Why Does The Protagonist Fall Ill In Pale Horse, Pale Rider?

My Alpha's ex-girlfriend finds an excuse to move in with us. Whenever she sees me and my pup, she clutches her chest and acts like she's devastated. My Alpha is sure that I'm deliberately showing off our pup to upset her. "I can't believe you keep flaunting our pup to get on Cissy's nerves! I have to teach you a lesson!" He orders his men to have our pup and me thrown into the basement. No one is allowed to bring me food. I try to escape, and I beg for mercy. I tell him our pup is weak because I wasn't in the best of health when carrying it. I also tell him a healer has advised me to be hospitalized for further treatment. He sounds like he's heard the world's biggest joke, and his tone is cold as he says, "How can you be weak when you made it out of being ambushed in the forest? Stop trying to make yourself seem pitiful! Stay in the basement and repent! This is what you get for making things hard for Cissy!" What he doesn't know is that, when I save him from the attack, I lose my wolf because I am injected with wolfsbane. During my pregnancy, I am also hospitalized many times in order to prevent miscarriage due to the fact that my body is too weak. The pup is in poor health and has been receiving treatment since birth. In the basement, I slash my wrists to feed my pup with my blood, but he still dies in my arms. My devastated howls reverberate in the space. Losing my wolf means I no longer have the ability to heal myself. I lie in a puddle of my blood as I hold my pup's cold body close. Three days later, my Alpha decides he wants me back when he drinks a cup of coffee that isn't to his liking. He says, "Let my Luna out so she can make me coffee and apologize to Cissy. She and the pup can be taken to the hospital if she's sincere enough." No one dares obey his orders—my blood is already flowing out of the basement.

Buried deep in the Aster estate was the Heartwood—ancient, sacred, mine. Told my husband, Julian Aster—back when he actually listened—that if it ever fell, I'd die with it. At first, he freaked out. Flew in glacier water, hired a whole squad of plant experts to nurture it 24/7. Then one day, just because his childhood friend—Isabella Duvall—got a scratch from the bark, Julian had the Heartwood ripped out. The second it crashed, I choked on glowing blood—ichor. My power? Gone. Barely standing, I grabbed his arm. "You knew. If the Heartwood dies, I—" He laughed. Straight-up mocked me. "Sera, come on. That fairy tale? Only Grandma still believes that crap. Is that mayo on your mouth? Relax—it's a tree. I'll buy you a forest if you want." Overnight, my hair turned gray. Skin cracked. Eyes dulled. Still, I dragged myself to his grandmother, Henrietta. "I kept your family safe for two hundred years. That's why the Asters thrived. But the Heartwood's gone. Debt's paid. One day left. Whatever happens next? Not my problem."

Book 1 in the Under the Moon Series: Kayden has just finished celebrating his eighteenth birthday with his friends in one of the most popular clubs in town. During his journey home, he runs into a strange man named Rakesh who seems to know Kayden's father. His parents had gone missing when Kayden was a child. Though handsome enough, something about Rakesh really irks Kayden. Perhaps it's all the nonsense he and his grandparents keep going on about, or maybe it is just Rakesh's smug smirk that ticks him off? But whatever the reasons, Gods, Spirits... Vampires? Who believes in those old myths? Not Kayden! Book 1: Under the Pale Moon Book 2: Under the Blue Moon Book 3: Under the Crimson Moon: A Dragon's Pride

The day before the race, I burned my car and announced my withdrawal. Overnight, my fanbase collapsed. Supporters unfollowed in droves, and casual fans turned on me just as viciously. Jasper, the man who had always treated me as his only real rival, put on a show of false concern. “Without him, the race feels too lonely. No matter what, I still hope he’ll return to the track and face me properly.” I sneered. In my previous life, the racecar I had painstakingly modified ended up identical to his. No matter how many videos I released of full recordings of every step I personally took, all Jasper had to do was tearfully tell his fans, “Then let Finn use it. He needs it more than I do. I’ll win on my own strength.” And just like that, I became the shameless thief in everyone’s eyes. Later, the moment I started my car, the components inside exploded, and I was left in a vegetative state. His fans called it karma. Even on the day my fiancée pulled out my oxygen tube and watched me die, I still couldn’t understand. Why had everything that belonged to me—my career, my girlfriend—all become Jasper’s? When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day the race schedule was first announced.

The little boy I had saved when we were kids grew up to be a possessive, obsessive CEO. For ten years, he kept me by his side, using my grandmother's illness as a bargaining chip to force me into marrying him. He tried everything to win my heart, pulling every trick in the book, but no matter what he did, he could never make me love him. In a fit of rage, he found a woman who looked almost exactly like me to take my place. They flaunted their relationship for everyone to see, and people whispered that the CEO had finally found his true love. But that day, the woman, riding on his affection, barged into the villa with her entourage. She broke my fingers one by one, slashed my face with a utility knife, and removed my clothes to humiliate me. "Even though you had surgery to look like me, I'll let that slide. But you even learned to paint like me, too? You really did your homework. Let's see how you try to seduce men now!" Just as I was bleeding out and on the verge of death, the obsessive CEO finally showed up. The stand-in grabbed my hair and dragged me in front of him, smugly reporting, "Honey, this wench was hiding in the villa trying to seduce you. I've made sure she can't succeed!"

My mother is a forensic doctor. When she's at the market for some grocery shopping, she sees human flesh being sold at a butcher's stall. She calls the police before contacting my cousin to tell her to stay safe. Her friend reminds her to also pay attention to me, but my mother is scornful. "She can die out there for all I care. I never want to see her again!" She doesn't know that she's already seen me, though. She didn't recognize her daughter from the pile of flesh that's waiting for her examination.