Called by the Token: Her True Mate

Called by the Token: Her True Mate

Noah Reed

5.0
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The fluorescent hum of the county clerk's office was the soundtrack to my defiance. I clutched the pen, ready to marry Liam Thorne, a man I' d run seven days and suppressed a blood-bound token for, all to rewrite a past that still haunted my reborn soul. Before the ink could touch the paper, Liam snatched the license. Rip. My heart stopped. "I have to marry Chloe first," he said, his words echoing the betrayal I remembered from a lifetime ago. He spoke of a week, of saving Chloe' s reputation, but I remembered years in a damp root cellar, the loss of our children. My blood-bound token throbbed as his guards abducted me, dragging me to his coastal estate. There, Chloe, the cousin whose manipulations haunted my first life, paraded in my wedding gown, her triumph chilling. With a staged cry and a splash of fake blood, she framed me. Liam, blinded by her fake tears, roared, "Take her to the old root cellar!" My nightmare was real again. The sting of his slap echoed the cruelty of a past he seemed to have forgotten, but I hadn't. Had he learned nothing? Did he truly believe a week could erase my agony, our lost children, the years in that dark cellar? The blood-bound token, suppressed for so long, now pulsed with a furious, undeniable call. As the heavy door of that dreaded root cellar slammed shut, I finally let go. No more running. No more pretending. My forced apology was a lie, a means to an end. It was time for my people to find me. It was time to go home. And this time, I wouldn't be marrying him. I was going home to Elijah.

Introduction

The fluorescent hum of the county clerk's office was the soundtrack to my defiance.

I clutched the pen, ready to marry Liam Thorne, a man I' d run seven days and suppressed a blood-bound token for, all to rewrite a past that still haunted my reborn soul.

Before the ink could touch the paper, Liam snatched the license.

Rip.

My heart stopped.

"I have to marry Chloe first," he said, his words echoing the betrayal I remembered from a lifetime ago.

He spoke of a week, of saving Chloe' s reputation, but I remembered years in a damp root cellar, the loss of our children.

My blood-bound token throbbed as his guards abducted me, dragging me to his coastal estate.

There, Chloe, the cousin whose manipulations haunted my first life, paraded in my wedding gown, her triumph chilling.

With a staged cry and a splash of fake blood, she framed me.

Liam, blinded by her fake tears, roared, "Take her to the old root cellar!"

My nightmare was real again.

The sting of his slap echoed the cruelty of a past he seemed to have forgotten, but I hadn't.

Had he learned nothing?

Did he truly believe a week could erase my agony, our lost children, the years in that dark cellar?

The blood-bound token, suppressed for so long, now pulsed with a furious, undeniable call.

As the heavy door of that dreaded root cellar slammed shut, I finally let go.

No more running.

No more pretending.

My forced apology was a lie, a means to an end.

It was time for my people to find me.

It was time to go home.

And this time, I wouldn't be marrying him.

I was going home to Elijah.

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A Mission Forged in Torment

A Mission Forged in Torment

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My mother was dying, her laughter stolen by a rare disease. A cosmic system offered me a deal: travel to another world, make a man named Ethan Stone love me, and she would be cured. It seemed easy; Ethan was sweet, attentive, and kind at first. But then, everything changed. Ethan became a monster, breaking up with me repeatedly, each time devising public, humiliating "tests" to win him back. From public apologies to standing in the pouring rain with a sign, I endured it all for my mother. The "tests" escalated - a high-stakes, uninsured motorcycle jump over a canyon that left my leg shattered, a forced tequila chugging contest that ended with me violently retching, and being forced to slap myself senseless on my knees in front of him and his new "protégé," Brittany. The ultimate humiliation came when he forced me to donate a kidney to Brittany without anesthesia, dangling the promise of marriage as incentive. I became numb, a puppet going through the motions. The love I once felt for him died, replaced by a profound emptiness. But the mission parameters were clear: get him to say he loved me, to commit, and my mother would be saved. After enduring unimaginable physical and emotional torment, I finally secured his verbal confirmation. The system announced my mission was complete, and I returned to my own world, my mother miraculously healed. I started a new life, finally free. But my hard-won peace was shattered when Ethan, having traded everything, suddenly appeared, desperate to win me back.

The Price of Deception, A Broken Man

The Price of Deception, A Broken Man

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5.0

For three years, every ache in my artist' s hands, every mile on my delivery bike, every humiliating monster costume in a haunted escape room, had a purpose: Sophia. "Her mother is sick," she' d told me, her eyes wet, "crushed by a mountain of medical debt." So, I worked, pouring every dollar and ounce of my being into a future where her worry would finally vanish. But on a Saturday night, lurking in the stale, fog-filled hall of that escape room, an emergency exit burst open, flooding the space with laughter. And out stumbled Sophia, tangled up with a man, Liam, in an expensive suit, his hand possessively on her waist. "My boyfriend is one of these poor, struggling types," she sneered, oblivious to my presence behind the flimsy foam mask. "An artist. It's almost cute, in a sad way. He thinks my mom's sick. The fool." The world tilted. My vision blurred. She wasn' t just with another man; she was mocking my every sacrifice. Then, a check for fifty thousand dollars, signed by Liam Davis, fluttered from her dropped purse. I, the "starving artist," the "toy," the "fool," had been systematically fleeced, my love twisted into a sick joke. The real Sophia – vibrant, passionate, and deeply in love with Liam – appeared on a security monitor, kissing him, shielding him from the camera, as employees whispered about their engagement. "She' s been playing him this whole time," one said, a chilling confirmation of my shattered reality. Her "mom," Evelyn Davis, Liam' s mother, appeared in a photograph on my nightstand - stark evidence of Sophia' s audacious lies. "It' s over, Sophia," I whispered, broken, walking away from the screams and lies, embracing the cold, hard choice of letting go. Now, stripped of everything, lost and collapsing on a wet street, I knew one thing: I was done waiting for her.

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I was sitting in the Presidential Suite of The Pierre, wearing a Vera Wang gown worth more than most people earn in a decade. It was supposed to be the wedding of the century, the final move to merge two of Manhattan's most powerful empires. Then my phone buzzed. It was an Instagram Story from my fiancé, Jameson. He was at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris with a caption that read: "Fuck the chains. Chasing freedom." He hadn't just gotten cold feet; he had abandoned me at the altar to run across the world. My father didn't come in to comfort me. He burst through the door roaring about a lost acquisition deal, telling me the Holland Group would strip our family for parts if the ceremony didn't happen by noon. My stepmother wailed about us becoming the laughingstock of the Upper East Side. The Holland PR director even suggested I fake a "panic attack" to make myself look weak and sympathetic to save their stock price. Then Jameson’s sleazy cousin, Pierce, walked in with a lopsided grin, offering to "step in" and marry me just to get his hands on my assets. I looked at them and realized I wasn't a daughter or a bride to anyone in that room. I was a failed asset, a bouncing check, a girl whose own father told her to go to Paris and "beg" the man who had just publicly humiliated her. The girl who wanted to be loved died in that mirror. I realized that if I was going to be sold to save a merger, I was going to sell myself to the one who actually controlled the money. I marched past my parents and walked straight into the VIP holding room. I looked the most powerful man in the room—Jameson’s cold, ruthless uncle, Fletcher Holland—dead in the eye and threw the iPad on the table. "Jameson is gone," I said, my voice as hard as stone. "Marry me instead."

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