My Substitute Bride Wasn't Supposed to Bite

Age Gap Romance/Arranged Marriage/Strong Heroine/Found Family/Revenge/Slow Burn Romance Nineteen-year-old Clarice Sullivan was forced by her scumbag father to marry Theodore Grant, a man of thirty-one. On their wedding night, Theodore, transformed into a ravenous wolf, left her utterly exhausted. "I thought you said you couldn't?" she muttered, rubbing her aching lower back. "Aren't men in their thirties supposed to know some restraint?" Theodore, irritated, pinned her down again. "Round two!" he growled. After marriage, Theodore switched into full protective-and-doting-husband mode. "Darling, my worthless father is trying to hit me again!" "Just wait," Theodore snapped, his temper flaring. He promptly dismantled the entire Sullivan family. "Darling, she drugged me-tried to hand me over to another man!" Clarice pointed accusingly at her wicked half-sister. Theodore's fury erupted. He slapped the woman hard across the face and ensured her reputation was ruined beyond repair. With Theodore's unwavering devotion backing her, Clarice repaid every slight and cruelty a thousandfold. When others criticized her for being spoiled, Theodore scoffed, "I'm the one who spoiled her-got a problem with that?"

Chapters

Chapter 1

The bar was deafening, but Clarice Sullivan was floating too high on adrenaline to care. She'd just pulled off a killer prank on her obnoxious half-sister, Lydia, and the thrill was still singing in her veins. This called for a celebration. She let herself go, drink after drink, melting into the euphoric buzz. So when her best friend, Chloe, leaned in with a wild dare, Clarice didn't hesitate.

"Alright, Clarice," Chloe yelled over the music, a mischievous glint in her eyes. "Here's the bet: if the next person through that door is a guy, you go up and kiss him-right on the lips. No excuses. If you do it, I'll cover your drinks for a month. If you chicken out. you have to post that cringey baby photo of you in the bathtub on your Instagram story. Deal?"

"Deal! A bet is a bet-spit it out!" Clarice laughed. The buzz in her head kept her from realizing just how audacious this wager really was. Kissing a man! She seemed to have completely forgotten she was a substitute bride.

Perhaps her boldness came from her completely new look: pink hair, a black sequined crop top, and ripped denim shorts. But the real statement was her makeup - daring neon eyeshadow and blood-red lips. She looked nothing like her usual self.

Just then, the door swung open. A tall, broad-shouldered man stepped inside, silhouetted against the dim light. A man. Clarice's heart gave a rebellious leap.

"Go get him, tiger!" Chloe urged, giving her a push.

This was it. The ultimate act of defiance. She strode toward him, the crowd seeming to part for her. He was tall, so she had to tilt her head up, her eyes landing first on his perfectly sculpted lips. They looked. frustratingly kissable.

"C'mere, handsome," she breathed, rising onto her toes and closing the distance.

Her lips met his.

And for a single, shocking second, something felt. familiar.

Then, a vise-like grip clamped onto her wrist, yanking her away. "Get off me," a voice snapped, cold enough to freeze the air in her lungs.

Clarice stumbled back, her wrist throbbing. But the bet was won. She flashed a triumphant grin back at Chloe before turning, finally, to really look at him.

The world slowed to a crawl.

He was devastatingly handsome, with a jawline sharp enough to cut and eyes so intense they seemed to pin her in place. But his gaze was glacial, filled with pure, undiluted annoyance.

And. she knew that face.

Not from magazines or society pages. No.

The recognition hit her - she had seen that face in her bed.

"Theo-" The name choked in her throat, a strangled whisper. Her blood turned to ice.

Oh, god. No.

Theodore Grant. Her husband, and the head of the Grant family, one of Velmont's five major powers.

To nineteen-year-old Clarice, thirty-one-year-old Theodore seemed old enough to be her uncle. The rumors about him never ceased-some claimed he was grotesquely ugly, others that he preferred men, that he was impotent, or that his temper was so cruel and violent that no woman dared to stay.

