After Death Short Stories & Independence Cheating Novels

At the Thorn Pack banquet, Jacob Mason carefully cut the steak on my plate. His gentlemanly demeanor and meticulous attention to detail drew envious glances from those around us. "Our Alpha is so good to our Luna," a voice murmured from across the table. "You won’t find a more devoted mate in all of Southspire." I glanced at Jacob, a sweet warmth unfurled in my chest. I silently tightened my grip around the Moonstone Ring—a ring my father had left me, the symbol of power in the Lotus Pack. I had planned to give it to Jacob when the banquet ended, when we were alone. But as the evening wore on, the noise and the clinking of glasses became too much to bear. I feigned a slight dizziness, excusing myself to return to our castle ahead of him. In truth, I needed the time to prepare a surprise—something special to commemorate this night. When everything was set, I silently slipped back into the banquet hall, ready to take Jacob by the hand and whisk him away. But as I arrived, I stopped dead in my tracks. There he was, holding Hazel Rhea tightly in his arms. "Chloe is so rigid," he said. "Always clinging to the dignity of being the Lotus Pack Alpha's daughter. How could she ever compare to Hazel's passion?" "Don't worry," he added, his tone light with mock reassurance. "Hazel and I are just friends. Chloe won't feel betrayed." He laughed softly. "But don't tell her, alright? She's so old-fashioned—if she found out, she'd leave me for sure. Honestly, the thought of spending the rest of my life with such a dull partner… It's exhausting." Just friends? Is that what he called the way his hand slid beneath her dress—being "just friends"? I didn't interrupt them. There was no need to disturb their lively conversation. Instead, I slid the Moonstone Ring onto my finger. Without a word, I turned and left. In the quiet of the night, Xavier Grey—who had been following me all along—waited. Together, we set off on the journey I should have taken long ago.

Five years after I mated to Alpha Derek Blackwood, his childhood sweetheart broke her mate bond with another Alpha and returned to our pack. Even worse, I had depleted my life force saving Derek when he was mortally wounded, and now I was dying. In the less than six months I had left to live, I continued to play the role of Derek's good mate. Until I passed away. And Derek, after reading the journal I left behind, completely fell apart.

The night before our Mating Ceremony, my fated mate, Alpha Ryker of the Howling Moon Pack, ordered me to give him the Moon Soul Crystal—the very thing that protected my pack, the Willow Creek Pack. He said he needed it to power up the Howling Moon Pack's Blood Moon Altar. He also promised he'd keep me and my people safe. But he didn't know that we, the healers of the Willow Creek Pack, can only create one Moon Soul Crystal in our entire lives. Making one takes a crazy amount of moon energy. It's the treasure that keeps our pack alive. My mother, worried about me using up my moon energy while I was pregnant, gave up her own Moon Soul Crystal instead. But just three months after Ryker and I were mated, she got sick, fast. She was dying. I knelt in front of Ryker, crying, begging him for the Silverleaf Herb from the Howling Moon's forbidden grounds. It was the only thing that could save my mom. But he just looked at me, his eyes full of disappointment, and kicked me away. "I asked for the Moon Soul Crystal to test you," he snarled. "And just as I thought, you married me for our pack's treasures! Your mother's not sick. You're making it all up!" "You don't deserve to be the Luna of the Howling Moon Pack!" It wasn't until after my mother died, when he was arguing with me, trying to kick me out of the pack, that my mother's things fell and scattered everywhere. Her Soul Stone, the symbol of a wolf's spirit, shattered. That's when he finally realized he was wrong. He fell to his knees, begging me not to leave, crying for me to forgive him.

Right after my bonding ceremony with Alpha Carlo, his first love, Olivia, died unexpectedly. For fifty years after that, I gave everything I had for Carlo and the Shadowmoon pack. We had five pups, and the pack thrived. But then, on the 50th anniversary of me becoming Luna, Carlo dragged me to the Moonlit Platform. He was going to break our mate bond himself. And after he brutally severed it, he drained all my soul power. He said he was going to use an ancient ritual to bring Olivia back to life. And I, the Luna who’d been by his side for half a century, was the perfect vessel. My desperate cries brought our children running, but they just stood behind Carlo, watching me with cold eyes. “Bringing Aunt Olivia back is the only thing Father has wanted for years,” one said. “If you hadn’t been jealous of Aunt Olivia, if you’d used your healing on her, you wouldn’t be our mother!” another spat. The children I’d poured my heart and soul into raising now just wanted me to die. I felt my soul shatter, my heart ache as if pierced by a knife, and then, nothing. I lost consciousness. When I opened my eyes again, I was back. Back to the day of my bonding ceremony with Carlo. In my last life, Carlo chose me, his Head Healer. Olivia, though, was devoured by a venom-fang spider and died from its poison. Her death had nothing to do with me, but Carlo blamed me for all of it. This time, looking into Carlo's eyes, I saw the deep disgust there, and any hope I had left died. He was back too.

