The River: A Novel Novels & Stories

The night I have my bonding ceremony with the Alpha, Walter Zimmer, he gets drunk even though he usually never touches any alcohol. Just as I'm at a loss for what to do, my best friend, Rose Larson, sends me a message detailing how to take care of a drunken werewolf. Despite feeling doubtful, I do as she suggests, and Walter truly does fall asleep peacefully. Just as I'm about to thank Rose, Walter suddenly hugs me from behind. His hot breath brushes against my neck as he murmurs a sentence that utterly breaks my heart. "Rose, you're the one I wanted to mark…" My world crumbles around me, but that's not all. His shirt slips down his shoulder when he moves, revealing the rose tattooed right over his heart. My mind goes blank, and all I can do is stare at the tattoo. I refuse to believe what I'm seeing. I've known Rose for 20 years, and she's my closest friend. As it turns out, Walter didn't get drunk because he was overjoyed about becoming my mate. He simply used the alcohol to drown his sorrows over not being able to take the she-wolf he wanted as his Luna. In that moment, our newly formed mate bond seems like nothing but a joke. Since that's the case, I decide to give up my position as the Luna and let them be together. However, after I leave, Walter loses control and shifts into his wolf. He then claws the rose tattoo to shreds. "Lily, I was mistaken. You're the Luna I truly love. Please, give me another chance to love you again…"

In order to get her family's love, she always pretended to be ugly and dumb. But instead of getting her family's attention, what she got was hatred and disgust. What's more her family set her marriage, instead of her sister, to a cripple and impotent man. On the day of her wedding, her own mother came to her and begged her. "Your sister deserves much better. You have to help her!" Lost in despair, she agreed to meet her family's decision and married to her sister's fiancée. On her wedding night, her husband looked at her and frowned, "You are too ugly." So what do you think will happen when she marries to that man? Will she regret or there will be some miracle in her life?

Eve grew up in a small town. Having a difficult time she runs away trying to escape the ghosts of her past. Ghost don't stay away for long. After meeting a mysterious stranger and all around bad boy she falls back into her old patters. Eventually she's forced to face everything and everyone she ran away from...including her ex boyfriend.

Alina is born premature. Due to her weak state as a baby she is ordered to be executed and left in the past while her alpha father replaces her with another baby. An omega saves her life and runs away choosing the rogue life for her safety. Years pass by and soon she is spotted by her brother. However neither one knows they are related. He sees her wolf form and knows she is a healer wolf something that could only happen in a purebred family. A family like his. This throws her into a whole different world where she is forced to marry the alpha king to manipulate her to give her everything to eve to make him happy. Slowly draining her of life. After almost loosing her wolf while healing eve. eve comes out of her coma. tormenting her relentlessly. Soon after the alpha king divorces her and throws her just outside his borders. When returning to the omega who once saved her she finds out she is pregnant. And only one man can be the father

I wanted to break away from her, be free... but why did she step on all my plans? Why did she want to keep me chained to her? She made me numb for the longest time until I met Dominic Black. He made a fire spark in my empty chest. He made me feel things, things I'd never felt before. I wanted to have him... except, he would now be my new stepbrother. Just another thing my mother took from me.

The day my birth parents found me, the reunion banquet they threw turned into their funeral. My parents and their adopted daughter, Leila, died of food poisoning that night. The only one who survived was my older brother, Alpha Kian. He didn’t like sweets, so he never touched the cake. The cake that I handed to them myself. “So you want to take Leila’s place. “You’re just jealous because she got all our love! “She was the only one who ever accepted you, and you still killed her!” Those were Kian’s exact words as he shouted at me right outside the hospital room. From that day on, I became a sinner. To make up for it, I barely slept four hours a night and worked five jobs just to buy back the villa the rival pack seized during the chaos. However, the day I finally saved up enough, I saw my dead parents throwing a birthday party for Leila in that very villa. Kian stood among them, looking at her with a warmth I didn’t recognize. My mother said, “Isn’t today also Lily’s birthday? It’s been eight years. Maybe it’s time to forgive her.” However, Kian didn’t hesitate to refuse. “No. Even though Leila sniffed out the wolfsbane and saved you, we agreed that Lily gets ten years. “We can’t risk her ever trying to poison Leila again. Not even a day less.” I clutched the diagnosis paper from the clinic tightly and laughed through my tears. I knew I wouldn’t get to ten years. I was already dying.

