Plot Twists Short Stories & Bias Countdown Novels

I’m just a mortal, yet I’ve been deeply in love with Orion, the heir to Poseidon, for seven long years. When he was about to ascend the throne as the God of the Sea, I thought I could finally stand by his side—in the light, as his true consort. But then he delivered a crushing ultimatum: the condition for his ascension was to produce a pure-blooded divine heir with his late brother’s widow, Selene. Every time he came back from Selene's bed, he’d hold me tight and whisper, "Thalia, you’re my only true love. As soon as Selene gives birth to an heir for the throne, we’ll have our wedding. I’ll give you the title you deserve." And so, over the next six months, he spent a hundred nights in Selene’s bed. His visits grew more frequent, and the stench of Selene’s scent on his skin grew stronger. Finally, on the 100th lonely night I spent waiting for him, Selene got pregnant. The news spread across Atlantis like wildfire—along with the announcement of their upcoming royal wedding. My son tugged at my sleeve, asking innocently, "Mommy, I thought people said Father is marrying his beloved Queen? Why hasn't he come to pick us up yet?" "Because his beloved Queen isn't Mommy, sweetheart." I smiled, gently stroking his hair. "But it’s okay. I’m taking you back to our real home." What Orion didn't know was that my biological father had already found me. He is Zeus, the King of the Gods. And I am his long-lost daughter who was left in the mortal realm. As for Orion’s title of Queen? I couldn't care less anymore.

I was a mermaid fostered within the Silverwood Pack. By the laws of my kin, on the day I came of age, I had to swallow a Tide Pearl fed to me by a male. Only then could I fully shed my tail and truly join the wolf pack, remaining on land. And whoever fed me the pearl would become my mate. Miss that window, and my legs would turn back into a tail, forcing me to return to the deep sea. Before my mother died, she left behind three Tide Pearls, entrusting them to the three wolf boys I grew up with—each desperate to become my mate. But just as I was about to come of age, a lone wolf mother named Chloe arrived at the pack with her young pup, Leo. Alpha Lucas, Beta Kane, and Gamma Aiden became convinced that Chloe was the widow of the wolf who had saved their lives, and they showered mother and son with care. They knew full well what the Tide Pearls meant to me—yet choice after choice, they handed those pearls over to Chloe and her child, one by one. Their protection of Chloe was built on my sacrifice. With every pearl gone, I had no reason left to stay in the pack. At midnight on my coming-of-age day, the tide surged over the cliffs. I returned to the sea.

Among our kind, there's an old rule. Every Luna must carry a token of her rank, and only the woman wearing that token has the right to stand at the Alpha's side. I'd been with Damien Cole for seven years. For the Luna token, I gave him everything. I took care of him down to the smallest detail. I once threw myself between him and a rogue's claws, which is why there's a scar across my stomach that will never fade. And then, at the pack banquet, Serena walked in on Damien's arm in a couture gown and, in front of everyone, dared me to hand over the moonstone ring that marked me as Luna. Damien saw the whole thing. He said nothing. He let it happen. Everyone waited for me to scream, to make a scene. I didn't. I slid the moonstone ring off my finger, calm as anything, and pushed it onto hers. "It suits you better than it ever suited me." Something like surprise flickered behind Damien's eyes, but it melted fast into smugness. "Aurora. You finally learned your place." I kept my head down. The corner of my mouth curved. I hadn't learned my place. A month ago, I got back every memory I'd lost. I'm the Alpha King's long-lost daughter. In three days, he's coming to take me home himself.

I’ve got a killer hourglass figure and siren eyes. In Hollywood, I’m the ultimate sex symbol. But after five years in this town, not a single producer would dare lay a finger on me. Because the man in my bed is Don Vincenzo, the most ruthless mafia boss in New York. Seven years together. Every time we finished, he’d hold me close, kiss me, and carry me to the bathroom to clean me up. I naively thought I’d be the only woman by his side. That I'd even be his Donna. Until the night of my 28th birthday. After the family dinner, I heard him sneer to his underboss: "Chloe is fun to play with, but for my Donna, I have other options." In that instant, I ripped out my cheap, pathetic heart. I became exactly what he wanted: a perfect mistress who only cared about his money. But Vincenzo didn't seem to like that. His dark, dangerous eyes locked onto mine. "Besides this Manhattan penthouse, is there really nothing else you want from me?" I wrapped my arms around his neck, letting out a fake gasp of surprise. "You mean I can pick out a Ferrari, too?"