To become Marcus's Luna, I hid my identity as Crimson Ridge pack's Alpha heiress and married him. Since two Alphas have difficulty conceiving offspring, I even begged the pack witch to suppress my bloodline, downgrading my wolf from Alpha to Beta. After I finally got pregnant, Marcus was out shopping with his omega mistress while I was being attacked by rogue wolves and losing our child. I forced myself to like the social media post where his lover was showing off their relationship, fighting back nausea. His call came through immediately. "What are you trying to pull now! The pack successfully signed a cooperation treaty with the neighboring pack today. You didn't even show up to the celebration, so Ivy had to take over all your Luna duties and has been taking care of my daily needs. You should be thanking her for helping you out!" "You're supposed to be a strong warrior! How can one pregnancy make you this delicate?!" He finished his rant and hung up in anger. Right. I'd been away from home too long. I was starting to forget my own last name. I didn't hesitate anymore. I picked up my phone and dialed a number I hadn't called in ages. "Beta Hayes, book me a flight for tomorrow morning. I'm going back to Crimson Ridge pack."

The day Alpha Marcus and I marked each other, his first love, Cecilia, threw herself off a cliff into a ravine overgrown with wolfsbane. The pack searched for three full days and nights before they found her, barely clinging to life. She was once the most spirited she-wolf in our pack, but the fall cost her a leg and the ability to bear pups. I grieved for the beautiful life that had been ruined, and I blamed myself for not seeing how fragile she'd become. Marcus comforted me gently. "Elena, this wasn't your fault. Cecilia made her own choice. You did everything you could. Don't beat yourself up." Later, not long after our pup, Rylan, turned five, a sudden illness tore through him, and he died in my arms. Night after night, Marcus held me, wiping away my tears. "Don't be sad, Elena," he would murmur. "We'll have other children." I had always believed my mate was the most considerate, most protective Alpha in the entire world. Until the day I overheard him speaking with his Beta, Adrin. "Alpha, the dosage of wolfsbane we gave Rylan was perfect—just as you ordered. It looked like a genetic defect. No one will ever suspect." "It's been so long. Don't you think it's time to forgive the Luna?" "What's one pup compared to what Cecilia lost? She lost a leg, her future as a mother. Everything."

In the second year of our marriage, which Brett Mason had secured through relentless means, he brought home his latest conquest—a stunning blonde. As the door swung shut, he ran his fingers through her silky hair, flashing me a smug, triumphant grin. "Wanna join us? You might learn a thing or two about not being such a dead fish." I could still recall how he once adored my hair, claiming that just stroking it would melt away his deepest worries. It turned out any woman could serve that purpose. In that instant, a profound sense of release washed over me. I retrieved the divorce agreement I'd stashed away in a drawer and handed it to him. "Sign it, and I'll make room for her." My days were numbered, and I had no intention of wasting what little time remained entangled in his resentment.

My best friend Seraphine had not one drop of blood left in her body when they found her. Her skin was translucent. There were two dried trails of blood from the corners of her mouth, like she had wept herself empty long before the end. She left one note. One sentence: "Vera saw his face." From that day forward, I became the Covenant's greatest sinner. Because I knew who did it. But I said nothing. For ten years, I said nothing. Then Lucian came back. He was the one who had turned us, raised us, given us the only home we had ever known. He set the Soul Prism in front of me. "Tonight," he said, "you give me the killer." His eyes hadn't changed. That was the worst part. After ten years of exile, of stones and fire and nights that never got warmer, I looked at him and he was still exactly who he had always been to me. "Or you disappear from this world along with him." He didn't know. The reason I had chosen exile and starvation and a Blood Oath that had been eating my soul core alive for a decade — was him. All of it, always, had been for him.

It was my son's engagement party. However, my husband stopped me from giving my soon-to-be daughter-in-law her gift. "His mother will do the honors. This is not your place." I thought he was joking until he put his arm around his childhood sweetheart and sat down together around the main table. "I know Bianca mishandled your baby, but she had postpartum depression, and it was an accident. "She gave you Jason to make up for her mistake. It's time for them to be a family again. She has atoned for her sins." My nails dug into my palms hard enough to draw blood. Just when I was on the brink of losing it, my son raised a toast to her. "Someone has stolen your place for 30 years, Mom, but you'll never have to suffer again." Right now, my husband and son were like strangers I'd never met instead of my family. A bitter smile curled my lips. We'd spent more than three decades together. Time had left its mark on my graying hair, yet I was treated as nothing more than an outsider in a place I was supposed to call home. Perhaps this home was too small to fit all of us. Since that was the case, someone had to bow out and that someone… was me.

