Feel-Good Story Defy Fate Short Stories & Novels

In my previous life, Damian Valen, future Alpha to the Silver Moon Pack, plunged a dagger coated in silver salts and wolfsbane through his heart on the night of our mating ceremony. All he left behind was a bloodstained note. "I owe her grandfather my life; bonding with her was the only way I could repay that debt. "If I get another life, I would mark Selena, the woman I truly love." After that night, I became the scheming bitch who used a life-saving debt to drive off Selena Winter, the noble white wolf, and tear apart a pair of fated mates. On a night that had plunged to four below zero, the Valens threw me out of their stronghold wearing nothing but my thin ceremonial gown. By morning, every social media feed in the city was dragging my grandfather's name and mine through the mud. They said the Blackmoon witches were low-lives, forever reeking of herbs and old parchment. Someone like me could never be worthy of the future Alpha of the Silver Moon Pack. How ironic. The truth was, Grandpa had almost died saving Damian during the blood moon. He'd used forbidden magic to drag Damian back after his wolf lost control. Afterward, the Valens had practically begged me to marry into the family, swearing they'd take care of me for the rest of my life to repay the debt. Shattered, I wandered onto the highway at the foot of the mountain. The next thing I knew, a car slammed into me and sent me flying. Blackmoon witches weren't werewolves. We couldn't regenerate the way they could. As darkness closed in, I caught sight of a man and woman tangled together inside a black SUV parked in the distance. It was Damian and Selena. Now I had been given a second life. Mrs. Valen slapped a contract sealed with black wax across my grandfather's weathered face and let out a scornful laugh. "This is more than enough to buy the life of one old wizard. "Your death will buy your granddaughter a life of luxury as the Luna of the Silver Moon Pack. What are you waiting for? Go die already."

During our graduation hiking trip, my roommate Quentin Lowe insisted on taking an unmarked trail. He fell and broke his leg, then begged me, a medical student, to set the bone and give him first aid. Just as I opened my first aid kit to stabilize his broken leg, a voice suddenly sounded in my head. "I'm you, ten years from now. Don't touch his leg! That damn Quentin had already bought a huge insurance policy. He chose this cliff on purpose so you'd treat him. "Then he'll accuse you of practicing medicine without a license, leaving him permanently disabled! "He'll demand $450,000 from you. You'll lose your right to practice medicine for life. In the end, his whole family will push you to the point of jumping off a building!" When Quentin saw me frozen in place, he grabbed my hand and pressed it hard against his broken leg. "What are you waiting for? Do something!" The voice in my head spoke up again. "Forget him and get down the mountain! His parents are already waiting outside the hospital at the foot of the mountain with a group of people. They're planning to extort money from you!" I shuddered. Quentin's urgency was definitely out of character. I slung my hiking pack over my shoulders and walked away without hesitation.

When I'm eight years old, my dad gets remarried. Then, when my stepmother gets pregnant, she decides I'm an eyesore. Dad shoves a train ticket into my hand. "I can't afford to raise you anymore. Your aunt's working down south. Go to her." I don't even remember what my aunt, Ava Shore, looks like anymore. All I know is that she left home at 18 and cut contact with Dad years ago. I spend a day and a night on that train, getting more scared by the minute. What if Aunt Ava doesn't want me, either? When I finally step off the train and exit the station, I'm greeted by an MPV. The door swings open, and a woman with big, blown-out curls and sunglasses steps out in high heels. "So you're the daughter my brother decided he didn't want?" I nod, clutching the straps of my duffel in a death grip. She crouches and studies me carefully. "Your hair's a mess. You look like some neglected stray." Before I can respond, a boy about my age pops his head out from behind her. "Mom, she looks awful." Aunt Ava immediately reaches back and twists his ear. "Say that again if you have the guts. If anyone at your school even thinks about bullying her, I'm coming for you first." The boy bares his teeth and hisses in pain, but he still reaches out and takes my duffel from me. A warm southern breeze washes over me, and tears form in my eyes. Suddenly, I don't feel so scared anymore.

