Nine Star Burden - Chapter 23: Case Cracked

Lord of the Mysteries, part two.

In 1368, at the end of July. Bloody scarlet will descend from heaven.

“You hate me,” Lily mouthed through trembling lips.Zayn leaned closer, his voice low and bitter. “No. Hate is too cheap. I want you to feel what I did. Every scream. Every loss.”She didn’t flinch. She was tired of pleading. She just looked at him with eyes full of quiet pain.So why did it feel like his heart was shattering?Lily Brightpaw was born the daughter of an Alpha, but she never lived like one. Mute from childhood and unable to shift, she was treated as a curse by her family. Blamed for her mother’s death and beaten into silence, Lily grew up unloved and unwanted. She believed the Moon Goddess would send her a mate who would rescue her but she was wrong.The night her pack fell, Lily was dragged from a shack and thrown at the feet of her new Alpha, Zayn Knightmoon. He was the man her family enslaved. Now he is the alpha who rules over her and he wants revenge.Zayn lost everything. His father. His mate. His pack. All at the hands of Lily’s family. When he realized Lily is his second chance mate, he rejected her without hesitation and swore to make her suffer. But the more he punished her, the more he saw the truth: Lily was nothing like the monsters who raised her. She’s a victim too and broken… like him.Zayn found himself torn between vengeance and a bond he never asked for. Will Lily’s suffering be enough to quiet the ghosts of his past or will revenge destroy them both?

Xue Xi is forced to fall in love at first sight with this dangerous man on their first meeting. With death being the only other option, she makes the first move:

A million years ago, he had traversed the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths, braving countless mysterious Life Prohibition Zones, in search of a way to resurrect that foolish woman, but inadvertently learned one earth-shattering secret after another. Thereafter, he went through nine cycles of reincarnation, strategizing over the world, casting his net across the heavens, with the Myriad Realms as his board! In this life, he had returned from reincarnation, his Qi engulfing mountains and rivers, “It’s time to close the net...”