My CEO boyfriend promised that if I gave the billion-dollar project to his first love, he would marry me immediately. I agreed without hesitation. However, on the day we were supposed to register our marriage, he never showed up. I called him ninety-nine times, yet still could not reach him. Just as I was about to give up, his first love posted a photograph of the two of them holding their marriage certificate. [From school uniforms to wedding vows, our love's never changed.] I silently liked the post. Suddenly, the boyfriend who had been missing all day finally called me. “Whitney got into a car accident trying to save me and lost her memory. The doctor said we need to keep stimulating her memories so she can recover. “Don’t worry. Once she gets better, we’ll get married right away. You’re the one I truly love.” What he did not know was that there was no future for us anymore. I was bound to a mission system, and the moment he failed to show up for our marriage registration, the system declared my mission a failure. I would be completely erased in seven days.

The 99th time my fiancé, Draven, hung up on me, I dragged myself to the family's church, my diagnosis of end-stage renal disease clutched in my hand. "Father, I wish to renounce the Rocci family and break off my engagement to Draven Frost." The words had barely left my lips when my parents burst in with my adopted sister, Bianca. My father, the family's Consigliere, didn't hesitate. He slapped me across the face, right there in front of the priest. "Your fiancé is a respected Capo in our world, and you choose to insult him like this!" "You're dragging our family's name through the mud in front of the whole organization!" My mother snatched the diagnosis from my hand, sneering after a brief glance. "Playing sick for attention again, are you? What is it you want this time?" My adopted sister, Bianca, clung to our parents' arms, her voice choked with tears. "I'm so sorry, sister. You can have my place at the gala. Please, just stop making trouble for Mom and Dad!" I wiped the blood trickling from my nose and calmly repeated my words to the priest. "I am no longer a daughter of the Rocci family. I am not worthy of an alliance with the Frosts." "I will be dead in three days. I want this engagement broken before then."

During our graduation trip, we got trapped in a snowstorm and were forced to spend the night in a cave. There were five of us. My boyfriend, Marcus, the future Alpha heir, took the blankets out of his backpack. Without hesitation, he shook out two and draped them over Lily. Lily was an Omega wolf who had recently been found and brought back to our pack. There were two blankets left. I had just reached for one when Victor and Henry, my other two childhood friends, snatched them up and covered Lily with them as well. When they noticed me staring, they merely smiled nonchalantly. "We only brought four. You're usually pretty tough. You can manage one night without a blanket." At midnight, Lily complained that she was hungry. Marcus immediately handed her the last piece of chocolate. Victor took out a thermos of hot water, while Henry hurried to open a packet of crackers for her. I sat on the freezing ground, watching the three of them fuss over Lily. The gnawing hunger in my stomach suddenly disappeared. I remembered how they'd forgotten only my plane ticket for this trip, forcing me to buy a seat on the next red-eye flight. I remembered how, whenever we went out to eat, they somehow always managed to forget to order anything for me. There were always five of us, yet Lily was always the only one who received all three people's affection. By dawn, the blizzard had finally stopped, and the rescue team found us. The four of them walked toward the helicopter together, laughing and chatting. Not one of them looked back at me, sitting alone in the corner. I said nothing. I simply took out my phone and checked the admission offer from an overseas academy specializing in werewolf genetics. If their world only had room for four people, then I'd leave with my dignity intact.

Clarence, the Vampire Prince, fell for me the moment he laid eyes on me. And I fell for him just as hard, just as hopelessly. I accepted his Embrace. The whole dark world knew he loved me more than life itself. He branded the rune of our blood bond directly over his heart. That lasted five centuries. Then I got the video from his new blood doll—a human stripper named Seraphina. She was sprawled naked in his lap, fresh bite marks dotting her throat. Using her own blood, she’d painted a crude sigil right beside the sacred rune meant only for me. And my mate had let her. “Clarence says my young blood is the only thing that makes him feel alive anymore,” she purred. “He says you’re a dead fish in bed, darling Molly. Time for the new generation to take over.” I didn't bother to reply. My fingers were steady as I contacted an ancient witch. “I need a glamour,” I said, my voice even and low. “A perfect human shell. One that will hide everything—my scent, my trail. All of it.”