I needed money, so I sold myself to that cold, handsome man for seven nights. He left behind a black card and an ice-cold eggshell, then vanished. Three months later, a doctor found six coiled serpentine shadows inside my womb. I discarded every trace of my identity and fled to a snowbound cabin, hoping to stay alive. But the day I gave birth alone in a blizzard, what crawled out weren't monsters. They were six babies with golden slit pupils who called me "Mama." My children were not priceless treasures. To the powerful guys, they were research subjects. To the other species, they were "filthy half-breeds." When cold needles pressed against all six of my children's chests, I heard the blast door torn from its frame. The man who had vanished three years ago stood in the smoke. Six golden threads glowed from his palm, each connected to a child, and black blood still seeped from the wounds he'd torn open breaking through the blockade. "Get your hands off my family."

The night before I was due to leave the pack, the Alpha was struck by the heat poison. As his personal doctor, I broke it the only way I could, with my own body. The next morning, the old Luna came to find out what had happened. In my last life, I stepped forward and admitted it was me, shy and ashamed. The Alpha marked me himself and made me the pack's new Luna. After that, he let the pack fall to ruin, and gave up the peace alliance with a neighboring pack all for my sake. The whole pack cursed me for bewitching their Alpha. But I knew the truth. Every bit of his devotion was a lie. The one he truly wanted to mark was Cassia Lowe, the nurse who worked under me. For years she had his heart and his love, and every night I lay awake with the sound of the two of them through the wall. It left me sitting alone until dawn. Maybe the Moon Goddess took pity on me, because I woke again on the very day the old Luna came with her questions. This time, I stood quietly at the back of the room. Cassia stepped forward, soft and sweet, and claimed that night as her own. I swallowed the potion that hid the mate bond, nodded along, and agreed. “She was the one on night duty at the villa. It has to be her.”

As one of the country's top high school teachers, I have helped countless students get into the best colleges. But I somehow find myself reborn as a poor kid from the countryside while attending a ceremony honoring my achievements. A mysterious voice echoes in my mind. "If you fail to get into college, you'll die!" How hard can that be? It's just getting into college. That's hardly a challenge for a genius like me. But soon I realize that getting into college isn't really about how smart you are. In the end, it all comes down to people and their motives.

On my 28th birthday, Carl Thorne asked me to meet him at the Moon Goddess statue. He specifically told me to wear a wedding dress and said he was finally going to keep his promise and mark me. But when I arrived in my wedding dress, its train trailing behind me, he turned to the crowd and laughed. "See? I don't even have to mark her. One word from me, and she'll come running. I win. The hunting grounds are mine." Then he raised an eyebrow at me. "Vera, I was only joking. The pack still sees you as their Luna, mark or no mark." When I remained silent, Carl grinned. "If you're so desperate to be marked, why not pick someone here?" The crowd burst out laughing. Everyone knew I was Carl's fated mate, that I was hopelessly in love with him and would never choose another. But when I took my new husband's hand and completed the marking ceremony, Carl went white and froze where he stood.

My daughter, Lilah Olson, was hit by a car and needed immediate medical attention. Instead of calling my surgeon wife, Elina Olson, I raced against the clock to find another doctor. In my previous life, Lilah and Elina’s first love, Nolan Hicks, were involved in car accidents at the same time. I called Elina first and begged her to operate on Lilah. She rushed over to perform the surgery, only to miss Nolan’s desperate call for help. Elina didn’t blame me. Instead, she comforted me, saying that everyone had their own fate. That was until our third wedding anniversary. She slipped sleeping pills into my water and replaced Lilah’s calcium supplements with rat poison. She grabbed me by the hair and forced me to stay conscious, making me watch as she hacked Lilah’s corpse to pieces, blow after blow, until it was nothing but bloody pulp. Then she used a scalpel to slash open my major artery and stabbed me more than a thousand times. “If it weren’t for you two, Nolan wouldn’t have died!” When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day Lilah was hit by the car.

