Reborn Short Stories & Independence Female Growth Novels

My husband and I spend 50 loving years together. On the day of our golden wedding anniversary, someone pushes me down a flight of stairs. As I drift in and out of consciousness, I miraculously regain my hearing. I lost it in the process of saving my husband when we were younger. I hear my husband say to my son, "You shouldn't have dirtied your hands." "How long more are you going to put up with her, Dad? Calista doesn't have much longer to wait." My husband sighs heavily. After a moment, I feel someone remove my oxygen tube. I descend into boundless darkness. When I open my eyes again, I've been taken back to the 80s—before I married my husband. The only difference is that I can hear this time.

On our fifth wedding anniversary, my husband, Damian Pyke, once again left me for his first love. He said, "Taking care of a child alone isn't easy for Waverly. You're both women—can't you show her some understanding?" Not only was I willing to understand Waverly Benson, but I was also ready to step aside entirely so they could raise her child together. So, I packed my bags and applied for an overseas architecture program through my workplace. However, he eventually regretted it, crying and begging me not to go.

The end of the world was upon us, but there weren't enough spots for evacuation. The roars of the zombies echoed in my ears as my fiancé, Oliver, gritted his teeth and pulled me onto the rescue vehicle—securing the last available seat. I arrived safely at the survivor base. Lina, his first love, did not. The zombies tore her apart. Oliver still went through with our marriage, but I never expected that he had only done so to make me suffer. In his eyes, I was the one who had killed Lina. If she had to endure such agony, then I should, too. For five years, he hated me. My life was worse than that of a stray dog scavenging for food on the street. On the day my divorce was finalized, he kidnapped me, dragged me into the wilderness, and wrapped his fingers around my throat. Then, he threw us both into the swarm of the undead. When I opened my eyes again, I was somehow reborn on the day the apocalypse began. The rescue team was shouting impatiently, "One more! We have room for one more—hurry!" I turned to Oliver, watching his hesitation. Then, with a quiet smile, I took a step back and let someone else have the last seat.

Sebastian Pena hates me for a whole decade after his true love's death. I try to please him at every turn, but he merely scoffs. "If you really want to make me happy, you should go to hell." That hits hard. However, when a truck hurtles toward me, Sebastian throws himself at me. He saves me, but he dies in a pool of his blood. Before he breathes his last breath, he looks into my eyes and says, "If only… I'd never met you…" His mother is devastated at his funeral. "I should've given Sebastian and Gillian my blessings. I should never have forced him to marry you!" His father resents me. "Sebastian saved you three times—he was a good person. Why weren't you the one who died?" Everyone regrets having Sebastian marry me, myself included. I'm kicked out of the funeral. Three years later, someone invents a time machine, and I travel back in time. This time, I'm going to sever all ties with Sebastian. Everyone will get the happiness they deserve.

After being reborn, I make up my mind to stop chasing after my childhood crush, Emil McLaren. When he puts up a sign banning my presence at his birthday party, I pack my bags and decide to go to Wanoki Island. When he says my scent makes his house feel nauseating, I quietly move out without complaint. When he says he doesn't want to breathe the same city air as me after our graduation, I leave and never look back. Then he tells me my existence might make his beloved first love uncomfortable. I nod and soon go public with someone else. In this life, I do the opposite of everything I did before. Because in my past life, I got what I wanted—I married Emil. But then his first love jumped off a cliff. He called me her murderer and tormented me. In the end, I jumped into the sea in a state of mental confusion and died. This time, all I want is to live. So, I find myself someone new. However, Emil blocks my path, his eyes bloodshot as he glares at me. "Penelope, I'll forgive this little joke of yours if you come with me right now."

I get picked up by the cops in the middle of the night for street vending. While questioning me, they pull up my file. One officer eyes me suspiciously through my mask and asks, "What's a Clairefield University graduate like you doing selling stuff on the street at midnight?" I freeze and lean over to look at the file. The ID number matches mine, but the photo has been replaced with one of Madison Bass. That's when it hits me—20 years ago, I was the one who got accepted to Clairefield University! Dazed and numb, I stumble home only to hear my husband, Joseph Gunther, speaking on the phone. "Madison, don't worry. I won't let Lucy interfere with your life. Just go abroad in peace." It's him! Joseph helped Madison steal my identity and my future. My stomach twists. I turn to confront him, to expose the truth. But before I can, he strangles me to death with a belt. "I'm sorry, Lucy. You can't ruin Madison's future…" When I open my eyes again, I'm back in the classroom. Our homeroom teacher is handing out university application forms. This time, I'm taking my life back.