My fated mate, Alpha Kian of the Valerius Pack, had an unbreakable rule. After 9 PM, he cut off the mind link. No calls. No exceptions. He called it his "absolute radio silence." A time for the Alpha to calm his inner beast. Even when my heat hit the hardest. Before 9, he’d comfort me. The second the clock struck 9, he pushed me away without a second thought. Once, I was patrolling the borders late at night and got ambushed by rogues. My wolf howled in pure agony as blood spilled. Panicking, I pushed through our mate bond, begging for help. All I got was his voice, dripping with extreme annoyance. "Do you have any idea what time it is? Do not disturb me!" That night, I tore those rogues apart myself. I dragged my bloody, battered body back to the Pack House at dawn. He didn't even bother to bandage me. Just frowned dismissively. "You're the strongest female warrior in the pack. It's just a few rogues. Stop being so dramatic." To him, my strength was a given. Until today. I was cleaning his study and accidentally bumped his private phone. In the encrypted logs, I found a call. From 9 PM to 9 AM. Twelve hours straight. Every single night. For five years. I knew the number. Lily. The weak Omega daughter of his mother's old friend. The only one he bent his rules for. The one who got to stay in the Pack House. In that moment, my wolf let out a tragic, broken whimper. I sat staring at the screen for a long time. The morning light finally crept through the windows. In silence, I picked up the printed schedule for our Luna Mating Ceremony on his desk. I tossed it straight into the fireplace. His heart was never open to me. And now? My door is permanently closed to him.

At the party, my son, Hughie Peters, deliberately raised his voice and said to my wife, Penelope Peters, "Mommy, you're pregnant with Darren's baby. Are we gonna live with him from now on?" Penelope set the sliced steak down in front of me and said softly, "I made a promise with your daddy. Whoever betrayed the other first would disappear from the other person's world forever. I can't afford for that to happen, so this must stay a secret. After the baby is born, it'll still be your daddy's child." After saying that, Penelope signed to me that she would love me forever. But she didn't notice my reddened eyes. She didn't know I had gotten my hearing back a week ago, nor did she know I had already discovered their affair. And she definitely didn't know I had quietly bought a plane ticket to Lumora for a teaching volunteer program. I was just waiting for the paperwork to be approved in seven days. Then, I would disappear for good.

For their fifth wedding anniversary, Xavier Parker gave Riley Quinn a gift: he forced 999 bottles of hard liquor down her throat. "Xavier, I really can't drink anymore..." Riley begged, her voice hoarse. He let out a cold laugh and leaned over her. "Your parents loved drinking so much they drove drunk and killed my entire family. You're their daughter. You must love drinking just as much." "I'm sorry." Riley's eyes reddened with despair. She had apologized countless times, so often that the words had become second nature. "But my parents already died to atone for that accident. Isn't that... enough?"

As the Principessa of the Falcone family, I craved danger and absolute freedom. But on my ninety-ninth attempt to escape my arranged marriage, Vito Moretti finally caught me. My dangerously handsome betrothed cornered me at an underground racetrack. "No one walks away from me, Liliana," he smirked from his modified Mustang. "You're the first." With my weakness for dangerous men, I made a life or death wager. "Beat me on the track, and I'll marry you. Lose, and you get out of my life." Our engines roared as we tore along the cliffside road, its curves dangerously free of guardrails. Nearing the finish line, I took a turn too fast and hurtled toward the edge. But just inches from victory, Vito jerked his wheel. He slammed his car into mine, knocking me to safety as his own plunged into the icy bay below. I scrambled down the cliff, terrified, and dragged his bleeding body from the water. "I lost," he gasped, life fading from his eyes. "You're free." My heart shattered into a million dazzling pieces as tears streamed down my face. Startled by my reaction, Vito swore softly. "Don't cry. I'll tell our fathers the broken engagement was my choice. No one will dare lay a finger on you." I sobbed and pressed my lips to his. "To hell with the bet, Vito Moretti. I'm marrying you!"

