Devotion Plot Twists Short Stories & Novels

During a game of truth or dare on our family camping trip, my sister Clara chose a dare without hesitation. Our parents immediately praised her for being brave. "Clara's never been afraid of anything, not since she was little. She's our pride and joy." She drew a card, read what was written on it, then looked straight at me with a faint smirk. "The dare says Emma has to call her fiancé right now, break off their engagement, and tell him to date me instead." The campfire crackled. My grip tightened around my phone. Liam Sterling was the man I'd loved for years. But my mother, Helen, walked over and patted me impatiently on the back. "It's just a game. Why are you getting so worked up? Go on, call him. Don't make everyone think you're a sore loser." My father, Richard, cut in coldly. "Can't you be a little more generous? Liam isn't your property. Clara just wants a chance to get to know him. What's wrong with playing along?" Clara pushed the phone toward me, smiling innocently. "Emma, are you scared of a little game?" I said nothing. My eyes dropped to the new message on my screen. "My yacht's waiting for you at the dock." It was from Liam. I was done playing this game. And this time, I wasn't handing over what was mine.

After dinner with my college roommates at a restaurant in the Old Harbor district, the rain came down hard without warning. We huddled under the awning, pulling our coats tight, calling our boyfriends one by one.My friend Maya nudged my shoulder with a grin. "Your guy chased you so hard the entire school knew about it. He'll definitely be the first one here." "Right? Four years of college. Hot coffee delivered to your door on rainy days, your bike path shoveled clean in the snow, and whenever you didn't feel like getting up for class, he'd organize the professor's lecture notes and send them straight to your inbox." "That year you had your senior exhibition and came down with a high fever, he stayed with you in the studio for three days. Made you soup, fixed your models, stayed up so late his eyes were bloodshot. Evelyn, I honestly thought you'd found yourself a fairy-tale prince." They chattered on about my love life. Before long, their boyfriends all showed up with umbrellas. When they glanced my way, their expressions faltered. "How come Noah isn't here yet? Isn't your apartment just across the river?" I smiled and held up my phone. "He said something came up at the office." Maya asked her boyfriend to drop me off first. I sat in the back seat, spotted a familiar figure standing outside the pet grooming salon on the corner. He was cradling a silver-gray longhaired cat in his arms. The cat was wrapped in a soft little wool blanket. He was shielding even its ear tips, terrified of letting a single drop of rain touch it. It was Noah. The cat in his arms belonged to his childhood neighbor, Selena. This wasn't the first time Noah had left me stranded in the rain for that cat.Another message from Noah. "Babe, the rain's too heavy. Wait until it lets up and then call a car home. Don't be stubborn. You won't get wet that way." What he didn't know was that from the day Selena moved to this city last year, I had already been soaked through.

At the coming-of-age tarot reading, my little sister drew the Empress. I drew the Hanged Man, the Sacrifice card, just like always. Mom and Dad raised their glasses of red wine, beaming. "Looks like even God knows your sister was born to be a Donna." Under the Lombardi family code, the Empress could claim one prize from the Sacrifice. My sister eyed the obsidian cross around my neck and suddenly smiled. "Helena, I want your engagement to the Ravelli family." The banquet hall went quiet. The old Don had arranged that engagement for me before he died. All these years, it was the only thing of mine my sister hadn't taken. Without thinking, I pressed a hand to my chest. But my mother immediately jammed the muzzle of her gun against my shoulder. "That brutal Don has never even met you. What's the harm in switching?" My father yanked the cross off my neck and pushed it across to my sister. "The Sacrifice exists to give everything for the Empress. "That's how you've lived since you were a kid. Don't break the family code now." My sister put on the cross and winked at me. "You're not having second thoughts, are you?" I thought back to my childhood. She'd wanted my sidearm. She'd wanted my armored car. She'd even wanted my safe house. Every time, my parents said she deserved the best, and all I had to do was give it to her. I slowly looked down at the unread message on my phone. "In three days, a helicopter will be waiting for you on the roof." The sender: Don Ravelli. This time, I wasn't giving anything up. I was going to be the Donna who made the rules.

I woke up staring at divorce papers—from the guy I'd crushed on all through college. My name. His. Right there on the page. He said I cheated. Last thing I remembered? Getting ready to finally tell him how I felt at our graduation party. Now suddenly, we've got a four-year-old. And him? He looked at me like I was some rando off the street. No trace of the sweet, soft guy I used to know. Just ice. What did I miss? What the hell happened in the last five years?

