave instead. Her bestie killed by her abusive husband? Hmm... such a "wonderful" husband. Let's save him for the female lead's bestie. Her broke aristocratic childhood friends? Here, one business opportunity each, and boom, instant CEOs, easy peasy. And the supposed villain? With that face and those abs? No one's going to object to him being the male protagonist. What's that? You're asking what makes her so badass? Jodie beckons to the mafia boss. "Babe, you tell them." "Simple." Mafia boss grins. "She's the boss lady."

Ice-cold CEO Maddison Perkins adopts a gifted little boy named Arthur to safeguard her family's company. At just six years old, Arthur is not only a child prodigy with incredible strength, but also fiercely protective of his mom. Time and again, he steps in to defuse crises—and in doing so, chips away at Maddison's guarded heart with his boundless love and warmth. When Uncle Brendon makes move after move to bring them down, Maddison and Arthur team up,outsmarting him at every turn to protect what's rightfully theirs.

As the most powerful man in Rivton City, Barlow Sapir hated the most when women threw themselves at him. However, the first time he met Elvira Ann, the latter solemnly declared, "I'm not interested in you, Barlow Sapir." The second time, she swore to God, "I won't sleep with you." Then there was the third time… the fourth time… But little did Elvira know, Barlow Sapir desired nothing more than her love. The more she tried to get rid of him, the more he yearned for her. What could she do?