My fiancé, Alpha Theron, was the star player on the pack hockey team. Yet even as his mate, the pack mocked me as a fat pig that had wandered in among wolves. But when he was attacked, I was the one who stepped in front of him. Hockey sticks came down on my back and my shoulders. The pain cut to the bone, and I gritted my teeth and took it. That overweight body everyone despised was the only reason not one blow landed on him. It was also what finally made the old Luna nod and agree to let me marry into the family. But while I lay unconscious from my injuries, Theron announced that he would mark my stepsister Hannah, the cheer captain, instead. Not only that. Hannah posted videos online of the two of us practicing cheer routines together. "Who wants to watch a pig dance sexy? The Alpha had his reasons for turning her down." "Look at all that useless fat. Is that really a wolf?" Then, while the mockery was at its worst, she asked me to forgive her, as if none of it had been on purpose. When my heart was already ash, my father and my stepmother threw me out of the house. "All that fat, clumsy and ugly, and she cannot even hold on to her own mate." "She is that fat and still joined the cheer squad. Now the rest of us get mocked too. How humiliating!" As a rogue, I swallowed every kind of suffering there is. In one year I lost over a hundred pounds and became the brightest cheer sweetheart in the league. Then I turned around and cheered for the most valuable player on the ice. Theron heard about it and came running. He dropped to his knees with red eyes and clung to the hem of my skirt. "You were my love, my mate! What does that idiot who can only swing a stick have that I don't?"

In our Pack Alliance, every Alpha must choose his future Luna in front of everyone. The Alpha must touch the Sacred Moonstone. The stone reveals the inner wolf of his true mate. The brightest aura proves the Moon Goddess’s choice. For the first nine times, I was so sure about our intense bond. I believed that my inner wolf would shine the brightest for Ronan. But every single time, right in front of the whole pack, he chose Bianca—my adopted Omega sister. Right before the tenth and final trial, he confessed the truth. "I am going to choose Bianca again." "Why?" I asked. I fought the agonizing pain of my soul being ripped apart. "Because I was given a second chance," he said. "In my past life, Bianca begged me to pick her just once. She wanted to beat you. I said no." "Later, we mated. But she killed herself with Wolfsbane right after the ceremony." "She once took a fatal blow from a rogue wolf for me. I owe her my life. Next time, Lyra, I swear I will pick you." But a mate bond is not a game you can just restart. And he wasn’t the only one who remembered the past. In our past life, he grew cold and distant toward me because of Bianca's death. Even when he became the Alpha King, he was never happy. Right before he died, he swore: If there is a next life, I will never fail you. I believed him. This time around, I just thought there was a glitch in our bond. Now, this is the tenth time. Our agreed final chance to choose a Luna. Since he still chooses to betray our fated bond, I will follow the Moon Goddess’s guidance too. And mate with someone else.

My sister, Sophie Shaw, had taken the civil service exam twice before. On her third try, she finally came in first in the entire city, beating the runner-up by a landslide. On the day I drove her to her interview, a car came barreling straight at her. By the time the ambulance arrived, it was already too late. In five short seconds, I watched Sophie go from alive and full of hope to completely still. In the end, our cousin Rachel Morgan, who had placed second, got the job. And the person behind the wheel was none other than another of my uncle's children, Yale Morgan. The car was fully insured, and the court ordered the insurance company to pay us one million dollars in compensation. I had lost everything that mattered to me. When Rachel's family threw her a party to celebrate getting the job, I stormed in and demanded an explanation. Instead, my mom, Megan Shaw, marched over and slapped me hard across the face. My aunt, Laura Morgan, and uncle, Daniel Morgan, immediately sided with her. "She's dead. There's nothing anyone can do about that now. Rachel is the one who's actually brought honor to this family. You can't blame us just because your sister had terrible luck!" Something inside me broke. I went upstairs and jumped. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the morning of Sophie's interview. This time, I immediately made her take a different car. The crash still happened.

