Counter Attack Novels & Stories

Sebastian Miller was my Alpha mate. Because I asked him to remove his Beta, Charlotte Lewis, from her position, we had a huge fight. After that, he shut me out completely. Three months later, he assumed I had realized my mistake and suggested that we go on a vacation to Highfeather Forest. The moment Charlotte found out, she exploded. She screamed at Sebastian, made a scene, and even threatened to leave the pack. To calm her down, Sebastian canceled our trip. He used a business deal as an excuse and gave the vacation spot to her instead. Afterward, he offered me a shallow explanation. “I’m the Alpha of this pack. The pack’s interests have to come first. As the Luna, you should understand that.” I looked at the post Charlotte shared on her feed. The two of them stood by the lake, close and intimate, like true mates enjoying a private getaway. I knew everything they had done, but I said nothing. I only nodded. Sebastian mistook my silence for understanding. He seemed pleased with me, even promised that one day he would make the trip up to me. What he did not know was that I had already signed the withdrawal agreement to leave the pack. I had also gone to a witch and obtained the potion to sever a mate bond. It was time for this to end.

My best friend Chloe and I married into the mob. We married two brothers. I married the monster, Don Adriano. She married his wild younger brother, Lorenzo. It was an arranged marriage. I expected nothing. His heart belonged to his childhood sweetheart, Isabella. Then my father died. My autistic brother, Leo, became my world. I signed over my family’s entire shipping empire to Adriano. He held me that night. Kissed the tears from my eyes. He swore he’d protect us forever. I believed him. That was my mistake. Three days ago, a rival family hit us. They left Leo bleeding out in my arms. I got him to our private hospital. It was empty. Not a single doctor on duty. I called Adriano, screaming for help. He had sent every last doctor to Isabella’s villa. "A storm's coming. Isabella is terrified of thunder. The stress could trigger her heart condition. I can't risk it. Your brother has a scratch. Patch him up. I’ll deal with it tomorrow." He hung up. While Isabella slept safely in his arms, I lost my brother. I cried all night, holding Leo's cold body. When I woke up, I told Chloe I wanted a divorce. She held me, sobbing. She said she was leaving Lorenzo, too. The Moretti brothers didn't know a thing until they were both served divorce papers. Then they went insane.

My fiancé, Charles, was crippled during a pack skirmish. He lost his wolf, leaving him unable to shift. My stepsister, Quinn, who had always despised me, eagerly offered to take my place in the mating ceremony. Her only condition was my grandmother’s antique necklace. Everyone said I was lucky to escape a life with a broken wolf. Only I knew I had dodged a death sentence. In my previous life, I used my healing gift to restore Charles’s wolf and became the celebrated Luna of the Sterling Pack. But Quinn, searching for a moonstone for Charles in the Forbidden Lands, was captured by a rival pack and tortured to death. Charles never marked me. Instead, he locked me away and starved me to death. "If you had just given Quinn the necklace, she wouldn't have been mauled by rogues," he’d snarled. "You can atone for your sins in hell!" Only then did I realize they had already forged a mate bond. The ceremony with me was nothing but a desperate charade. Reborn, I found myself back before the ceremony, just as Charles proposed the same arrangement to Quinn. But they don’t know. The only one who can heal Charles is me, not some cursed moonstone.

Ethan and I met at a soup kitchen in the slums. We were fighting over half a moldy bread roll. I only learned his story from other people later. His father was the head of Lorencio's largest crime family, killed in a bloody power struggle from within. His mother took a payout and vanished. My father was an accountant for another family. He was framed for cooking the books and shot dead. Same story, same wound. That was what brought us together. We clawed our way up from a crumbling slum to the marble halls of the Lorencio crime families, until finally Ethan took his seat as Don of the Valeria Family. Nine years of marriage. No church. No proposal. Not even a proper cake. Then one day, out of nowhere, Ethan said he wanted to get me a diamond ring. "We had no church and no priest when we got married. I've been meaning to do this properly for a long time. And there'll be more to come." I stared at the custom diamond in the display case, enormous and flawless, and felt something close to happiness. The sales associate smiled and complimented his taste, mentioning that another couple had just ordered a ring too. They'd walked out minutes ago, planning a proposal for tomorrow. "Nine years together and still this in love. That's everything." I reached for his hand. He stepped away, said he needed to take a call. I hadn't heard his phone ring. I followed. Down the hallway, I watched him press a woman against the wall, his mouth on hers. His voice was sharp with jealousy. "You actually agreed to let him propose to you?" "Break it off. I'll buy you the ring." I stood frozen. My chest caved in. Then a pair of hands pulled me into a fitting room alcove. A man's breath was close, warm in the dark. A low voice, almost amused: "Your husband's sleeping with my fiancée. Why don't we give it a try too?"

