Fantasy Short Stories & Novels

In my last life, I fought for power, kept the books, and built alliances for my fiancé from the Fire clan until I had secured his position as heir. On the night of the victory banquet, he killed me with his own hands. He said Sophia was the woman he truly loved. I had taken her place and forced their love into the shadows. They had been conspiring all along, and even the child I had raised so lovingly was their illegitimate son. I died consumed by hatred. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day the marriage contract was to be signed. This time I wrote Sophia's name on it.

All the mages of the Beast and Human Alliance Academy needed to form a pact with the Academy’s beast and stay loyal to it. According to the Academy’s compatibility test, I was matched with Ares, a potential candidate for the head’s post. The contract was signed, our souls were bound, and yet he refused to acknowledge me as his beast even after ten years of my devotion, only because I was a bunny, too weak a beast to match his reputation. On our tenth anniversary, he brought a woman from the fox clan to our training ward. She was wearing my uniform, and carried his scent. Their shared spirit stone shone brightly in their hands. And in my hand, I held the dying spirit stone that barely managed to glow dimly in ten years of my hard practice. "Be reasonable, Adria. Molly just helped me reach S-class in our mutual combat. I need her to be around me more," he said. "Go train somewhere else. Training with you isn't helpful to me anyway.” When he watched me quietly moving out, he assumed I was going to do what I always did. Lock myself in my chamber and sob. But he didn't know—this time was different. The ten-year contract had come due, and I was finally leaving the Academy for good. And what's more, I was not as useless and powerless beast he had always imagined, but a celestial class of a beast that born once in once in a million years and soon he was going to bend his knees to have me back!

At Blackwood Academy, everyone knows I'm a Null. No magic. I'm a mocked freak. Nobody likes me. Nobody except Shadow. We’ve been online dating for a year. Every night, he texted me his darkest desires through the screen. [I can't wait to meet you. I want to pin you down and be inside you, My Light.] I craved graduation. I wanted to see him. But today, he sent a photo. It showed an open, ancient spellbook. Glowing runes covered the pages. [My Light, I just finished work. I want my reward. Preferably a naked photo.] I blushed. I was about to type "tonight". Then my eyes locked on the unique black bookshelf behind the book. It was the signature bookshelf of Blackwood Academy's Restricted Section. My heart skipped a beat. A freakish coincidence. I go to this exact academy. The Restricted Section. Only professors have access! I froze. My mind went completely blank. Is this a sick joke? My secret online lover. The guy obsessed with my body. Is he right here? Wait. Is he a professor at my school?!

The Southlands priest once prophesied that the Duke of Winslet's house would produce a Saintess who could command every beast alive. I'd hidden the golden serpent mark on my wrist since childhood, but my cousin, Rose Winslet, flaunted a poisonous snake coiled around hers every day. When the marriage decree came, she got exactly what she wanted: the Crown Prince. I was given to the Seventh Prince instead, a man with two ruined legs whom the entire court despised. For six years after that, I trained hawks to carry messages and drove wolves through enemy lines, and it was my hands that put him on the throne. The day he was crowned, I told him, overjoyed, that I was the true beast-commanding Saintess all along. He had my hand tendons severed and threw me into the Serpent Pit. "Monica, if you had to pretend to be someone, why did it have to be Rose? If you hadn't hidden that mark on purpose, how could I have mistaken my true savior for someone else? "Rose was tortured to death by the Crown Prince, and it's all because of you!" When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day the priest tested the Saintess's identity before the entire court. The Seventh Prince got there first, slicing open his palm and letting his blood drip into the mouth of the venomous snake Rose kept as a pet. "Father, I'll give up my claim to the throne. I only want to marry Rose Winslet."

After the great war between the three clans of Human, Dragon, and Wolf, the Dragon Clan and Wolf Clan were cursed. Pure-blooded descendants of both clans could not inherit full power. To pass down the power of their bloodline, Kings of each generation of Dragon Clan and Wolf Clan would need to be with a Human woman who possessed Blessings. Whoever gave birth to a child of mixed heritage first would have their clan rule the three clans for a hundred years. In my past life, I married the King of Silver Wolves, Silas Hector, who was known to be a gentleman. One year after my marriage, I gave birth to a child who was half Wolf. He inherited full power from his bloodline, and Silas became the ruler of the three clans. The Wolves ruled the world for a hundred years. My sister, Lucia, became enamored by the magnificent Silver Dragon. She married the King of Silver Dragons, but the Dragons were arrogant and unpredictable. In a moment of mad rage, her husband injured her womb and caused her to miscarry. Lucia became barren after that. Lucia went crazy with jealousy for me, and she stabbed me to death during a family reunion. When I opened my eyes next, I had returned to the eve of the wedding organized by the three clans. Lucia was quick to enter the room of Silver Wolf King, Silas, and sleep with him. She was reborn too. However, she had no idea that Silas was a cold-blooded wolf who enjoyed torturing weak Humans.

