A Second Chance With My Five Fated Alphas

A whip cracked through the fog clouding Hannah Miller's mind, dragging her slowly back to consciousness.

Her blurred vision cleared on a curtain of silver-gray hair brushing a male's shoulders.

He knelt on the floor with his spine pulled tight as a bowstring. Power showed beneath every sculpted muscle, but the savage web of lash marks carved across his skin was impossible to ignore.

Blood seeped from the newly torn wounds, tracing the rigid planes of his body in narrow streams. The crimson trails converged at his waist, then spilled onto the edge of the hide wrapped around his hips.

At that moment, he raised his dark-red eyes to hers. The instant their gazes locked, Hannah's heart clenched as though a serpent had sunk its fangs straight into it.

Those dark-red eyes burned with naked loathing.

The man cocked his head, letting his stare drift to the whip clenched in her hand. The barest trace of a chilling smile curved his mouth.

When he spoke, his deep, rasping voice sharpened every syllable into a taunt. "That's it? Worn out already?"

A deafening hum thundered through Hannah's mind.

Agony stabbed through her skull as the shattered memories of the previous owner of the body crashed into her mind.

She had been a newly hired office worker who had just entered the workforce before endless overtime quite literally killed her. Then, somehow, she had awakened inside the werecreature universe web novel she had just finished reading—as the doomed villainess who shared her name.

The original Hannah's father was a rogue beast who spoiled his only female cub beyond reason. As soon as she reached adulthood, he abducted five males and forced them into bonding with her.

Forced into bonds she had never wanted, the original Hannah poured all her bitterness into making her mates suffer, devising fresh cruelties for them day after day.

The breathtaking male before her now was one of them—a male whose beast form was a lethally venomous white snake. Eventually, he would repay her abuse by breaking every finger on her hands, one excruciating snap at a time.

Hannah's fingers loosened as she thought of that. The whip hit the floor with a vicious crack, flinging droplets of blood across her ankle. The icy splatter against her skin sent a tremor through her.

Asher Hughes' brow shifted by the barest fraction at that.

The cruel female he knew would have answered his defiance with an even harsher lashing—or pressed a scorched, burning stick into his flesh.

Yet this time... she had dropped the whip?

"What are you playing at now—"

"Not another word."

Hannah cut him off. She needed time to wrap her head around the nightmare she had just awakened into.

In this werecreature universe, male werecreatures were classified by power. The original Hannah's father was an S-rank scorpion beast—strong enough to stand at the absolute peak. That overwhelming strength was the sole reason he had managed to seize five extraordinarily formidable males and force them into becoming his daughter's mates.

But the novel had already sealed his fate. This time, he had left in search of yet another mate for her—and he was destined never to come home.

The moment he died, the five males she had tortured would unite and turn against her.

Even knowing the backlash could kill them, all five males would carve the mate beast marks from their own bodies. By all rights, the gesture was supposed to end their lives. Instead, raw willpower and hatred would keep them breathing—long enough to repay the original Hannah a hundredfold for every torment she had inflicted on them. They would rip her limb from limb, then devour every last piece of her.

Remembering the finger-snapping agony described in the novel left Hannah's fingertips cold and numb.

She couldn't die.

Especially not like that.

Steeling herself, Hannah met those dark-red eyes head-on and struggled to keep the tremor from her voice. "Get up."

Asher remained exactly where he was. One brow lifted, and the contempt in his gaze only sharpened. "What is it this time? Still thinking about how you want to torment me?"

He tipped his chin upward, bringing the scorpion-shaped beast mark on his chest into stark view.

It was the symbol of their mating bond—and the chain that robbed him of the power to defy her. He smirked. "Planning to soak my wounds in salt water this time?"

Hannah's chest tightened. As cruel as it sounded, the original Hannah had really done something like that before.

Taking a deep breath, Hannah turned away and crossed the room toward a basket tucked in the corner.

The basket held dried medicinal herbs her father had obtained through trade with a neighboring territory. The original Hannah had never spared a single one for her wounded mates. For her own amusement, she would disguise poisonous vines as medicine and feed them to the males, savoring the sight of them twisting in pain.

Hannah dug through the basket in search of something that could staunch the bleeding. "Your wounds need to be treated. I won't—"

"Save it," Asher interjected and rose to his feet.

He towered over her by more than a head and a half, his looming presence bearing down on her like a crushing weight.

"Drop the act. Are you planning to burn me with a heated stick later, or did you come up with something even more vicious?"

Hannah went still, her hand suspended in midair with the herbs in her fingers.

She had overlooked one crucial fact—the original Hannah's brutality had scarred her mates to the bone. To them, an unexpected show of kindness could only mean she was setting the stage for an even more twisted kind of torture.

Just then, a whisper of movement stirred beyond the stone house.

Moments later, three injured figures emerged, their equally frigid stares locking onto her.

Devin Smith stood at the front, his silver-white hair cascading over his shoulders. As a D-rank priest and a werecrane, he was supposed to look almost otherworldly. Instead, exhaustion now hollowed his features, and burns marred his body, evidence of the original Hannah's torture.

His eyes remained downcast, long lashes concealing whatever lay beneath. Only the white-knuckled fists at his sides revealed how fiercely he was holding himself back.

Behind him was Joshua Jones, the red-haired werefox. A vicious knife wound stretched from the corner of his eye to his jaw, ruining a face that would have been irresistibly charming.

The instant he saw Hannah, his lips curved into an enchanting smile, but nothing warm reached his eyes. "Why'd you stop? Done torturing Asher already?"

Behind him stood the final male, tall and massively built. Damp, cropped hair clung in disheveled strands to his forehead, while knife wounds and whip welts crisscrossed his bare torso. He was Jeffrey Williams, a werelion.

Hannah looked them over, dread dragging her heart down.

All four were elite males, each captivating in his own way—not that Hannah had the presence of mind to admire them.

She had five mates in total. So why were there only four here?

"Where's Danny?" The question escaped before she could stop it.

The atmosphere crackled with sudden tension.

Joshua's grin widened. "Don't you remember? Yesterday, you decided you wanted to know what a merman would look like after every scale had been torn from his body and he had been buried alive. So, you ordered us to take him up the mountain and bury him."

A cold numbness crept through Hannah's hands.

Danny Brown—the only merman among her five mates—was the one who carved out his beast mark, then peeled away her skin in the novel.

And he had every reason to hate her. She had subjected him to descaling, a form of torture uniquely excruciating for a merman.

Hannah's gaze moved across the four injured males standing before her. Then, she pictured Danny beneath the soil, wounded and bleeding, and a tremor seized her entire body.

Asher caught the hesitation in her face, and bitter amusement flashed through his eyes. "Thinking about another way to entertain yourself?"

He advanced one slow step, bringing the heavy metallic scent of his blood with him. "Why not use every method you know at once?"

Hannah's head snapped up, her stare colliding with his.

She doubted that they would listen to her, but saying nothing wasn't an option.

"Asher, bring Danny back. I need to tell all of you something."

A hollow chuckle rumbled from Asher's throat, devoid of even a trace of amusement. "What kind of game are you playing this time? Tormenting us one by one doesn't satisfy you anymore? You want all five of us here now?"

Drawing a steadying breath, Hannah returned the herbs to the basket and straightened. "I'm offering you a deal. Accept it, and I'll end the bond with all of you."

Her words plunged the stone house into such absolute silence that every breath became audible.

Devin's downcast lashes quivered. Joshua's smile locked in place, while Jeffrey's clenched knuckles gave a soft, ominous crack.

Even Asher paused. His unblinking stare bored into her, searching for the smallest sign that she might actually mean it.