Bias Regret Short Stories & Novels

"What even are the specs on this thing?" My coworker Zack slid it back across the desk, frowning hard. I was still fixing a design draft and barely looked up. "Latest model. Core Ultra 9, RTX 5090, 128 gigs of RAM. Why?" "No shot." Zack shook his head. "I opened Photoshop and it froze for, like, three minutes straight. My busted three-year-old laptop runs better than this. And look." He tapped the bottom panel. "There are screwdriver marks back here. Looks like somebody opened it up and slapped it back together." My chest tightened. I grabbed the laptop and flipped it over. Two fresh scratches sat near the vent. The edges looked like they'd been pried up. I went still. Three months ago, when my cousin borrowed it, the laptop had been perfectly fine.

My Alpha mate, Leon Worth, brought a breathtaking mermaid into our estate. He named her Nerissa and tended to her every need with painstaking care. That day, the moment Leon stepped out, Nerissa walked right up to me—and placed my Luna Crown on her own head, right in front of my face. "Leon and I have known each other for six months now. He promised me with his own mouth—he'd take care of me for life." She traced a finger along the crown's rim, her smile poised. "I've made up my mind—I'm willing to drink the potion for him. I'll give up my tail. Delores, step aside and hand over the Luna position. It'll save everyone the humiliation in the end." I didn't argue with her. I just waited for Leon to come back and explain. But when he finally returned, he didn't even bother to take that crown off Nerissa's head. He left me standing there like I didn't exist, while he knelt beside her, gently cleaning her scales, his voice low and tender—like he was handling something fragile, something precious: "Just three more days. I'll get you a better heated pool." The way he looked at her—I'd seen that look for seven years. Now, it belonged to someone else. I turned and walked away. I didn't look back. My flight had barely broken through the clouds when my phone lit up. A message from Leon flashed across the screen: "Delores, don't go. I did all of this—to save you!"

My husband, Tyler Stone, has been dead for seven years. One day, he suddenly comes back to life. Not only does he bring another woman home with him, but he even wants me to give up my position as his wife. "Ruth almost lost her eyes saving me, and I've promised to marry her. Sign the divorce agreement, and I won't kick you out of the house." I'm briefly silent before saying, "I've actually married someone else." He rolls his eyes. "As if. Everyone knows you're desperately in love with me!"

While the criminal was brutally killing me, my dad, the head of the criminal investigation division, and my mom, the chief forensic pathologist, were attending my sister Lily Lambert’s match. In a bid for revenge, the criminal, who had once been captured by my dad, cut out my tongue and used my phone to call him. My dad only said one thing before hanging up. "No matter what’s going on, Lily’s match is the top priority today!" The criminal sneered, "Seems I’ve kidnapped the wrong person. I thought they would love their biological daughter more!" At the crime scene, my parents were shocked by the brutal state of the body and condemned the cruelty of the killer. However, they did not realize that the horrifically mutilated corpse was their own daughter.

Mother used my life to threaten the system and force Father to return for a second time. But this time, Father was different. He no longer cared that Mother favored her childhood sweetheart, Adrian Voss. He did not even react when Undersecretary Adrian pretended to be frail and provoked him in front of her. When Mother begged for forgiveness, Father only calmly rolled up his sleeve and pressed a dagger to the scarred skin of his wrist. "Tell me. How much blood do you need this time?" Mother's face tightened with pain. Her eyes went red. "Gideon, must you embarrass me like this? Can't our family be harmonious like before?" Father's gaze moved from Mother to Adrian, but he said nothing. His silence told her exactly who had caused his disappointment and pain again and again. Sure enough, Mother stiffened, then spoke in anger to hide her shame. "Adrian has only been in court for two years. Just because you failed the civil-service exams, are you so jealous that you'd watch him die?" "Gideon, he was my uncle's finest student. I can't stand by and let him die." "Don't worry. Once Adrian recovers, I won't make you bleed into his medicine again. After all, the person I love most is you." As soon as she said it, I crawled out from the corner and threw myself in front of Father. I wanted to beg him not to believe her. I wanted him to leave quickly, before Mother and Adrian could hurt him again. But Father tightened his hand around mine and smiled gently. "Don't be afraid, Eli. This time, I came back to take you home with me."