“You don't deserve to be a daughter of this House,” my mother hissed, her eyes burning crimson in the firelight. “If you can't support your sister as our heir, get out.” I should have seen it coming. In House Ashenveil, family came first—unless you were me. Vera Darkthorn. The disappointment. My perfect younger sister, Iris, got the love, the title, even Kane, the man I was supposed to bind myself to. I got an empty chapel on the night of my blood-binding. Even the man who had sworn himself to me never showed. So I left. Now I'd built a life among Berlin's underground vampire courts, where power was the only currency that mattered. I'd learned to fight. To lead. To make vampires twice my size lower their eyes with a look. Then word came that Iris was dying, and suddenly my family wanted me back. “Come home, Vera.” My father's voice rasped through the phone. “Your sister needs you.” I almost laughed. After everything? But I wasn't the helpless daughter they'd discarded anymore. This time, I knew how to use my fangs. And when your own blood comes hunting for you, you don't run. You go for the throat.

For four years, I was mated to Kieran Blackwood, Alpha of the Blackpine Pack. For nearly half of those nights, he slept at the lakeside villa instead of coming home to me. His older brother, Damon, had died in an accident, leaving behind Vivienne, Blackpine's former Luna. Kieran said looking after his brother's widow was part of the duty he had inherited along with the Alpha title. I believed him. So I put up with the empty chair beside mine at full-moon celebrations. I let him walk out in the middle of dinner whenever Vivienne called. I ignored the pack members who snickered behind my back and called me the substitute Luna. Then came the crash. Three vehicles collided on a rain-slick highway. I was trapped in the passenger seat with the twisted door crushing my side and the seat belt cutting across my thirty-week belly. Blood ran down the seat while I pounded on the cracked window and begged Kieran to save our baby. He reached my door first. Then Vivienne screamed from the back seat, and he let go. He carried her out even though she had only a shallow cut on her forehead. He pulled her against his chest and kept telling her, "Don't look, Viv. I've got you." Through a spiderweb of broken glass, I watched him leave in her ambulance. If my child and I would always come second in his life, then I was done waiting to be chosen. I was taking back my name, my future, and every part of myself I'd handed over to an Alpha who never deserved any of it.

My mission to win her love had failed, and the system told me I could leave this world in fifteen days. As soon as I heard the news, I agreed to the divorce my wife wanted. I stopped making a scene whenever she left me behind to take care of her childhood friend. I stopped screaming myself hoarse when she spent my money on vacations with him. At first, she even praised me for being understanding. Then she smiled and told me she planned to marry him, and I still didn't react. She began to panic.

After the ball is over, Prince Adrian Valmont delivers a glass slipper to my family. Whoever fits into the slipper will become the future princess. In the first life, my oldest sister, Mira Carrington, steels her heart and chops off her toes so that she can wear the slipper. She successfully becomes the princess afterward. On their wedding night, Adrian spots Mira's bleeding foot. He's quick to unsheathe his sword and cut her into pieces. "This is what you get for impersonating the princess!" In the second life, my second sister, Bianca Carrington, dices off her sole in order to fit her foot into the slipper. But Adrian still discovers her injury on the day after their wedding, resulting in him hanging her from the castle wall. "How dare you impersonate her? You definitely have a death wish!" In the third life, my foot slips into the glass slipper very easily. But Adrian still gouges out my heart on our wedding night. His features are contorted heavily. "You don't love me at all, so why are you impersonating my princess?" In the fourth time loop, Adrian comes knocking on our door with the glass slipper once again. This time, neither of us has the guts to approach him. This leaves Adrian enraged. "The owner of the glass slipper is in your house! If I don't see her in three days, all of you shall die!"