Joshua Thompson, Rain Zimmer’s husband, had a deceased ex he could never get over—Lily Smithson. Rain always hoped that there would come one day where she could replace Lily’s presence in Joshua’s heart. In the eighth year of their marriage, Rain accidentally destroyed a bowl Lily had bought on a whim for Joshua, and Joshua yelled at her, “Get out! I don’t want to see you!” At that moment, Rain finally came to realize that she could never win against Rain’s ex. This time, she quietly drafted the divorce agreement and left, but Joshua panicked.

The entire pack knows that my Alpha mate, Cassian Blackhowl, treasures me more than his own life. Against everyone's objections, he chooses me, an Omega, to be his mate. Before we form a mate bond, I suffer from a blood disease and hover at death's door. Cassian searches the world, draining his fortune, just to find someone with a blood type that matches mine so that I can have a transfusion to save my life. He stays by my bedside for months, never leaving, until I finally recover. But after we form a mate bond, I'm unable to conceive a pup. Cassian simply smiles and says, "Then I'll just have to try harder until you get pregnant." We get lost in our acts of passion more frequently until I finally carry a pup. However, I lose the pup, and the cycle repeats. Each time, the agony tears through me like my body is being ripped apart, leaving me weaker and weaker. Seeing me in such torment, Cassian gathers me into his arms. "Let's not try for a pup anymore. We can always adopt one." … Five years pass, and just as he once promised, he makes me the most envied she-wolf in the pack. But on the very day of our five-year bond anniversary, I receive a message. It's an invitation to a pup's birthday party. The message is withdrawn almost instantly, but not before I see the names of the parents—Cassian Blackhowl and Elara Wolfhart. I stand there, frozen stiff. Cassian is my mate. My Alpha. My life. And Elara is the she-wolf who once saved me with her blood.

When my adopted sister, Alayna Ewing, hears that I'm with pup, she specifically gives me the body oil she's made. I accept it with a smile on my face. But later on, I smear the oil all over the belly of the old lady next door, who's diagnosed with a uterine tumor. After all, I have gotten reborn on this very day. In my past life, Alayna had formed a mate bond with Misael Finch, the Alpha of the Darkspire pack. She desperately needed to bear an heir for Alpha Misael in order to strengthen her position as the Luna. Unfortunately, her being an Omega meant that it'd be very difficult for her to conceive. So, she hatched a scheme against me, a newly pregnant she-wolf. Alayna bribed a dark sorcerer to cast a surrogate pregnancy curse on me. As long as I smelled something that she made, the pup in my womb would be transferred into her womb instantly. I spent entire pregnancies caring for my pup meticulously. I even endured the pain of countless shots in order to keep my pup safe. But whenever I was about to give birth, my pup would still end up disappearing. Alayna, on the other hand, gave birth to three heirs who inherited powerful bloodlines from their father. Thanks to that, her position as the Luna was greatly strengthened, and she got to live a lavish and comfortable life. In the end, Alayna had slandered me by claiming that I was overcome by lust during my pregnancy, so I ended up having passionate moments with Rogues. That was how I lost my pup every single time. With my reputation in tatters, I was exiled from the pack and forced to live the remainder of my days as a Rogue. In the end, I froze to death in winter. Now that I'm reborn, I shall grant Alayna her wish, seeing as she really wants an heir of her own. The healers have mentioned that it's their first time seeing such a huge uterine tumor, after all. Oh, I can't imagine what sort of expression Alayna will wear when she finds out that she's given birth to such a big tumor!

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."