Years ago, a witch cast a prophecy over me. She said I was the cursed wolf, an abomination who would bring the pack to ruin. My parents believed it completely. Locked me in the cellar that same night and left me to starve. My older sister, Sia, fought like hell to keep me alive. When the pack came for me, she stood in front of every single one of them, crying as she tried to shield me. "She's not an abomination. She's never hurt anyone." Because of those words, when the Alpha fell for her but still feared me, that so-called abomination, I volunteered for exile. Walked away from the pack forever. Before I left, I gave Sia a charm. Told her, if anyone ever laid a hand on her, just speak into it, and I'd come running. No questions asked. Three years later, I had clawed my way to Alpha of the Wintercrest Pack through sheer power. I was about to tell Sia the news when her distress signal hit me. My blood went cold. I raced back to my old pack, only to walk right into the Alpha's covenant ceremony with another woman. That smug witch was up there, chanting blessings over the happy couple. My parents stood by, grinning. And Sia? Nowhere. I scanned the crowd again. Still nothing. My chest tightened. Let me be crystal clear. If anything happened to Sia, I would give them a real abomination to fear.

During the Christmas holidays, my parents began our family meeting with the yearly "family support vote." Our family's only recommendation letter for Oxford's architecture program lay on the table. My name had originally been on it. "I vote for Camilla." My older brother, Evan Prescott, was the first to raise his hand. "She just went through a breakup. She needs to get away to Europe for a while." "I vote for Camilla too." My mother kept filing her nails as she talked. "Selena can go to community college. Camilla's grades are bad. Without a recommendation letter, she won't get in anywhere." My father didn't hesitate. He slid the recommendation letter across the table to Camilla. "Three votes to one, Selena. It's settled." My younger sister, Camilla Prescott, picked up the letter and smiled sweetly. "Thanks, Selena. You've always been the independent one. I knew you wouldn't hold this against me." I looked at that letter. To earn it, I'd stayed up late for six straight months and drawn more than 300 designs. To them, all my hard work was just a way to get my sister's foot in the door. I stood up. I didn't cry, and I didn't demand an explanation. "Fine. If that's how you voted, give it to her." I turned, walked back to my room, and pulled out the suitcase I'd packed a long time ago. What they didn't know was that my own designs had already earned me an offer of direct admission to Harvard. That letter felt like a handout. I wanted nothing to do with it.

As the most powerful witch in the pack, I gritted my teeth and swallowed the poison before the new Luna's ascension, destroying my own gift of foresight. In my last life, I had divined that the new Luna was a spy sent by the vampires, and that she would bring about the pack's destruction. When I begged Alpha Hall to banish her, someone reported me for coveting the Luna position, accusing me of selfish motives. Alpha Hall led a search of my quarters, and somehow, a letter conspiring with vampires was found under my bed. The moment Luna saw it, she flung herself into Hall's arms and sobbed with wounded innocence: "Bella, I know you've been in love with our Alpha, but you can't just frame me because you're jealous!" Hall flew into a rage, declared me a liar and a threat, and ordered me nailed to the stake and burned alive. As the flames swallowed me, I saw Luna grinning at me, twisted and cruel, her lips parting to reveal the glint of vampire fangs. When I opened my eyes again, I was back to the day before Luna's binding ceremony. The very moment Hall commanded me to beseech the Moon Goddess's blessing for his beloved.

On the day of my coming-of-age ceremony, I must choose a fiancé from among the heirs of three great families. Everyone believes I will choose Dario Morandi—the man I have pursued for years. Instead, I pick up the photograph of his older brother, Cassiano Morandi. Cassiano is known as the lunatic who was kidnapped by enemies at the age of five and thrown into an underground fighting pit. He survived on his own for ten years before the Morandis brought him back. No one thinks he is worthy of me, the Vito family's Principessa. In my previous life, I choose Dario. On our wedding day, Lina Greco—the daughter of Papa's chauffeur—shows up in a white wedding dress with her pregnant belly on display, crying as she claims the child is Dario's. Enraged, I have her thrown out. But amid the chaos, she suffers a miscarriage. Dario smiles and goes through with the wedding. But in the third year of our marriage, he steals classified intelligence and hands it over to my famiglia's enemies. I die that very night. Now that I have a second chance at life, I decide to fulfill his wish and let him be with Lina. What I never expect is that he has been reborn as well.