The Delicate Female Lead Only Wants to be Loved by the Villainous Young Ladies - Chapter 12: Grooming

[COMPLETE] Can a royal Romeo and Juliet find their happy ending?

Ayleth, Princess of Zenithra, is secretly trained in hand-to-hand combat, and collects swear words she doesn't know how to use. During the Festival of Peace, in which every royal son on the continent will be at the castle for a month, she is instructed by her parents to find a husband. Yet, Ayleth has never even been kissed—until the very first ball, when she meets the man in the Lion mask.

Etan is a seasoned warrior, and the Prince of Summitras. He attends the Festival hoping to find a powerful wife who will help him conquer the dark sorcery of their bloodsworn enemies, the Kingdom of Zenithra. But at the very first ball, he discovers the masked woman who captures his heart is the Heir to the evil empire.

Ayleth and Etan face an impossible battle. Will their love survive? Or will their parents' dark dealings keep them apart forever?

[Mature content. No sexual violence.]

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“You…” She stepped back. Then back again, her mouth dropped open. “You… You cannot be…”

“I am,” Etan said, and his hair raked back as he pushed his mask off his handsome face. So handsome her heart raced.

His hair was ebony black, his skin a warm brown that threatened to fade in in the winter months. He stared at her with glittering green eyes, over high cheekbones and a noble nose, his jaw tight and shadowed this late in the day. His chin was high over the pillar of his neck that she’d just touched with its hard lines and steel strength, so different to her own. And his chest... She gasped and covered her eyes. She’d humiliated herself revealing her stupid, childish curiosity.

“No, Ayleth. This changes nothing.”

“How can you say that? It changes everything!” She was horrified to realize she was crying.

“Ayleth, please.” His voice cracked on the plea and she stared at him, shoving her mask up and off, despite how it would pull her hair out of the beautiful twist the maid had managed for her.

His eyes locked on hers and she couldn’t think. She couldn’t breathe.

She had met her One. And he was the son of her bloodsworn enemy.

She stared at him as he stepped forward again, offering both hands, palm up. “Touch me,” he whispered. “Hold my hands. This is real, Ayleth. I don’t know how it happened, but this is real. Please don’t deny it.”

She couldn’t resist. She raised a trembling hand to his cheek, letting her palm catch on the scruff of his jaw. He blew out a breath and put his hand over hers, and that jolt that happened whenever they touched shivered through her again.

“Please, Ayleth.”

“I cannot deny it,” she whispered.

Her step-sister just died three months ago. Now, she insists on marrying Chu Lui, who is supposed to be her future brother-in-law, the mind behind the Chu Enterprise. The world is sure that she, the new bride-to-be, had caused her step-sister’s death in order to seduce him.

Even her own mother says to her cruelly, “Don’t call me ‘Mom’. I don’t have a daughter as vicious as you.”

- Description from Novelupdates

Sophia was adopted when she was a kid, a dream come true for orphans. However Her life was anything but happy, her fiance whom she harbored intense love for 10 years cruelly exploited her and used her as a prawn to lure a deranged murderer targeting his lover.It is a horrible thing for your loved one to betray you, especially in a tragic manner. It seemed she was spurred by the complete despair over having nothing and no one to live for. Therefore, she surrendered without a fight. However, after her death.One would not expect a woman like Sophia, someone small as a caterpillar or even a dung beetle to be reborn, But here she is—perhaps she might have saved a kingdom in another life, or maybe God pitied her. She finds herself reincarnated as a timid and obedient wife of a billionaire.Sophia decides she wants revenge that could ruin her fiance and lover's life.And the only way to do that was to get pregnant with her billionaire husband's child!Dexter Black was the illegitimate son of a wealthy family, their marriage was nothing but a benefit for the two families. He could choose anyone to be his bride but the moment he laid his eyes on her,he knew she was the one he wanted. Dexter knows that there is something mysterious going on around her. She got a mystifying background. But he doesn't care about who she was in the past and why they keep attacking her. All he can think of is loving her, cherishing her, locking her up so that she will never return to her past. Because he knows that he won't be able to live a moment away from her.Would their marriage be a romantic tale or utter disaster?~ Except~“Wait, let me get this straight,” she says, her voice rising.“You want me to get pregnant?”Alexander's face remains impassive. “They, yeah.”Sophia stares at him, searching for signs of a head injury or a hidden camera crew. Finding neither, she decides this must be his twisted form of play.“You're going crazy,” she announces, grabbing her things. “I'm leaving.”She's halfway to the door when his words stop her cold.“It's either you get pregnant, or they won't allow you to leave until you are,” Alexander says calmly.She pauses to process his words.

Silvermist Evermore never belonged. Born to unloving parents and cast aside, she had long accepted that life would never offer her warmth—until she was chosen as an apprentice at Moonstone Academy, a place where magic breathes and fate is written in the stars.But her arrival comes with a price. In an act of betrayal and manipulation, Silvermist shatters Frost's staff, the formidable Winter Guardian, unraveling a secret that should have remained buried.Now, bound by an ancient rule, she must take its place—not as a mere apprentice, but as something far more dangerous: Frost’s human staff, the living embodiment of his power.As Silvermist struggles to navigate the treacherous halls of Moonstone, she discovers that Guardians without apprentices are doomed to vanish, and the balance of the four seasons—Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter—hangs by a thread. But the shadows whisper a greater truth: a war looms on the horizon, fueled by the Sandman’s wrath and a hidden enemy who has been pulling the strings all along.Haunted by cryptic dreams, hunted by those who seek to use her, and betrayed by those she once trusted, Silvermist must uncover the truth behind her own existence before she loses herself to the very storm she was forced to wield.Can she survive the weight of Winter, or will she be the final snowfall that buries them all?