My best friend and I. A witch and a Fae from Whisperwood. I have the blood of a Seer. My three rune bones can see a kingdom's rise and fall. She's a gold-touched Fae. Born to attract wealth. One roll of the dice in a goblin casino, and she'd empty their vault. When we were eighteen, we found a disgraced Grand Duke in the capital's slums. His stepmother had thrown him out. We saved him. She amassed his gold. I spun his fate. We helped him claw his way back to the capital. He took back his land. His scepter. The first thing he did? He asked my best friend to marry him. They had a son. A gifted heir. I grew tired of the noble squabbles. I went back to my hidden cottage in the woods. Ten years later, a little princess. Blessed by the Moon Goddess. Finally born in the Duke's castle. He was ecstatic. Flew his griffin over the mountains that night. Begged me to come bless his daughter. Of course, I agreed. I stood over the cradle. Drew a sacred blessing rune on the baby's forehead. Before I left, I had a sudden urge. I tossed my three rune bones. A quick look into my friend's future. But they hit the floor and turned to dust. Black magic choked the air. An omen of death. Her soul was gone. Ice flooded my veins. If my best friend was already dead...then who was the Duchess, smiling at me from her velvet chaise?

I was once the Pythia, an oracle of Apollo. After marrying the late king, I became known as the Oracle Priestess. When my husband died in battle, I faked my death and returned to the temple. From then on, I devoted myself to protecting the capital with the gods' blessing. Then one day, they brought my daughter's body into the temple. She was covered in raw, unhealed wounds, and her eyes were still open. The attendants tossed her body, wrapped in nothing but a straw mat, onto the floor. Then they stood nearby whispering. "Poor princess. The king cared more about the Rose of Highcourt than his own sister. He let her suffer until her wounds became infected and she died in agony. "King Theron was the one who sent her to the beastmen for a marriage alliance. Duke Charles was supposed to marry Princess Callista, but he later fell for Naia instead." So that was what had happened. While I was hidden away in this temple protecting Ostan, my son had turned his back on his sister for another woman. He let Naia take Callista's place, then sent his sister to live among savages. Callista survived the beastmen and everything they did to her. When they were finally defeated, she must have thought she could come home and put it all behind her. But Naia still wouldn't leave her alone. She bullied Callista every chance she got. Then she framed Callista for plotting to hurt someone, and Theron had her thrown into the dungeon. As I held my daughter's body, I couldn't bear to imagine what she had gone through in that dark, waterlogged dungeon, where prisoners were interrogated on the upper level and executed below. A corrupt kingdom like this didn't deserve the gods' protection. I begged the gods to forgive me. If this was how they treated my daughter, then I no longer cared what happened to this country.

I spent five years beside Kaelan, heir to the Elf King, and bore him a son, yet he never once acknowledged me in public. He said that when he became Elf King, he would give us the highest standing there was. Instead, at the Elven Assembly, he announced that another woman was his fiancée, then personally handed her our son's life-saving elixir to use as a facial treatment. Later I took my child away to the border, and he was finally willing to acknowledge us. But the child who used to run after him calling him Dad no longer needed a father.

The first time my boyfriend, Jason Calloway, brought me to meet his friends, I wore a scarf to hide the hickeys he'd left the night before. Halfway through dinner, his only female friend suddenly yanked my scarf off. "No wonder you're wearing a scarf in this heat, putting on airs. We're all adults here. What haven't we seen? Looks like you and Jason had quite the wild night..." Jason knew how easily I got embarrassed and quickly tried to cut her off. But she pulled down her own collar instead. "See this bite mark? Jason did it. I didn't even bother putting ointment on it afterward. I just left it out in the open, telling everyone Jason's my little lapdog. That's how a woman earns her place!" Jason frowned, his gaze fixed on the pale, full swell of Vivian Hale's chest, then pulled her hand away, his expression darkening. "There are people here! Put your clothes back!" Then he turned to me. "That's just how my friends are, no filter. Have a few drinks with us and you'll warm up to them." I watched his hand pressing Vivian's collar closed and let out a cold laugh, pushing my chair back from the table. "I'll pass on the drinks. If you enjoy being some other woman's lapdog, don't let me stop you." We Elves never date dogs.