After being reborn, I decided to write my sister's name on the marriage application. This time, I would help Sebastian Holt achieve his wishes. In this lifetime, I took the lead—I let my sister wear the wedding dress first and put the engagement ring on her finger. I personally orchestrated every encounter between Sebastian and my sister. When he took her to the capital city, I headed to Southport University without a second thought. In my previous life, even when I was over 50 years old, he and our son still knelt before me, begging for a divorce. This time, I would fulfill his final romantic destiny with my sister. Living this second life, all I wanted was to spread my wings and soar high, free from love's entanglements.

When I was 14, my brother, Cole Maxwell, brought home an orphan girl, Jennifer Burke, to repay a debt of gratitude. From that moment on, my life had always taken a backseat to hers. After Jennifer falsely accused me of intending to ruin her reputation and forcing her to commit suicide, Cole slapped me hard across the face before driving me out of the house. "Get out! I don't have a sister like you!" He even gave her the job that was supposed to be mine and the only heirloom our parents left me, just to make her smile. The more I argued with him, the colder he became towards me. When Cole took Jennifer to visit the city without telling me, I chose to say nothing this time, leaving quietly with nothing but a suitcase. When he learned I'd been accepted into Brightmoor Aeronautical University and would never return, he fell apart.

The human world had been taken over by vampires and werewolves. My noble parents wanted to please them, so they married me and their adopted daughter, Sophie, to them separately. In my last life, Sophie chose the strong and loyal werewolf. I chose the graceful and noble vampire. But on a full moon night, the werewolf in heat tore Sophie apart. Meanwhile, I gained eternal life after going through the vampire's Embrace. My parents wanted revenge for Sophie, so they drugged me and sent me to the werewolf's bed, where I was bitten and died. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day we drew lots for marriage. This time, Sophie knocked over the lot box and sweetly said she wanted to marry the vampire. "Anna, it's my turn to live forever." I didn't object and accepted the vicious werewolf. In this new life, Sophie was still so foolish. She thought she could be happy by relying on a man. However, what I wanted was to save all of humanity.

My older sister Seraphina had always been the center of attention in New York's Upper East Side. Everyone worshiped her, protected her. At the Montgomery charity gala, my father asked we to choose our future husband in front of every powerful family in New York. Seraphina smiled and generously let me choose first. But this time, I said no. In my past life, I truly thought she cared about me. I followed her suggestion and married Declan Thorne, a man whose immune system had failed after a car crash. He had been confined to a wheelchair for years, and people whispered that he was worthless. I surrendered my place in the family and became his nurse, his support, the only thing keeping him from complete loneliness. But no matter how hard I tried, I could never reach his heart. Then, at Seraphina’s gender reveal party, Declan stood up from his wheelchair in front of everyone. "Brielle,I felt nothing for you. You were just a way for me to get closer to Sera." The silence lasted only a second before the room turned on me. Every whisper, every stare, every hidden laugh made me feel like the biggest fool in New York. That night, I rushed out of the party and drove away before anyone could see me break down. On the bridge, my hands shook so badly that the car spun out of control and crashed through the railing. I made ninety-nine calls before the river swallowed the car completely, and every single one went unanswered. Three days later, they found me trapped beneath the water, already suffocated in the wreckage. Then I opened my eyes, and I was back at the gala where my father had planned to announce our engagements. This time, I picked no one.

The Blackwood Pack had a rule: no outsider was ever allowed to touch a newborn pureblood pup. So when my fated mate Damon Cross's childhood friend Yvonne Morgan reached for one of their sacred cubs, I stopped her. Yvonne decided I was being petty, that I was trying to humiliate her in front of everyone. So she ran off crying, tripped, and fell into a bog. By the time anyone found her, she was gone. Damon was convinced I'd done it on purpose—that I'd planned to get rid of Yvonne Morgan. He had me bound and locked in that basement dungeon for three days and three nights. Every hour felt like a year. "This is all your fault, you jealous witch. If it weren't for you, Yvonne would still be here!" "You're going to pay for what you did. Rot in there and think about it." I clawed my way out—dug a tunnel with my bare hands. I was so close. The night I finally broke free, Damon gave the order to have me thrown into the No-Man's-Land wolf pit. Then I opened my eyes. I was back. The night of the Full Moon Gala.