Randy’s mother, Monica, was on her dying bed. Her only wish before she died was for him, my alpha boyfriend, to perform our marking ceremony before she passed. When Monica looked at him eagerly, Randy agreed to mark me. But after we left her room, Randy said that he was going to marry Alina. “Alina’s mother is critically ill. She also wants to watch her undergo the marking ceremony before she passes. We can wait a little longer before we conduct our own marking ceremony, Emma.” “But what about your mother? She wants to witness us undergo the marking ceremony too!” “My mother can hang in there a little longer. Don’t worry.” Randy then grabbed the ring that Monica had given to me. It had acted as a symbol of me being her daughter-in-law, but Randy gave it to Alina. Unbeknownst to him, Monica was already at Death’s door, and she was feigning a picture of health in front of him. On the day Monica passed away, Randy performed the marking ceremony with another woman. After I made preparations for Monica’s funeral, I vanished from Randy’s world. To my surprise, he started begging me to become his mate after I left.

On my birthday, my husband, Adrian Grant, suddenly showed up with my adoptive younger sister, Bella Reed, and her child, Tia Reed. When it was time to head out, he naturally arranged for Bella to sit in the front passenger seat. Then he turned to me and said calmly, "Tia gets carsick easily. The back seat is full of stuff. Since you're healthy, just take the bus." Our friends immediately chimed in, one after another, "You're the older sister. Taking care of your niece is only right." Four cars were heading out, yet not one seat was left for me, the supposed main character of the day. I sat on the bus, swallowing my grievance, and saw Adrian and Bella interacting ambiguously in the group chat. They were even talking about topics I knew nothing about. When I opened the newly sent video, nothing except leftovers remained on the table prepared for me. Adrian even treated the birthday cake I had carefully prepared as dessert, spoon-feeding it to Bella and her daughter. Someone finally couldn’t stand it anymore and asked whether this was appropriate. Adrian, who was carefully wiping Bella’s mouth, didn’t even look up. "We’re all family. Julia won’t be angry." At that point, our seven-year marriage came to its end.

My Alpha fiance's childhood sweetheart died after being poisoned, and the pack believed I was her killer. Only the Alpha stood by me without wavering. "Ophelia is the kindest Beta in this pack. She is also your future Luna. How could she possibly poison anyone? I never want to hear another accusation like that." For my birthday, he gave me a wolf-tooth necklace. When I came down with a fever, he stayed by my side around the clock and even punished the healer who prepared my medicine. Then, three days later, I overheard him talking to Vivian's mother. "Alpha, you've been dosing the Luna with wolfsbane for days. She hasn't noticed, has she?" Kyle gave a cold laugh. "No. I slip a little into her milk every day, and the fool still thinks I love her. She drove Vivian to her death. I will make her suffer every bit of the pain Vivian endured!" The wolfsbane took effect then and there. He locked me in the cellar, tortured me mercilessly, and even slept with other wolves in front of me. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day Vivian fled home to the pack and Kyle chose me for his mate.

Aria Hawthorne, the disciple I carefully nurture, ascends to the position of Demon Empress. However, she sets a trap and kills me. After my death, she even has my skin and bones stripped away. She ensures that my name is disgraced throughout the Three Realms for thousands of years. This is all because I executed the person she had wanted to become her mentor. From that moment on, her hatred for me runs deep. When I open my eyes again, I am reborn on the day of the selection ceremony. This time, I give Aria exactly what she wants. I introduce her to my seemingly refined but actually brutal and incompetent junior, Kalix Frostwind.

When the email from the company came in, I rushed into the living room, bursting with excitement. "Mom, Dad, Ethan, Tyler, I got the job at MT!" But the living room was eerily silent. Out of habit, I glanced at the couch. Four dolls sat there. One was Dad, one was Mom, one was my brother Ethan, and one was Tyler Brooks, the boy I'd grown up with. The dolls' button eyes stared back at me, their stitched mouths pressed shut. My chest ached, and I had to admit what I'd tried so hard to forget. I'd been kicked out of the house a long time ago. The day we turned 18, my twin sister cried until she fainted. She said I tried so hard at everything that I made her look like a loser. She couldn't take the pressure. So everyone kicked me out and told me never to show my face around my sister again. When I first moved here, some thugs followed me home. Late that night, they pounded on my door. I hid under the table, terrified, and called Mom, Dad, Ethan, and Tyler again and again. They hung up every time. All I got were four identical texts. "Adele, stop calling. If Maria sees, she'll get upset. Once she's feeling more stable, we'll come get you." I clutched a baseball bat as they hammered on the door, too scared to even let out a sob. In the end, the noise woke my landlord, Frank. He chased the thugs off with a gun. After that, I made four dolls that looked just like Mom, Dad, Ethan, and Tyler. The dolls sat with me at meals and slept beside me. I used to hold them and imagine how happy I'd be when my family finally came to take me home. But now, standing in that suffocating silence, I felt utterly exhausted. I finally had to face reality. I stopped hugging the dolls and talking to them. There was no point pretending I was loved. I took out my phone and applied for the company's voluntary transfer to London.