On my twentieth birthday, I had to choose a husband from the six angel heirs. Everyone thought I would choose Adrian Seraphiel, the brightest golden-winged heir and the man I had loved for years. In my last life, I did. Because of me, he inherited eighty percent of House Seraphiel’s fortune and became the next ruler of the angel clan. But after our marriage, he got involved with Celeste, my adopted half-siren sister. When my dragon family cast her out of House Drakon, Adrian blamed me. From then on, he hated me. He surrounded himself with women who looked like her, humiliated me again and again, and finally replaced my life-saving medicine with slow poison. I died carrying his child, while the last of my dragon blood burned away. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on my twentieth birthday. This time, I decided to let them have each other. So in front of everyone, I chose Cassian Seraphiel, the sixth son of the angel family. Broken-winged. Mocked by everyone. No one believed he could ever inherit anything. The room burst into laughter. Adrian looked at me coldly and sneered. “Elena, are you choosing that useless cripple just to get my attention?” I ignored him. Because in my last life, after I died, this so-called useless cripple was the only one who collected my body, found the truth, and avenged me by stripping Adrian of his golden wings. But then Adrian stepped closer. His voice dropped to a whisper. “Funny,” he said. “That wasn’t who you chose in your last life.”

At eight, I swallowed the Tear of the Abyss, hidden in the holy font by my grandmother. After that, my skin was like pearl. It would never age. She called it a curse. Left by the Sea God. Every year, on the Night of the Tides, someone had to prove they truly wanted me to stay—press a Golden Scale to my heart. Or the scales would tear through my skin. My legs would fuse into a tail. The tide would drag me back to the abyss before dawn—a mermaid, trapped beneath the waves forever. Before she died, Grandmother left three Golden Scales. She gave them to my fiancé Alaric, my brother Caspian, and my childhood friend, Crown Prince Lucian. Their promises were so easy. "Just a scale? We'd get you the stars if you asked." But on the Night of the Tides, I saw all three. Pinned to a brooch on Evelina, the orphan from the Sanctum. They said she'd suffered, never known love. The scales would soothe her "fragile soul." But me? A princess didn't need trinkets to know I was loved. She danced. "I'm the luckiest girl in the empire." I pushed through the crowd. I just needed one. Alaric grabbed my wrist. "Haven't I given you everything? Don't be selfish now." Caspian shot me a look. "Let the artist finish, then you can have them." I showed them my hand. Sharp scales were already breaking through the skin. Lucian touched them. Laughed. "Illusion magic? Seraphina, your pranks are getting old." They escorted her to the throne. In their eyes, my life-or-death curse was just a pathetic play for attention. The blood moon was setting. T he gills behind my ears tore through my flesh. Blinding agony. I finally understood. I was meant for the sea. The water is cold. But at least I won't have to beg to stay anymore.

Everyone at the Golden Crown Court knew I was the Dragon King's youngest, most beloved daughter. A childhood injury had left my dragon breath — the power inside me — unstable. Every seven days, I needed someone to help steady it. But my three childhood friends had stayed by my side for more than a decade: Lucas Ashford, commander of the dragon knights; Darian Stormwell, my father's personal guard; and Silas Wintermere, a dragon priest. They'd sworn before my father that they would always take care of me. Then everything changed. On her first day at court, Kassan Blackthorn, a black dragon, defeated three of our dragon knights. Lucas was impressed. He called her a true dragon warrior. He forgot his promise to practice sword fighting with me and spent the next several days following her around, eager to please. Darian said Lucas was like a sailor under a siren's spell. "He's not worth getting upset over," he told me. A few days later, Darian missed his turn to help regulate my dragon breath, too. Pain swept through me, burning hot one moment and freezing cold the next. Just before I passed out, Silas burst through my door and gathered me into his arms. Holding me tight, he said, "Evelyn, whatever happens, I'll always be here for you." But three days later, I watched him fasten around Kassan's wrist the very dragon crystal bracelet I'd wanted for myself. He gave her the same tender smile I knew so well. That was when I realized I had nothing left. So I knocked on my father's study door and told him I wanted to go north and marry Derek Frostborne, chief of the frost dragons.