I made a deal with the Devil. My soul, in exchange for seven days on earth after I died. The eleventh hour after my death happened to fall on our third wedding anniversary. The moment I walked through the door, he had just come home from another woman's place. He had an anniversary gift waiting for me. A set of sapphires. But the card tucked beside them bore another woman's name. I spotted a pale lavender hair tie in his hand. Once, I would have fought him over a hair tie like that, all the way from the front hall to the study. This time, I said nothing. It was him who froze instead, staring at me like I was a stranger. "You didn't used to be like this. I almost miss the way you used to fall apart over everything." He was right. The old me would have thrown a fit over something as small as him forgetting to cut my steak. But ever since the miscarriage, my heart had been dying by slow degrees. When I found out I was pregnant, I was overjoyed. I wanted him to be the first to know. But I couldn't reach him, no matter how many times I called. I lost the baby. I hemorrhaged. That very afternoon, while I lay on the operating table, a photo of him and that woman hit the entertainment headlines. He never even knew I had carried a child. Now there was only one last thing I wanted from him. To drive me up to the northern coast, and bury me with his own hands. But when he realized I had truly vanished from this world, he came undone.

Adrian Vance and I had been secretly married for ten years, and I had always been his perfect wife. He was the president of a hospital. But lately he'd fallen in love with playing broke. I asked him to pick up blackberries; he came home with bananas and a sad little story about money. I needed a ride to my own surgery; he drove me there rattling along in a beat-up van, because the van fit the part. And when our daughter was dying and the one person who could save her was him, he looked a stranger in the eye and swore he was nobody, just an assistant, certainly not the hospital's president. That was the moment it finally landed. He hadn't drifted into an affair on a whim. He had chosen, with his whole heart, to walk away from his wife and his child. Fine. I'd take our daughter and clear the way for his great love.

Ten years ago, a fire broke out at my school. I saved four friends, but the flames left me an idiot. The four of them stood beside my hospital bed and cried, swearing they would spend the rest of their lives making it up to me. They were afraid I would get bullied, so they gave up their spots at two of the country's top universities and went to community college with me instead. They were afraid someone would trick me into leaving them, so the other three pushed Joshua Summers to confess his feelings for me. I had once said I envied people who lived in houses that didn't leak, so all four of them saved every cent they had and bought me a house for Joshua and me to live in after we married. Then came the party the night before my wedding to Joshua. When I returned from the bathroom, I heard everyone inside playing a round of Truth. The topic was "Secrets Loretta Doesn't Know." Curious, I pressed my ear to the crack in the door. Calvin Dawson's drunken laughter drifted through. "That little idiot has no idea tomorrow's wedding is actually for Nisha." I froze. After a moment of silence, my sister picked up where he had left off. "Loretta doesn't know that when Josh confessed to her, he only did it to spite Nisha. Who would've guessed she'd say yes? This wedding was supposed to be Nisha's from the start." My best friend's eyes reddened. "If my family hadn't forced me into marriage, I never would've taken Lori's wedding from her. I only want the ceremony. She can keep the title. As long as she's happy, my own happiness can wait until the next life." Joshua's eyes flickered. With a resigned expression, he revealed the final secret. "This morning, I got worked up enough to consider sending Loretta to her death, but I gave up on it in the end. We owe her a life anyway. Let's call this one paid off." I didn't know how long I stood there before I finally stumbled back to my room in a daze. I opened Joshua's bag, and there it was: an opened bottle of pills. My heart shuddered. The happiness I had cherished for ten years had never been anything more than repayment for a debt. Through my tears, I put the pills into my mouth one by one. There was no need to wait for the next life. In this one, I would give them the happiness they wanted.

A body was pulled from the sea, waterlogged and swollen. The woman was two months pregnant. Her face was unrecognizable, but I recognized the ring I had given her immediately. The dead woman was my daughter, Cecily Moretti. I had once been the most powerful Mafia Donna on the West Coast, with enemies everywhere. To protect Cecily, I staged a shipwreck ten years ago. I jumped into the sea clutching a doll and faked my own death. I left her in the care of the Griffiths family, whose son I had chosen to be her husband. I gave them money, power, and every advantage so my daughter could live a peaceful, happy life. But my investigation uncovered the truth. Five years after I disappeared, Cecily's intended husband, Selwyn Griffiths, fell in love with Iliana Valmont, the daughter of a noble family. "Donna, Selwyn broke his promise to marry Ms. Cecily. He also believed Iliana's lies and had Ms. Cecily tied to a reef as punishment. The abrasions on her wrists and ankles suggest she struggled to free herself as the tide came in. Then... then a wave swept her out to sea." As my lieutenant gave his report, my fingernails dug into my palms. I had lifted the Griffiths family to the top, yet my beloved daughter had been treated worse than a slave! Fighting back my grief, I slowly wrapped my hand around Cecily's scarred fingers. "Rest now, Cecily. I swear I'll avenge you."