Three days after I died, my fiancé got a call to ID the body. He just scoffed. "She's dead, so what? Call me when she's in the ground." The cops, out of options, hit up my backup contact—my childhood friend. He actually laughed. "She's really gone? Not my problem. Burn her or whatever." Then my body hit the internet— And suddenly, both of them looked like ghosts.

On my birthday, Connor Simpson's first love jumped off a building due to depression. She died on the spot. Connor blamed everything on me. I never celebrated my birthday again after she died. After the murderer electrocuted me for more than ten hours, they forced me to call Connor. "Connor, it's my 25th birthday today. Can you come over and spend time with me?" However, Connor did not notice anything unusual. His voice was laced with venomous iciness. "Clarisse Winter, Audrey wouldn't have died if it weren't for you. How dare you ask me to celebrate your birthday? If only you were the one who died." I heard him coaxing a woman on the other end just before he hung up on me. That low and gentle tone was what I loved to hear the most in the past. That night, the murderer cut my body into countless pieces, packed them in bags, and threw them in front of the police station. Connor was summoned back overnight. He spent two days and two nights piecing together the body parts, but he did not realize that the dead person was the wife that he hated the most.

I fell for my next-door neighbor, James Grayson. I even tried to seduce him in a sexy nightdress. But he humiliated me by throwing me out in front of everyone. I was utterly embarrassed. The next day, he told me straight up that he was getting engaged, and I should just give up. So, I did. I let him go and said yes to someone else’s proposal. But on my wedding day, James showed up looking like a mess and tried to stop the wedding. “Summer, I regret everything.” But by then, my heart already belonged to my husband.

My twin sister, Sofia, and I looked identical. People always chose her first. She was soft-spoken, graceful, and easy to protect. I was direct, persistent, and never very good at softening the truth. Three years ago, gunfire erupted at Pier 19 as I was heading to a yacht party. I found Dante Caruso, underboss to New York's most feared crime families, bleeding behind a stack of shipping crates. I tore the hem from my red dress to bind his wound, then ran for help. When I returned, Sofia was kneeling beside him with the family doctor. "Did you save me?" Dante asked. Sofia lowered her lashes. "You're safe. That's all that matters." He believed she was his rescuer. When I told the truth, my parents said I was trying to steal Sofia's moment. Our families were bound by a marriage agreement. Believing Sofia was his rescuer, Dante chose her. Then someone drugged his champagne at the alliance gala. The next morning, we woke up in the same bed with no clear memory of the night, and rival photographers waited in the hall. Caruso honor left him one choice. He married me, and Sofia married his sickly younger brother. On our wedding night, Dante said, "This wasn't your fault. Since you’re marrying me, I'll protect you and give you every respect you're owed." I mistook duty for the beginning of love. I did everything I could to be a good wife and a good sister. Then Sofia died when her car went off a rain-slick coastal road. Dante comforted me, then secretly ordered his men to investigate me. "She spent years saying Sofia stole what belonged to her," he said. "Find out how far that resentment went." Seven years of marriage could not outweigh the woman he believed had saved his life. Then fire consumed the Caruso estate. Dante was fatally injured saving me. As he died in my arms, he whispered Sofia's name. When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the alliance gala. This time, I would let Dante’s marry his first choice.

At the party, friends teased us, asking when Rosalie Diaz and I would finally get married. I looked at her, smiling. She said nothing, and stiffly changed the subject. The friend who'd started the teasing glanced at me awkwardly, apology in his eyes. My smile didn't waver. I took a sip of my drink. I've always been a bit of a procrastinator, though not a hopeless one. So I decided to let Rosalie go. And to let myself go, too.

The night the hurricane made landfall, the emergency alert had barely stopped sounding when my sister-in-law, Brielle Rourke, called again. I listened to her helpless sobbing, then calmly handed the phone to my husband, Caleb Rourke, who was busy boarding up the balcony doors. Whatever she said, he kept agreeing to it. He pulled on a rain jacket and gave me that practiced, guilty look. "Her window's broken, Lena. She's all alone over there. I'll patch it up and I'll be back before the worst of it hits, I promise." Once again, it wasn't a discussion. It was an announcement. Five years of marriage, and every storm had gone exactly the same way. The moment the thunder started, her call came right on schedule. I used to fight about it, but he always said, "My brother died young. Brielle's raising his son by herself. We help when we can." "You're a grown woman, and a strong one. You can look after yourself and our son, right?" The wind split the glass, and the shards opened my calf to the bone. I reached for the baby sweater I'd never finished knitting. Tonight, Caleb, I don't think your son or I need you anymore.