For eight years I was Ethan Black's right hand, his ride-or-die. Then I finally married him and became Mrs. Black. Three months into the marriage, I deliberately shredded one of his contemporary art pieces, a million dollars gone in a few clean strokes, all because his eyes had lingered a second too long on the new intern. Before Ethan could lose his temper, lines of text bloomed in the air in front of me, telling me I was nothing but the villainess in someone else's novel. [This woman's completely lost it. Does she really think Ethan married her out of love?] [He keeps his old buddy around as a human shield to protect his real love. Once she's served her purpose, he ships her off to a psych ward.] [Watch, the male lead's about to slap her.] I stared hard at the man coming through the door. But when Ethan reached me, he didn't even glance at the ruined canvas. He grabbed my hand instead, his voice almost pleading. "Babe, does it hurt? Did it feel good, ripping it up? If that wasn't enough, there's another hundred of them in the storage room."

I took a bullet for my boyfriend, Leo. When I woke up, I decided to play a little game. I told him I had amnesia. I wanted to see what he'd do. Instead, I saw a flash of excitement in his eyes. Next thing I know, he brings in his cousin. Dante. The Don of the family. "This is your fiancé, Dante. You've been engaged for two years." Dante. The man who supposedly hated me. Now he was staring at me like I was his whole world. "Yes," he said. "I'm your fiancé." Fine. I'll play along. I need to know what game Leo is playing. That night, I saw it. Security footage in Dante's mansion. Leo, in bed with another woman. He kissed her like he was starving. Pushed inside her. And he talked trash about me. "Let my cousin watch Bella for a while. She's so damn needy. You're what I really need, Scarlett." My heart shattered. He pawned me off on another man. Just so he could screw around. Fine. Two can play at that game. I'll get myself a new fiancé. I put on the wedding dress. I kissed Dante—a deep, devouring kiss, right in front of Leo. And that's when he finally broke. He lost his mind. Told me he was wrong and begged me to come back.

My parents died in an accident when I was 16 years old. That leaves me and my stepbrother, Freddie Sanford, to rely on each other. At 20 years old, I get drunk and confess my feelings to him. But instead of being gentle as usual, he lashes out in fury. "Rosalie Hunter, do you have no shame at all? I'm your brother!" From that day on, he gets back together with his first love, Bianca Reed. His attitude toward me plummets and turns cold as ice. What Freddie doesn't know is I'm sick. To me, every day feels like a countdown. On the day of their wedding, I quietly reach the end of my life. When I open my eyes again, I've returned to two years ago. At the same time, I learn an unbelievable piece of news. Freddie has been dead for three years.

Having dated for five years and been married for seven, she had never missed his birthday in the past 12 years. The 12 gifts from previous years were carefully placed in the storage closet. However, this year's birthday gift...

I time-jumped five years into the future, and my ex-boyfriend, the former Alpha’s bastard son, is now the Alpha. We've had our mating ceremony. I'm carrying his child. But he seems to hate me. When I tried to talk to him, he shoved me away. "If you're here to discuss dissolving the mate bond, we have nothing to say to each other." When I cooked him dinner, he accused me of poisoning his food. I put on my sexiest outfit and paraded around the house trying to thaw him out. He just sneered. "Are you trying to seduce me and then plant another woman in my bed?" I was running out of ideas, so I tried the last card I had. "Can't we at least try to make this work? For the baby's sake?" It was as if the words struck a nerve. "You expect me to raise your lover's child?" I stood there, stunned. What the hell happened in the last five years? And why isn't this baby his?

My sister and I married into wealthy families at the same time and became glamorous society wives. She had been childhood sweethearts with her husband, a CEO who was admired and respected by all. On the surface, their marriage was harmonious and respectful. But three years after the wedding, she got drunk one night and tearfully confessed to me. "Carrie… he's seeing someone else. He even has a love child now. They've been together longer than we've been married. He's been lying to me all this time. I'm just a joke to him." My eyes burned, brimming with unshed tears. "Actually… Kai's cheating too. He even bought his mistress a luxury car." We cried together all night. Gradually, our sorrow slowly turned into cold, clear resolve. "I don't want that bastard anymore, Carrie." "It's okay, Rachel. If you're walking away, I am too. I don't want my scumbag husband either." After a long talk, we made our final decision: Since this life wasn't working, we'd disappear. We'd leave it all behind and vanish without a trace.