The sight of him brought back the sickening truth of her forced substitution. Her father and stepmother had used her beloved older sister as leverage, threatening her until she agreed to become the sacrificial substitute in Lydia's marriage to the Grant family.

Good thing he didn't recognize her, honestly.

Of course he hadn't. How could he?

From the moment she had been delivered to the Grant mansion two weeks ago, their union existed only in the dark. He came to her room at night for wordless, intense meetings. He knew her body better than her face, having never seen her in daylight-and certainly not like this, rendered unrecognizable by layers of cosmetics.

The rumors of his coldness? She could confirm them.

But the rest. especially the one about his impotence? A hollow, soundless laugh escaped her. If leaving her breathless and unraveling her to the point of climax-again and again-was his idea of impotence, she dared not imagine what actual competence would feel like.

Clarice's heart beat like a frantic bird against her ribs. She had to go. Now. She couldn't risk another moment, couldn't give Theodore a chance to recognize her.

Turning on her heel, she fled the bar without a single word to Chloe.

On the cab ride home, Clarice grabbed her headphones to call Chloe and explain the mess.

But right as she was about to hit dial, her phone lit up with an incoming call.

"Ma'am!" It was Mr. Chambers from the Grant house.

"Hey, Mr. Chambers! Just finished up some study group stuff-on my way home now," she replied, cool as ever, lying without missing a beat.

"Mr. Grant will be back in about thirty minutes. He asked that you be ready."

Continue to next part

Leo Vance builds things that last. Bridges. Buildings. A quiet, unspoken life with the woman he loves. What he has never been able to build is the courage to name what they are. On the morning of his wedding to botanical illustrator Elara Ashford, Leo stands in a chapel in a suit he cannot bring himself to fully button, and realizes something that stops him cold - he has already been married to her. Not in any courtroom or ceremony, but in every moment that actually counted. The night she held his hand at his mother's funeral and said nothing, because nothing was the right thing to say. The years they ate ramen so he could chase a dream she believed in before he did. The night she stood in the doorway during their worst fight and looked him in the eye and refused to let him run. He has said I do a thousand times in a thousand unspoken ways. So why does saying it out loud feel like the beginning of the end? What Leo doesn't know is that Elara has been sitting with her own impossible question for three weeks - ever since she found a note in his jacket pocket that made her wonder whether the man she is about to marry proposed because he chose her, or because someone told him he was about to lose her. What neither of them knows is that the woman he was secretly engaged to four years ago just walked into the venue. His best man is in love with his bride. His estranged father is standing outside in a rented suit, unable to go in. And the wedding videographer has been filming everything - with two cameras. By the time the officiant asks who gives this woman, nothing about this wedding will have gone according to the blueprint. But then again, the most important things Leo has ever built never did. Every Vow But One is a lux serialized romance about the terrifying distance between loving someone completely and choosing them on purpose and what it can cost when you finally close the gap.

Action Modern Romance

8.2

My Crown, His End: A Vengeful Heart

8.2

My fiancé staged his own kidnapping as a sick loyalty test, betting I'd risk our unborn child to save him. The shock of his betrayal cost me our baby. When I confronted him, he protected his mistress and burned our son's ashes right in front of me. He sneered that I was just his "loyal little soldier" and that only death would end us. He was right. He just never realized he was talking about his own death, at the hands of the queen who owns his entire army.

Action Modern Romance

9.0

Revenge for Mom: Destroying His Mafia World

9.0

My fiancé, the Underboss of the DeLuca Crime Family, promised he would burn the world down for me. But when my mother was dying in the hospital, he chose a ski trip with another woman. It was that woman's dog that attacked my mother, but when I called him, shaking, he was annoyed. He was in Aspen with Isabella, and I could hear her laughing in the background. He dismissed my mother's injuries as a "minor scrape" and told me not to "make a big deal out of this." While my mother's fever spiked, he ignored my desperate pleas. Instead, my phone lit up with an Instagram post of him and Isabella smiling by a fireplace, sipping hot chocolate. My mother slipped into septic shock. That picture was a public declaration, a judgment on my mother's worth, and my own. A cold fury burned away every last bit of love I had for him. She died at 3:17 a.m. I held her hand until it was cold, then walked out of the hospital and called the one number I was never supposed to use—the number for my father. "She's dead," I said. "I'm coming to Chicago. I'm leaving this life, and I'm going to burn his world to the ground."

