Reborn Short Stories & Alpha Countdown Novels

My younger sister, Ivy, was engaged to Nathan, the heir to the Silver Moon Pack. After Nathan and I drank laurel wine laced with an aphrodisiac, we lost control and slept together. To preserve the alliance between our packs, Mother had me take Ivy's place. Nathan and I completed the mate bond, while Ivy was sent north to marry its elderly, gravely ill Alpha. On the day of her mating ceremony, however, Ivy's convoy was attacked by rogue wolves. She died at the border. Nathan hated me from that day forward. For more than twenty years, our bond brought me only neglect and humiliation. When I died after a long illness, he did not visit. He sent only one message. "Tessa, stay away from me in your next life." When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the moment the drugged wine was placed in my hand. Before I could react, Nathan snatched the glass away and smashed it against the floor. The moment I saw the way he looked at Ivy, I knew that he had been reborn too. Before the elders of both packs, he took Ivy's hand and announced, "Ivy and I will hold our mating ceremony this month." He led her away without looking at me. Once they were out of earshot, Mother drew me aside. "North Ridge has agreed to an alliance. You'll marry their Alpha." Memories of my final moments flashed through my mind. This time, I decided to give Nathan exactly what he wanted. "All right," I said. "I agree."

I was reborn on the night the Alpha lost control to dark magic, his heat spiraling out of his grasp. This time, I didn't become his remedy. Instead, I called his true love—my own sister. In my past life, I fell in love with Nicholas, the Alpha of our pack. When I learned he'd been cursed by ancient dark magic and couldn't control his heat, I made a choice I shouldn't have. I didn't push him away. A month later, I found out I was pregnant. As an Alpha, Nicholas needed an heir. The Council of Elders forced him to hold a marking ceremony with me. On the day of the ceremony, Leah couldn't accept it. She ran from pack territory. Rogue wolves attacked her. Before she died, Leah sent Nicholas ninety-nine distress signals through the mind-link. But Nicholas was in the middle of the marking ceremony—at my request—and never answered. Not once. Afterward, when the pack brought back what was left of Leah's body, his face remained eerily calm. But on the night of our pup's first full moon, he poisoned me with wolfsbane. Before I died, I heard his voice, cold as ice. "If you hadn't gotten pregnant, I wouldn't have been forced to mark you. I wouldn't have missed Leah's call for help. Her death is on you. And you're going to pay for it." When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the night Nicholas fell victim to the curse.

The night I accidentally ended up in bed with my adoptive brother, Adrian, he had just broken his engagement to his childhood sweetheart, Ivy. Adrian was the Alpha of Blackwood Pack. Ivy was the late Beta's daughter, and the woman he had always intended to make his Luna. To protect my reputation and preserve his authority as Alpha, he was forced to complete a mate bond with me. Everyone said he treated me well. But every year on Ivy's birthday, he sat alone in his study until dawn. In the third year of our marriage, Ivy died of wolf-spirit failure. Only then did Adrian learn from the letter she left behind that she had seen us together that morning. The sight had haunted her for the rest of her life. He decided I had destroyed her. He severed our mate bond, drove me from the pack, and used his influence to close every road that might have kept me alive. Before I died, he sent me only four words. "You deserve to die." When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the night his wolf lost control. This time, I tore myself out of his arms, knocked on Ivy's door, and placed him in her hands myself. I smiled at the shock on his face. “Adrian, I won’t love you anymore.”

In my past life, weaponized liquid silver flooded the vault. I begged my fated Alpha, Declan, through our mind-link. He called my crying annoying, shattered our bond, and took every warrior to rescue his lost first love. I died alone in the freezing silver mist, carrying our five-month-old pup. Later, they said Declan went mad. At his forced mating ceremony with Talia, he ripped his own Alpha core apart, begging the Moon Goddess for a second chance to protect me. The Moon Goddess granted it. Yet the moment I opened my eyes, the heavy blast-door was already locked from the outside. He had sealed me in again, rushing to the harbor for the same woman. His so-called "second chance" was just another death sentence with my name on it. As toxic fumes poured through the vents, a strange peace washed over me. Two lifetimes of this mate bond. I'm done.

After Alpha Ethan passed away, I sorted through his belongings. In his study, I found his final letter. He wrote about so many things. He wrote about the pack, about our daughter, and about every detail of the twenty years we had spent together as mates. I wept so hard I could barely read through it, believing it was the last piece of tenderness he had left for me. Until I turned to the very last page: [If I could live my life over again, I wish Vivian had been my mate.] My fingers instantly froze. [When I was twenty-two, if only I had been a little braver, I should have gone to the airport and convinced Vivian to stay.] Ethan had given up on chasing after her and chose to stay by my side for twenty years instead. I thought that was love. Turns out, he just couldn't bear the guilt of abandoning me. I prayed to the Moon Goddess, and she answered by granting me a second chance, sending me back to the exact day Vivian was about to leave. Ethan was sitting beside my hospital bed, and a boarding alert for Vivian's flight popped up on his phone. In my past life, he wanted to go, but I clung to him and begged him to stay. As a result, the plane crashed, and Vivian died on her journey. Her death became Ethan's lifelong regret. This time, I picked up his jacket for him and hailed a Taxi on my phone: "There are thirty minutes until her flight boards. If you leave now, you can still make it." This time, I won't beg for his love anymore. So why... did Ethan end up full of regret?

The Black Wolf Pack and the Snow Wolf Pack had entered into a mating alliance. My father had only two daughters, Susan and me, so he decided our fate by drawing lots. When Susan drew the lot that would send her into the alliance, all the color drained from her face. Having been reborn, however, I turned to my father of my own accord. “I’ll go to the Snow Wolf Pack in Susan’s place.” Everyone was stunned. Logan, my fated mate, and I had been betrothed for years, and I had once even sworn that he would be the only man I would ever allow to mark me. The Snow Wolf Pack lay far to the north, where the land was bitterly cold and its Alpha was rumored to be ruthless and cruel. But I alone knew what had happened in my previous life. Only after Logan and I became bonded mates did I realize that the woman he had loved all along was Susan. By then, she had already gone to the Snow Wolf Pack, only to die there less than a year later, worn down by misery. Logan became convinced that I had switched the lots so I could stay with him, and from that day on, he hated me for the rest of my life. No matter how hard I tried to please him, he never responded. Yet when I fell ill with wolf-wasting sickness and was barely clinging to life, he stayed by my side and cared for me without leaving. Before I died, his eyes reddened as he fed me my favorite raspberries. “I’m the one who wronged you in this life. If there’s another life, please let Susan and me go.” After my death, he went to my grave and chose to leave this world with me. When I opened my eyes again, I had been reborn. This time, I would accept the alliance myself and give him the life he had always wanted.