My little sister Vanessa was obsessed with werewolf lore, convinced she was destined to marry a powerful Alpha. When Rex, the Alpha of the Firwood Pack, saved her during a riot, she thought fate had finally set its gears in motion. What she didn't know was that Rex saved her simply because she resembled what his fated mate had looked like in her youth— Helena, the Luna of the Firwood Pack. Any sane woman would've walked away. Vanessa saw it as her golden ticket to the top. She secretly mapped out Helena's usual routes, hired outlaws to stage a brutal car crash, and sprinkled silver dust—lethal to wolves—across the wreckage. Her plan? Wait for the esteemed Luna to draw her last breath, then step in as the "first witness who risked her life to help," climbing over the body to claim her place. Vanessa was convinced that once Helena was gone, she'd be the next Luna. In my past life, I snatched the keys before she could move, locked her in her room, and begged her to come to her senses. Rex wasn't some lovestruck wolf from those cross-species romance novels—he was the iron-fisted Alpha who ruled the entire territory. A wolf's mate bond was carved into the soul. If he ever uncovered the truth, he wouldn't just tear her apart—he'd reduce our entire human family to ash. Vanessa nodded through her tears, swearing she'd let it go. But that night, she drove a silver blade straight through my heart. As I lay dying, she leaned in and whispered: "You ruined my chance to be Luna, Eileen. So you had to die." When I opened my eyes again, I was back in the moment she made her move.

After our pack lost the war, the survivors spent two years on the run. In the third year, the Wolf Council passed a decree allowing us to be absorbed into new packs. But there was a catch—we had to pass the Trials, a specialized test designed to test our physical fitness, reflexes, and overall abilities. Those who passed would be accepted. Those who didn't would be cast out as rogues for good. One month before the Trials, Vera Cross burst into the gathering, her voice trembling with excitement. "Everyone, stop preparing! I got a spell from a witch—just chant it in your head during the Trials, and you'll pass for sure!" She grinned and pulled out a record. "My friend Lily already took these exact Trials during her pack's routine check last month. She didn't prep at all—just chanted this spell in her head. And guess what? She passed." The record got passed around. Cheers erupted. Last life, I tried to warn them. Told them the official Trials would block all spellwork—that using it would flag them as anomalies, get their qualifications revoked on the spot, and dump them straight into rogue status. No one listened. So I reported the situation to the Council. Vera got her membership revoked. Died out in the wilds. Back then, every single pack member said she deserved it. Thanked me for saving them. But after we settled into the new pack, they cornered me. Doused me in gasoline. Burned me alive. "If you'd just kept your mouth shut, she'd still be alive!" When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the exact moment Vera was rallying everyone to give up on prep.

The night I accidentally ended up in bed with my adoptive brother, Adrian, he had just broken his engagement to his childhood sweetheart, Ivy. Adrian was the Alpha of Blackwood Pack. Ivy was the late Beta's daughter, and the woman he had always intended to make his Luna. To protect my reputation and preserve his authority as Alpha, he was forced to complete a mate bond with me. Everyone said he treated me well. But every year on Ivy's birthday, he sat alone in his study until dawn. In the third year of our marriage, Ivy died of wolf-spirit failure. Only then did Adrian learn from the letter she left behind that she had seen us together that morning. The sight had haunted her for the rest of her life. He decided I had destroyed her. He severed our mate bond, drove me from the pack, and used his influence to close every road that might have kept me alive. Before I died, he sent me only four words. "You deserve to die." When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the night his wolf lost control. This time, I tore myself out of his arms, knocked on Ivy's door, and placed him in her hands myself. I smiled at the shock on his face. “Adrian, I won’t love you anymore.”

In my last life, I single-handedly wiped out a rival gang, winning great honor for the Family. My mother handed me control of her private arsenal, worth hundreds of millions. Before I could even take inventory, the convent orphan my family had adopted quietly changed the codes, and handed the entire shipment to homeless men in slums controlled by our enemies. Staring down my gun, she crossed herself, her face full of pity. "God tells us to love the world, Alessia. Sitting on all those instruments of murder is a sin. I am only atoning for you." I scoffed, but one second before I pulled the trigger, my childhood friend, the Family's top killer, shot the gun from my hand and denounced me as bloodthirsty, cruel, and incapable of empathy. My older brother, the new Don, only sneered and stripped me of my inheritance on the spot. He threw me into the lowest end of the red-light district to wash dishes until the violence had been ground out of me. That same night, addicts from the rival gang cornered me at the end of an alley, stabbed me more than twenty times, then dumped me into the Thames. I opened my eyes, and I was back on the day the orphan girl walked toward the arsenal with my key in her hand.

When the Kane brothers turned eighteen, my father asked my adopted sister, Bianca, and me to choose one of them as our personal guard. Their father had died protecting mine, and my family had raised them inside the Moretti estate ever since. Gabriel chose Bianca. I was left with Julian—a silent, deeply traumatized boy everyone believed had lost his voice in the shooting that killed his parents. For seven years, I took him to specialists, learned sign language, and trained to protect myself because I didn't want my family to cast him out for being unable to speak. Then our yacht sank. Julian tore the last survival suit from my body and gave it to Bianca. As I drowned, he spoke to me for the first time. "I'm sorry, Elena. I want Bianca to live. If we have another life, I'll repay the one I owe you." When I opened my eyes, I was back on the day we chose our guards. But this time, I would never choose him again.