Tragic Love Fantasy Short Stories & Countdown Novels

I was a fallen angel with broken wings. A vampire count imprisoned me because my celestial light was the only power that could suppress his childhood sweetheart’s curse. Then Cassian Vale, the Lycan King, slaughtered his way into the fortress and carried me out. He crowned me his Luna and cherished me for three years. I thought he was my salvation, until I overheard him speaking to the vampire count. “Evelyne’s curse is returning,” the count said. “If Seraphina goes back to Heaven, Evelyne will die.” “She won’t leave,” Cassian replied. “Why do you think I made her my mate?” “The chains in your dungeon could only hold her for so long. Love will bind her to me, and keep her from ever returning to Heaven.” Only then did I understand. They had always loved the same woman.  My salvation had been a lie. So I sent one final prayer to Heaven. In three days, I would return to where I belonged. And he would never see me again, not in this life, nor in any other.

The night Ronan Blackwood's hunting ships set White Reef ablaze, I took off my royal crown and boarded the Black Sail alone. If he spared the merfolk still alive, he could keep me. The human boy who'd been promising to marry me since we were children now commanded the most ruthless pirate fleet in Grayhaven. In his cabin, he seized me by the waist and kissed me hard, leaving me breathless. He claimed me with such desperation that it was clear the years apart had only made him crave me more. We spent three days in his cabin. At dawn on the fourth, I stirred as he slipped his arm out from beneath my head. I was still lying on my side when he emptied a basin of scale-eating brine over my back. I screamed and fell from the bed, curling up on the floor. He stood over me with the empty basin, his knuckles white. “Ready to tell me where you've hidden my parents?” He blamed me for his parents' disappearance. After that, he made me take out my tideheart to heal Vivian, who was carrying his child. He made me dance for her in shackles, barefoot on a deck strewn with broken shells. Whenever I came close to dying, he'd gather me into his arms, call me by the name he'd used when we were children, and feed me the most expensive medicine a sea witch could brew. “Lila, don't make me hate you.” I no longer had the strength to ask which of us was forcing the other. He'd told me merfolk couldn't die. But a mermaid kept captive, cut off from the sea's free currents for three years, would dissolve into foam until nothing remained of her, not even her name. I had three days left. Then, at last, I wouldn't have to love him anymore.

Everyone thought my sister, Nyssa, was the cursed one, except me. I knew that on my eighteenth birthday, Death would come to claim me for the Underworld. I was the Dark Elf Death had chosen. But to protect my sister, my family chose to sacrifice me. My parents abandoned me, my kin reviled me, and Caelum, the elven prince I had loved for centuries, chose to stand by Nyssa's side. They said I was a harbinger of disaster. They told me to offer Nyssa my blessing. Little did they know, they were pushing Death's true acolyte toward her awakening. When the Night of the Shattered Moon arrived, I finally met my fate. I died in the mortal realm and was reborn as the Underworld's new emissary. And those who once hurt me would come to pray for my forgiveness, trapped in the eternal punishment I had wrought. I was no longer a girl who waited for love.

I was a runaway mermaid princess. To break the curse on a pirate captain's two sons, I sacrificed my radiant tail and the voice I treasured above all to a witch. I was left crippled and confined to a wheelchair, and whenever I opened my mouth, my voice came out in an ugly, breathy rasp. But they swore that one of them would marry me and the other would guard me for the rest of my life. Then, during a clash at sea, they rescued a human woman and kept her aboard as a maid. From that day on, everything changed. They were both addicted to the maid's body and could not tear themselves away from her. The younger one said, "You're so beautiful. Far more beautiful than Heloise, that fish with no legs..." The older one said, "If we didn't owe her our lives, neither of us would ever marry her." I wheeled myself onto the deck and released a raven with a letter tied to its leg. I had accepted the proposal of the most terrifying overlord of the oceans. The Basque brothers still didn't know that the witch's contract spelled out one condition: the moment they betrayed me, the curse would return. One would turn back into a toad, the other into an octopus.