Since I was a kid, my parents drilled it in—you're gonna be a Corleone girl, Giovanni Corleone's property. "This is just an alliance. Don't expect anything more." That's what he said on our wedding night. So I played the part—quiet, polished, dutiful. Then year three hit, and suddenly Giovanni couldn't keep his hands off me. Every night, something new. I thought maybe—finally—he felt the same way I had all along. Then I caught him kissing his stepmom. Funny. Just the night before, he told me kissing me made him sick. "I've been practicing with her—for your sake." So yeah. All that heat? Just rehearsal for her. So I ran. Took back my life—and our unborn daughter. The Don lost his mind looking for me. Begged me to come back—with the kid. But I would not stop for him anymore. I turned and walked straight toward the stage that was always mine.

Among our kind, there's an old rule. Every Luna must carry a token of her rank, and only the woman wearing that token has the right to stand at the Alpha's side. I'd been with Damien Cole for seven years. For the Luna token, I gave him everything. I took care of him down to the smallest detail. I once threw myself between him and a rogue's claws, which is why there's a scar across my stomach that will never fade. And then, at the pack banquet, Serena walked in on Damien's arm in a couture gown and, in front of everyone, dared me to hand over the moonstone ring that marked me as Luna. Damien saw the whole thing. He said nothing. He let it happen. Everyone waited for me to scream, to make a scene. I didn't. I slid the moonstone ring off my finger, calm as anything, and pushed it onto hers. "It suits you better than it ever suited me." Something like surprise flickered behind Damien's eyes, but it melted fast into smugness. "Aurora. You finally learned your place." I kept my head down. The corner of my mouth curved. I hadn't learned my place. A month ago, I got back every memory I'd lost. I'm the Alpha King's long-lost daughter. In three days, he's coming to take me home himself.

My anxiety spiked during our wedding photoshoot. A sharp pain stabbed through my chest. My fiancé, Caius—the Falcone family heir—was helping his adoptive sister, Fiorella, try on my wedding dress. He didn't even spare me a glance. He was on one knee, focused on adjusting the lace on Fiorella’s hem. Before we’d even left the shop, Fiorella posted a selfie in the dress. She was all smiles, my fiancé standing beside her, posed like her groom. Calmly, I pulled out my phone. I sent a message to a painter I keep on retainer. "A royal portrait. The two of them. Old-world style. Use the cheapest materials you can find. I want the frame dripping with fake diamonds. Make it look like trash." I'll have it sent to Fiorella. A wedding present. The note will be simple. "A work of art as priceless as your bond. Best wishes on your wedding."

Eight months pregnant, a contraction tore through me like a blade. But my husband, the Mafia boss Darren, refused to take me to the hospital. His sister-in-law, Angelina, his late brother's widow, was also due. To ensure she gave birth before me, she produced so-called proof of my infidelity, insisting the child I carried was no true Falcone. Because the heir to the Falcone family had to be the firstborn grandson. Darren believed her. He locked me in an abandoned wine cellar. “Don't think for a second I don't know what you've been up to.” “Let me tell you, you're not giving birth to that bastard until I've verified its bloodline myself.” “Angelina’s boy is of pure blood. I have to make sure her boy is the family's firstborn grandson.” I tried desperately to explain. “My water is about to break! Please, take me to the hospital! He’s your son, I swear on my life!” “I’ll never fight for the position of heir! I just want my baby to be safe!” Darren simply kicked me and shot me a glance. “Who knows if you’ll change your mind later? Don’t worry. I’ll come for you after Angelina gives birth. When the baby is born, I’ll see for myself whose it is.” Later, as he gazed at the crying infant in Angelina's arms, he finally thought of me. But one of his men informed him, his voice trembling: “Boss, the Madam… and the child… they're both dead.”

My marriage to Dante, the Moretti heir, was meant to be a union of power, an alliance of empires. But for me, it was also the real deal. Then his adopted sister, Clara, showed up at a party. She was wearing his custom leather jacket, straddling his prized Ducati, and she looked right at me with a smirk. "Dante says," she purred, "that I suit these precious things better than you do." My smile froze. Dante had her on a plane overseas so fast it was like she'd never existed. Five years later, the night before our wedding. I found him staring at the design for our wedding rings. He'd changed the engraving. The "Amor Aeternus"—Eternal Love—was gone. In its place: "Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa." My sin, my greatest sin. I took off my veil right then and there. "The wedding," I said, my voice like ice, "is off."

When I returned from a mission, I found my Alpha mate, Wyatt, had tattooed his Beta's sigil next to our sacred mating mark. I cut my mission short, stormed back to the pack, and publicly declared my intent to Reject him. The mating mark is sacred, a symbol of two souls eternally bound. Desecrating it is the gravest insult to the Moon Goddess. Wyatt tore the rejection papers to shreds, casting them to the ground. Fury blazed in his wolfish eyes. "Over a sigil? You're tearing us apart over a meaningless symbol. Are you insane?" "Do I look like I'm kidding?" I sneered. "Fine. Let the Moon Goddess be your judge." The color drained from his face. "Faye, if you dare go through with this, I'll strip Rory of his birthright. He'll never be Alpha." "How could I be cursed with a mother like you? You're ruining my future as Alpha! I hate you!"My son, Rory, snarled from the side, his eyes burning with hatred. I looked at this father and son, who was now both strangers to me, and my heart turned to ash. My fingers tightened on my herb pouch. "The moment your father desecrated our mark," I said, my voice eerily calm, "I was already done with you."