Who Are The Main Characters In 'Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke'?

The children of the Guardians have grown up together. Emlyn Gunnar has known Richard Holstin her entire life. She gives her virginity to him when she is 16, on the night of his Alpha ceremony. For the next year and a half, they date in secret. Emlyn has fallen in love with Richie and dreads the day he finds his mate. But as her 18th birthday draws near, she is feeling more confident that he is her mate. Due to an impromptu moment of unprotected sex a couple of weeks before her birthday, Emlyn finds herself pregnant with Richie's baby. On her birthday, when she realizes he is her mate, she is relieved. She knows Richie wants to have a baby, they just weren't planning on one so soon. At her birthday party, the moment her wolf howls that Richie is her mate, saying it out loud for everyone to hear, Richie also cries mate. Only, he isn't looking at Emlyn. He is looking at a female from another pack. When Richie refuses to reject her, letting her escape the pain of his romance with his “mate”, she will have to be the one to reject him, causing him to feel the pain of the shattered mate bond. Before he can decipher what is going on, Emlyn leaves. She goes to Araphyra, to the Fae King, to find out how she can break her Guardian bond with Richie. If he's not her mate, then she isn't going to be his Guardian. Richie will have to race against time and Emlyn to figure out why they have a mate bond he can't feel. But will he be fast enough to keep her from breaking the Guardian bond, the last bond tying her to him, or will their bonds be shattered forever?

Briella Hart has spent her entire life fading into the background. The quiet girl with an alcoholic mother and an absentee father who ditched them years ago without a backwards glance. Gossip and mockery follow her wherever she goes. She learns early on that dreams do not come true for people like her. Especially not the dream that she has secretly carried for years. Ryder Landon is untouchable, powerful, and everything that she can never have. The Alpha heir to the Crescent Moon pack, everyone either wants to be him or be with him. He is known. But beneath the hardened exterior, he’s a guy who feels everything too deeply. The weight of leadership, fear of failure, and constantly needing to balance what his pack needs with what his heart wants. Then one devastating night at the Full Moon Festival changes everything. Humiliated and heartbroken, Briella disappears without a trace, leaving behind only a note echoing Ryder’s cruelest words—and a secret that could destroy them both. For five long years, Ryder searched for Briella, but the trail always turned cold. When their paths cross again, she is different. No longer the timid girl who moved about unnoticed. Quickly, Ryder realizes three things. One, his heart still belongs to her despite the distance. Two, there is a little boy named Liam who has her hair and his eyes. Three, someone wants her dead. Now, with enemies closing in and someone determined to see Briella dead, Ryder realizes he is running out of time. Because losing her once nearly destroyed him. He will not survive losing his family twice.

Four years ago, I committed the ultimate sin. I almost killed my adoptive mother, and for that, I was sentenced to a living hell. My father caged my wolf, stripped my dignity, and bartered me off like livestock to a ruthless CEO to seal a blood alliance. I didn't fight. I didn't scream. I quietly accepted the chains and walked away from the fated mate bond I shared with my step-brother. Damon Enzo Vitale was my first heartbreak—the man I once loved, and the man who truly hated me. Now, I’m back in Vesper City, but the girl Damon once knew is gone. In her place stands a woman shattered by a monster’s touch, clutching a dying daughter to her chest. I have nowhere left to run except into the arms of the man I once sacrificed everything to leave. -- Ophelia Vitale is a harbinger of ruin and a shameless seductress. Four years ago, she brought our family to the brink of collapse and walked away from the fated mate bond we shared without a backward glance. I, Damon Enzo Vitale, have spent every night since fueling my hatred for her, trying to burn away the memories she left branded on my soul. But the woman who collapsed on that highway isn’t the girl I remember. She’s covered in scars I can’t explain and carrying a child with my family's eyes. As I look into the trauma she’s desperate to hide, the foundations of my world begin to crack. Was my hatred truly valid? Or had I been blinded by a web of lies designed to destroy us both?

Holly thought she had it all—a decade-long marriage to the love of her life, Michael, a cozy home, and a sense of stability. But when Michael starts pulling away and forming a suspiciously close bond with a charming coworker, Holly feels the familiar pangs of being invisible in her own love story. Determined not to jump to conclusions, she supports Michael through his stress, even as her own insecurities and loneliness deepen. But everything changes during his work trip. Faced with the slow unraveling of her marriage, Holly chooses herself for the first time in years. She throws herself into therapy, fitness, and healing—reconnecting with parts of herself she had long buried. By chance, she meets Finn, a magnetic bartender with a guarded past and a knack for listening. Their late-night conversations turn into something more… something safe, yet electric. Now caught between the ashes of a long-term love and the flicker of something new, Holly must answer the hardest question of all: Can love survive betrayal—or is it time to let go of what once was, to make room for what could be?

I was born into hardship, but my beauty led to my adoption by the Maddox family. When I was 18, they brought home two boys. Dustin Holland, a piano prodigy, quickly bonded with my sister, who was the darling of our social circle. Nathan Holland remained in the shadows. He didn't like to talk, laugh, or even show the normal emotional fluctuations of a person. His stubborn, wooden gaze was like that of an abandoned stray dog. Diagnosed with emotional detachment disorder, he became my project. I vowed to heal him. He locked me in a dark room, scarred my face with a branch, and encased my favorite doll in plaster. I forgave it all, thinking he was just traumatized. The elite in the circle mocked us, urging me to abandon him, but I kissed him publicly, declaring, "I love Nathan. Anyone who hurts him will pay." Then a fire tore through our home. Nathan stepped over my broken body to save my sister, his eyes wet with rare tears. Turned out, his disorder had a cure. It was just not me. Reborn on the day they arrived, I looked at the taciturn boy and sneered, "Dad, must we take in every stray?"

When Scarlett Hudson left her home-town, she never thought she'd have to go back one day. But when tragedy strikes she's forced to return to the very place that broke her. She has to face the people who had made her life a living hell three years ago, her former best-friend Hunter Adams being one of them. Scarlett knows that the past can't be undone and she has no intention of letting down the walls she has built so carefully around her heart. But when the truth starts to unravel, Scarlett is forced to question everything she once believed in.