My family is human. We were gifted a long life by the Thorne clan, something close to immortality. For generations, we’ve been their most loyal guardians. And I fell in love with Cedric, the vampire lord I was sworn to protect. For a hundred years, I was his secret. His sin. His only bedmate. I was his shield against dark magic. The sworn protector of his vast clan. I thought I’d earn the mark of an eternal bond. I was even ready for him to turn me. After all, on every blood moon, he would claim my body. Then, at the peak of an agonizing pleasure, he’d sink his fangs into my neck and drink my blood. He’d press his cold lips to my skin and whisper that I was his one and only. That no other blood, no other body, could make him lose control like this. But this time, the moment he was finished with me, he announced his eternal bond with Elsie, the pureblood princess of the Valerius clan. He smirked at the shock on my face. "You're just a human, gifted a long life by my ancestors. My bed warmer. You didn't actually think you could be my mate, did you?" In that moment, I understood. I was just a renewable blood bag. A tool with a purpose. For an alliance, for her, he sacrificed me. He cast me into the abyss and let the darkness swallow me whole. He thought the Guardian's Pact would chain me to him for eternity. But he forgot one thing. Every pact has a loophole. So I destroyed everything he ever gave me. Then, with my family's help, I vanished. But when the Lord of Eternal Night couldn't find his favorite toy… he went mad.

In the Valenti Family, you're born with a chip. It's fused into the bio-watch on your wrist, its digital face counting down every second you have left to live. Everyone could see the numbers ticking down on my twin sister's watch. And on mine. They all knew she would die on our 18th birthday. So Vivian became the untouchable princess of our brutal world. Every diamond-stitched gown was hers. The rarest jewels were hers. Even our father's last shred of humanity was hers. That single sliver of warmth he showed only after his gun was holstered. I used to pity her. Her time was running out. But God, I envied her. She had everything I never did: our parents' love. Then, the night of her 18th birthday party. My parents worried I'd make a scene. That I'd piss off the Don of an allied Family. So they locked me in the cellar. Damp. Cold. While a deadly fever burned through me. I pounded on the heavy oak door, my voice cracking. "Mamma, please! Let me out! I'm burning up. My head is splitting open…" Outside, my mother's voice was a steel trap. "Enough, Sienna! Today is your sister’s 18th birthday. Her last day alive! Stop the theatrics! Can't you suffer in silence for the Family's honor?" "But I'm really sick..." Her footsteps clicked away, fading into nothing. Then the darkness swallowed me whole. And on my wrist, the bio-watch was flashing a critical alert. CRITICAL ALERT: Vital signs mismatch. Paired chip data incompatible. Please verify user.

After graduating from high school, my twin sister, Ella, and I were both accepted to Newland University. My parents put eighty thousand dollars in Ella's college fund and gave her a three-thousand-dollar monthly allowance, but put only eight thousand in mine and gave me three hundred a month. They took it for granted that I would move to Newland to look after her. The day the whole family threw a graduation party for my sister, I boarded a flight to the West Coast with a single suitcase and a full scholarship to one of the country's top engineering schools. What they didn't know was that the reporter who showed up that afternoon to interview "the outstanding Ashford graduate" had never been looking for my sister. The person they wanted was me, the daughter they'd already pushed out the door.

Three nights before my wedding, I called my fiancé, Garrett. A version of him from five years in the future answered. I couldn't keep the happiness out of my voice. "Are we happy together? Has your mother finally accepted me?" A long silence hung on the other end before a low, tipsy chuckle came through. The laugh was faint, the kind you'd use to humor a naive child. "Vivi, in the last five years, you've asked me for a divorce more times than I can count." I froze. "...What do you mean?" "It means you found out about me and Kiera." My breath caught. I couldn't believe it. "My sister? I thought you couldn't stand her." He let out a quiet sigh. "Vivi, saying I couldn't stand her was just my way of hiding how I really felt." "Don't worry, I won't divorce you. We made our vows at the altar, after all." A chill ran through me. I wanted to press further, but a lazy little giggle drifted through from the other end. "Garrett, who is it?" He murmured something in response and hung up. A second later, a message from Garrett popped up on my phone. [Vivi, our wedding is almost here. You're happy, right?] [I'll be good to you for the rest of my life. If I ever break that promise, I don't deserve to live.]