The day I decided to marry the heir to one of the East Coast's wealthiest families, my ex-boyfriend Jack Harris showed up in my dream again. This time was different from all the others. He was on his knees in front of me, sobbing until his voice gave out. "Nora, I regret it." "Won't you come back to me?" The old me would have softened. But this time, I woke up and only wanted to laugh. For ten years I thought I dreamed of him because I couldn't let go, that I was pathetic for it. Then my best friend, a therapist, told me a colleague of hers had picked up a very strange client, a man who'd sold off everything he owned to learn a form of hypnosis that let him control people's dreams deeply. That man was Jack Harris. His wife was Vivian, the classmate who'd bullied me for years. The three of us had grown up together, childhood friends from the same small town. He'd tormented me for ten years, dumping me a different way in my dreams every single night, all to keep Vivian happy. And now he had me listening to his confessions in my dreams. It wasn't his conscience turning over. It was so I'd kill myself, so my heart could be transplanted into Vivian whole and undamaged. What he never imagined was that I'd found out everything ahead of time. This time, I was going to watch this rotten pair destroy themselves, one rotting away in his dreams, the other rotting in a hospital bed.

For five years, I'd poured every resource my family had into making my fiancé, Julian Vane, a star. Now he was slipping the wedding gown of the century, the one supposedly made to my measurements, onto my best friend, Mia Shaw. The gown that had been digging into my ribs fit Mia perfectly. He looked at me with disgust. "Chloe, you don't deserve my designs." Meanwhile, my family was facing bankruptcy and liquidation. Julian was waiting for me to crawl back and beg him like a kicked dog. Instead, I knocked on the door of Killian Valentine, the most ruthless tyrant on Wall Street. He'd been my family's sworn enemy for ten years. "You hold the Winslow debt. Name your price. What do you want in exchange for leaving my family alone?" "I want you. Take off those dirty clothes and be my wife."

Samson Carroll's father, who is the CEO of Carroll Group, is hospitalized, and my sister decides to return to the hospital to work as a nurse. She throws herself into the role—donating blood, helping with emergencies, and keeping watch at his bedside around the clock. Soon, everyone's calling her a hero in scrubs. One night, she blocks the hospital room's security camera. She plans to kill the patient and forge a will so that Samson will marry her. I tell her it's too dangerous. The Carrolls are an influential family with deep pockets and powerful connections, after all. A few kind words and a forged will aren't enough to sway them. But she lashes out at me, calling me an idiot. She says that everyone in Jansbury knows Samson does whatever his father tells him to do. I drag her home, still trying to talk sense into her. "The Carroll family has ties to both the authorities and the underworld. They're untouchable," I explain. "If Samson finds out you lied to him, the consequences are unimaginable." Halfway home, she grows increasingly agitated. "Tonight was my only chance, and you ruined it! You're just jealous I'm about to become a rich man's wife! Go to hell!" Then, in a fit of rage, she shoves me into an open manhole by the side of the road. When I open my eyes again, I'm back on the night I brought her dinner at the hospital.

I always thought my husband, Ryder, was forced to marry me. For six months, he wouldn't touch me. I tried everything. I wore my sexiest lingerie. I guided his hands over my burning skin. I could feel how hard he was, completely out of control. But at the last second, he'd always push me away, gasping. He'd finish me with his fingers instead. My hope died. I decided to leave him. I was ready to accept a top dog trainer position in Europe. The night before I planned to hand him the divorce papers, I heard voices from his study. Ryder, talking to his best friends. "Ryder, you're dying for her, man. So why won't you touch her? Another man's going to snatch her up!" "But she's so fragile..." Ryder's deep voice was filled with pain. "You know... I'm a monster. If she sees what I really am... it will terrify her." His voice dropped to a raw whisper. "If she really needs... comfort... from another man... I can take it. As long as she comes home to me in the end." His friend growled. "Stop! Then maybe stop posting on that encrypted dark web forum, asking for help!" Monster? What did that mean? Late that night, I used his computer. I found a hidden forum called "The Den." A pinned post at the top. Thousands of replies. User ID: Midnight_Howler. One sentence. Dripping with desperation and frantic obsession: "I finally married the girl I've loved for years, but I'm terrified to touch her. How can I survive my rut without hurting her, without her discovering my secret?"

After school, a student suddenly approached me to confess. "Ma'am, I like you!" My vision went black from the shock. I felt as if I could already see the teaching certificate I had worked so hard for being ripped into shreds, slipping out of my grasp. "Teacher-student romance, huh? That's against the rules. That’ll be 10 extra papers for you." The student's eyes immediately welled up with tears. "I just wanted you to be my sister-in-law! My brother is the most handsome guy in the universe. Please don't punish me! I won't say that again anymore!" I immediately let out a long sigh of relief. During a home visit, I stared blankly at the so-called "most handsome guy in the universe" standing in front of me. He was wearing nothing on top but an apron. It caught me so off guard that I thought to myself in disbelief, "Isn't he the ex-boyfriend I dumped ages ago for being too boring? When did he become so seductive?"