Action Mafia Modern

8.4

Rise of the Rejected Luna

8.4

She was to be set out as a debt to be paid. He is known to be the ruthless Alpha of a pack, feared by many and dared by none. By ancient rites and moonlight ceremonies, turning eighteen means everything to werewolf shifters. It is aligned with their tradition, holding a great celebration. For Kiara, it should be a day to be merry, the day she finally confirms her bond with her boyfriend and future Alpha, Jason. Rather, it becomes the moment her world is blurred. "I, Jason, hereby reject you as my Luna." Ridiculed as a "freak" for her inability to shift, Kiara is publicly rejected by the boy she loves - replaced by her sister, Erina, and humiliated in front of the entire pack-Heartbroken, backstabbed, and renounced by everyone including her family. Kiara is sent out against her will to live with Alpha Ryder, who had provided a handsome loan to her parents to cure an ailment. Her stay at the Alpha was prolonged and intriguing. She discovers that she has never been a freak but rather descended from the Lunaries. The drama unfolds, tragedy awaits, torn between love and war. She learns great strength and endurance. She becomes a body of attraction to the Alpha. Would her stay in the new pack be worth her first rejection or would she be consumed by it?

Action Romance Werewolf

7.1

The Don's Pawn, A Queen's Revenge

7.1

My family sent me to marry into the enemy, a ruthless Don in Chicago. From the moment I arrived, I was treated like a common whore, a pawn to be humiliated and discarded. But they made one fatal mistake: they thought I was a lamb, when I was really a wolf in disguise. Sent to Chicago for an arranged marriage with Don Vincenzo Moretti, Isabella Falcone arrived at his hostile estate, instantly an unwelcome outsider. Hostility turned personal. Publicly shamed and trapped in Vincenzo's bed by his cousin, the Don accused me of whoring for family favor. I faced constant humiliation. Family insulted me, staff trapped me. Vincenzo was cold. A rival framed me with a planted diamond, and the Consigliere declared me a thief, ordering soldiers to drag me away. Branded a criminal by a rigged game, injustice fueled a cold, clear rage. I was a pawn, but I would show them a queen. My fear hardened into lethal resolve. Alida Savage thought she'd destroyed me, but only declared war on the wrong woman. I would tear down all who dared to underestimate me.

Action Mafia Modern

9.6

The Vanished Luna: Returning to Reject the Alpha

9.6

"Not guilty." With those two words, my husband, the Alpha, acquitted his mistress of poisoning my mother. I had the toxicology reports. I had the receipts. But Garrison didn't care. He looked me in the eye, his hand resting possessively on Keyla's back, and told me to stop making a scene. That was just the beginning of my hell. He moved Keyla into our master suite and forced me into the servant's quarters. "Since you can't give me strong pups," he sneered, "you can serve those who do." I became the maid in my own home, washing Keyla's silk lingerie while she wore my Luna robes. When I tried to fight back, he used the Alpha Command to silence me and locked me in a room filled with silver dust that burned my skin like acid. He even drugged me and offered me to a rival Alpha just to secure a timber deal. He thought he had broken me. He thought I was just a weak Omega who would eventually fade away. But he forgot that my mother taught me everything about poisons. On the night of the yacht party, I didn't just jump into the dark ocean to escape. I jumped to be reborn. I flushed my wedding ring, severed the bond, and let the icy water swallow Janette the victim. Garrison thought I was dead. He didn't know that the ocean wouldn't kill me. It would awaken my true bloodline. And when I came back, I wasn't his wife anymore. I was a White Wolf, and I was going to burn his pack to the ground.

Action Romance Werewolf

My Substitute Bride Wasn't Supposed to Bite

Chapter 1

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