In the fifth year of my marriage to Cynthia Bolton, she suddenly transfers a sum of money into my bank account. The note on the transfer reads, "Tuition for our son." I am completely stunned for a moment. No matter how hard I think about it, I couldn't figure out how exactly we could have a son. After Cynthia divorces her ex-husband, she marries me. She tells me that she's afraid of pain and of having children. On our wedding day, the very first condition she sets is that we remain child-free. And because I love her, I agree readily. To put her mind completely at ease, I even undergo a vasectomy. Staring at the transfer notification, I slowly turn around and ask her in a trembling voice. "What's the meaning of this?" Cynthia freezes for a moment. When she notices the bank account number she has sent the money to, a flash of annoyance crosses her eyes. Silence hangs in the air for a long time. Then, she lets out a long sigh and explains indifferently, as if she is talking about something that is absolutely ordinary. "Not long after I divorced Bradley Wilson, I found out I was pregnant."

The impoverished student I had sponsored, Jacob Murphy, had accumulated a massive gambling debt. When the debt collectors had kicked the door open, my childhood sweetheart, Renee Austin, had shoved me forward instead. Her voice was cold and distant. “He’s Jacob Murphy. Take him away.” In the darkness of an underground casino, they tore out my fingernails, then smashed my ribs one by one with an iron rod. When the searing pain arrived, I groveled on the floor like a dog. I was weeping and screaming, without a shred of dignity. Then, they “mercifully” gave me one chance to call for help. Clinging to the last sliver of hope, I called Renee. Her voice on the other end sounded very cruel. “If you hadn’t set him up, how would Jacob have ended up buried in gambling debt? Even if you die at their hands, you deserve it.” The dial tone after she hung up became the last sound in my world. Later, I really did die, just as she had said. However, there was not the slightest trace of a smile on Renee’s face. It was as if she had gone mad. Her eyes were bloodshot as she searched every underground gambling den in the city. ‘Renee, why were you crying for me?’ I wondered.

The marking ceremony had reached the moment when the Luna crown should be exchanged, but my mate in name only still refused to lower his head. Once Drake Blackwood bit the side of my neck and completed the marking, our 66th ceremony would finally become real. Yet his eyes stayed fixed on his phone, and he did not even look at me. All because his widowed sister-in-law, Scarlett Moore, had posted a claim-release statement an hour earlier. Her late husband had been Drake’s older brother. Under pack law, Drake was obligated to protect her. Attached to her post was a ticket for a private pack flight, showing that she would land in an hour. Drake suddenly rose and announced in a low voice to the elders and pack members that the marking ceremony would be postponed. Then he left me standing there alone, turning me into a joke before the entire pack. I calmly packed away the Luna crown, calmly apologized to the guests, and calmly saw everyone off. After that, I opened Scarlett’s latest post on the MoonNet feed. In the photo, Drake stood beside her, holding out a newly hunted moonstone. I gave a bitter smile and called my birth parents through the private pack link. “Father, Mother, I’m willing to come back now.” “I’ll accept the marriage alliance for the Frostvale Pack.”

At the company dinner, my coworkers started a game: everyone texted their lover saying they’d fallen ill. Whoever’s man replied first won. No surprise, I came in dead last again. Both my calls and my texts went completely unanswered. “Claire, don’t feel bad. Mr. Blackwood is so busy, it’s completely normal he hasn’t seen your message.” A coworker smiled and tried to comfort me, but the truth was, I’d gotten used to it long ago. Forget a cold or a fever. Even the day I was diagnosed with cancer, I called him nineteen times, and he didn’t pick up once. When I stayed quiet, everyone turned to look at Vivian in the corner, and one coworker teased her with a grin. “Vivian, didn’t you say your boyfriend was super clingy? How come he still hasn’t replied?” Vivian clutched her phone, her face full of unease. “I’ll pass. What if he’s in a meeting? I don’t want to bother him.” The mood had gone stiff, and looking at her pale fingertips, I suddenly smiled. “It’s fine. It’s just a game.” Before she could refuse again, I leaned over and hit the speaker-dial for her. The call I’d expected no one to answer was picked up in an instant. The huge private room fell dead silent. Because the voice coming through the phone belonged to Adrian Blackwood, my forever-busy boyfriend of seven years. “Babe, don’t forget our date tonight.” “Seven o’clock. I’ll see you at The Laurent.”