After rejecting the 999th consort candidate my master, Madam Freya, had introduced to me, she finally reached her limit. "What the hell are you waiting for? You're the once-in-a-lifetime genius of Nymphomist magic, and yet you've never gone through the Great Rite! You're not getting any younger, girl. At this rate, how are you supposed to improve your spiritual power?!" I sighed. Of course I wanted to find a consort and perform the Great Rite already. But every single one of those candidates looked like shit. Unfortunately, my absurdly high standards for men ended up stalling my spiritual power for too long. I failed to survive the Trial of Lightning and died... Then I opened my eyes and realized I was in another body, in another world. The beauty standards here were completely different from those in the elven world. I looked across the room, and my eyes immediately landed on the most perfect man I had ever seen. He was 6'2", with sharply defined washboard abs. His face looked as though the gods themselves had sculpted it. I ran straight toward him and threw my arms around his waist. Oh, he's the one! To my surprise, this god among men narrowed his eyes and grabbed me by the neck. Rage burned in his expression. "You would throw yourself at a man as hideous as me just for my money?! You disgust me!" What the hell was he talking about? Honestly, all I could focus on was the way his sexy, seductive lips moved against each other whenever he spoke. Please. Just let me bite them already!

Damien was attacked by rogue wolves. I threw myself in front of him and nearly died for it—two broken ribs, both legs almost torn off. When I woke up, I decided to mess with him. "Who are you? I don't know you." His face went rigid. I almost laughed out loud. I was about to tell him I was joking—when he pointed at the man standing beside him. "I'm a friend of your mate's. He's your future mate." My heart dropped. The words died in my throat. I stared at him, stunned. A second later, Lucien stepped forward and took my hand. "Yes. I'm your mate. Let's go home." Fine. Then I'll take a new mate.

In the underground casino, my ex-fiancé Don Dante Castellano threw the card in my face. His arm was around Sabrina—his first love—and his eyes were ice as they shoved me toward the table. "Your father owed mine a life. The thing in your belly isn't mine." He pressed the card flat against my cheek. "The daughter pays the father's debt. Tonight you're the living chip on that table." The paternity test was fake. The child was his. I knew. He didn't believe me. That night, with a gun pointed at my head, I took off all my clothes in front of everyone. Two years passed. Two years later, in Vegas, he saw me again. I was in a red silk dress with a gold chain around my neck, the other end of the chain held by a yellow-toothed gambler. "This bitch is cheap. Bark for me, and all these chips are yours." I picked up the chips, practiced. "Woof. Woof." Sabrina pressed her face into his chest, covering her nose. "Dante. This is disgusting. Let's go." He didn't go. The veins rose along his temple. He was staring at the bruises on my knees. Then he kicked the gambler across the room. He bent down and took hold of my chin. Hard. "Sienna. Money, and you'll do anything at all?" He was close enough that I could smell him. Soap. Two years, and still the same soap. I closed my eyes, opened them, pulled my mouth into a smile for him. "That's right, boss. Pay up and I'll cooperate with whatever position you want. Care to buy a round?"

Billionaire CEO Killian Blackwood was looking for the perfect genes. He offered a massive reward for a surrogate mother. Ten billion dollars for a baby. But the 77 women before me had all vanished. Drowning in debt, I had no choice. I gritted my teeth and became number 78. I carried his child for ten months. I gave birth. And I didn't disappear. But as I reached for my baby, ready for my ten billion dollars, I burst into tears of terror. My newborn wasn't human. It was a litter of three wolf pups.

I was always sick as a kid. My parents were desperate. They’d try anything. So they got me a bunch of "guardian angels." Next thing I know, I'm set up and tossed into a horror game. Turns out, Medusa is my godmother. The ghost girl? My childhood playmate. And the final boss, a vampire? He's my fiancé. The first time we met, I was in a blind panic. I tripped and fell right onto his chiseled chest. "Oh—I'm so sorry! I wasn't looking—" I gasped, looking up at him. The words tumbled out in a rush. "And you're really handsome—but I didn't mean to fall on you! I have a heart condition!" The boss let out a laugh. He wiped the blood from his hands and swept me up into his arms. "Don't you worry," he purred, his voice dangerously smooth. "As your fiancé, I promise... I'll fix you right up."