Hard Enough - Chapter 43: Pewter Gym Trainers

Being the pack defect is bad enough. Getting REJECTED? By your own fated mate?Yeah. THAT is a whole new level of low.Ava Grey is the pack defect, a wolfless shifter. She struggles through life with the vague dream of freedom. Her opportunity comes when she's suddenly informed that she will be attending the Lunar Gala, an annual ball for young adult shifters to find their fated mates.And she finds him. He's beautiful and intense, and his kisses send desire through her veins like a drug.Until he REJECTS her.Ava isn't about to go back to her dreary life. She escapes and forges a new identity far from her pack, and far from her alpha mate. She makes new friends and is even forcefully adopted by a hilarious husky.But just as she settles in and finds happiness, strange things begin to happen...Her husky has been holding secrets.She's hearing whispers that shifter packs all over are looking for her.And she can smell a familiar scent in her apartment, which makes no sense at all... because the man it belongs to rejected her.DECEMBER 2024 NOTE-- Author has a broken hand and updates are slower than normal. Deepest apologies. Trying to get updates more normalized again!!---------This is a wolf shifter romance with multiple triggers that like to waltz hand in hand with all the dark themes through a meadow of dead flowers. In this book you will find the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. Laugh, cry, rage; you can do them all as you follow Ava in the rather perilous journey of being a wolf shifter in this generation of werewolf romance.There are R18 scenes sprinkled throughout this book like candy popping out of a pinata. Please read responsibly.-------

Before her death, Xia Wan has seen her own family being set up and killed, her beloved recognizing the wrong person as his savior, and their engagement party!

Even her upperclassman had run a blade through her chest, snarling spitefully, “Xia Bing will have everything with your death!

It was Xia Bing again! She stole all of Xia Wan’s accomplishments and her lover’s, but wanted her dead as well!

And yet, Xia Wan could not say a word against her! However, when she thought that her death was inevitable, Xia Wan was reincarnated to a day 18 years ago, when her whole family was still alive and before all tragedy began!

This time, she swore that she will have her family stay safe, healthy and happy.

Insincere skanks trying to stop her? She slapped them until they cry! Scumbags wanting to date her?

Xia Wan: Sorry, you’re too ugly. After chasing off everyone and finally earning some peace, Xia Wan was going to sleep when someone knocked on her door.

She opened it to find her beloved from the last life!

”Do I happen to fit your type?” The sight of his white shirt and slightly bared chest left Xia Wan clutching her bleeding nose.

Xia Wan: Men are too sexy in a white shirt! This is against the rules! A certain man: That doesn’t matter. Bringing my wife home is more important!

One scam package,That's all it took to drag the 17-year-old Cail into the world of the void....He thought he had ordered a limited-edition sneakers. But what came was a shady-looking package on his front gate. It smelled like rotten egg and sulfur. Inside the package was a strange box.It's filled with eccentric junk. They looked very intricate and mysterious. He thought, “I probably got someone else's package, a package from someone that was very interested in mysticism.”An old coin, a cracked compass, a ring with an ugly center stone, and some other weird looking trinkets.So he did what any broke student would do:He sold it. He figured someone might want them for cosplay or something. Well, except the gold-rimmed glasses that seemed to fit him very well.“Damn, I paid 7,000 nu for that sneaker; I better get something out from this scam package.”Then all hell broke loose. Strange people started approaching him.People brought that junk. Very strange people wearing suspicious get up trying to buy those stuff in the sketchiest manner possible.As he kept selling, he realized that the box was refilling, it seemed to have an endless supply of those strange stuff. Those people called it 'artifacts'.Then one day he woke up with a strange tattoo on his arm; inside the tattoo was an independent space containing the box. It is basically inseparable from him.“I didn't ask for any of this to happen. But now, strange people come to me with desperate offers. Money, memories, and even soul.”He's just trying to survive high school while earning some money!He had no idea what was going on, but apparently, this thing that he got? It's not just an artifact. It's a contract.As Cail navagates school life, part-time jobs, and otherworldly clients, he starts asking the real question:When did I become an artifact dealer?!By day, he is just an ordinary student, a NPC character.And by night? He is The Dealer. Selling ancient items and dealing with people that he probably shouldn't be talking to.“Since I'm already in this mess, might as well profit off of it.”

15 years ago the world discovered magic as well as mythical beings (basically beings from various legends) in another dimension. Humankind learned to summon these dangerous mythical beings and use their power to great effect. Seven countries formed contracts with these “mythical beings” and gained their allegiance as a result. The mythical beings will choose their summoners on their 14th birthday and give them a stigma. Schools have been set up to train summoners and magical swordsman (basically bodyguards that give the summoners time to cast their spell) as a result.

15 years later after the finding of magic Kazuki Hayashizaki is chosen as a summoner and given a stigma to indicate that. This is surprising since males aren’t chosen as summoners due to their low amount of mana compared to females. As the first male to be a summoner Kazuki is under a lot of scrutiny by almost everyone.

To complicate matters his sister (who’s a magical swordsman) is against him going into summoner school to train there as a summoner. Because summoners and magical swordsman have a cat mouse thing going on where summoners look down on magical swordsman as inferior so his sister naturally is against him going there. She’ll stop him even if it means going to war.

Kazuki however is determined to thrive in summoner school and has already determined to give it his all. Even if he’s the lowest ranked student (ranked E) and his fellow students intend to demean him he’ll prove himself as the strongest summoner.