Cerita Pendek & Novel Plot Twists Karma

Sandra had never imagined that she would be left all alone on her wedding day. Ivy had always threaten to commit suicide due to her depression. As such, everyone would always try to please her. There was no exception even at Sandra's wedding. Sandra had had enough. She would not want to have any connection with her fiancé or her parents anymore. From now on, Sandra would only live her life for herself.

On Alpha Adrian Blackwood’s thirty-fifth birthday, his foster sister, Selena Vale, put on a magic show for the entire Mooncrest Pack. Selena had insisted that I join her onstage and assist with the grand finale. She had spent months learning stage magic and bragging about every new illusion until the entire pack was convinced she was practically a master magician. So when the blades inside Selena’s illusion box turned out to be real, no one believed my screams. Selena laughed into the microphone. “Our Luna deserves an Oscar. Doesn’t she make it look real?” The entire pack laughed with her. Even Adrian frowned at me from the front row. “Elena, enough. Don’t ruin my birthday just because you can’t stand Selena being in the spotlight.” Our six-year-old son looked up at me and said, “Mommy, stop pretending. Aunt Selena worked really hard.” Then the next blade came down. And another. They thought I was putting on a performance to ruin Selena’s magic show. But I wasn’t acting. I was dying.

The year I turned fourteen, Grandma and I were crammed into a beat-up trailer on the edge of a desert town. She couldn't afford paint, so she mixed colors from the cheapest red clay pigment at the general store. When a frame broke, she hammered it back together herself. When canvas tore, she patched the back with old cloth and sealed it with a paste she boiled from leftover church wax and cheap resin. Grandma never went to school. She painted out of pure love, and she kept at it for thirty years. Then one summer, a gallery owner named Evelyn Hart crawled into Grandma's leaky shed and examined every painting, flipping each one over to study both sides. The next day, every last painting was gone. Finished oils, sketches, pigment records, old photographs, frames. Everything cleared out overnight. Three months later, Grandma walked into Evelyn's gallery and saw her own painting, Madonna of the Red Rock, hanging in the brightest spot. But the brass nameplate beside it bore Evelyn's name. She lunged for the painting. The security guards pried her fingers loose and dragged her out the door. That night, a blizzard sealed off the roads. She pounded on the glass, but no one came. The next morning, when I found her outside the gallery, her body was already frozen solid. After the funeral, I went to clean out what was left of the burned shed. Inside the lining of an old brush pouch, I found a small scrap of painted canvas. It was a piece Grandma had trimmed off while repairing Madonna of the Red Rock. The thief had missed it. I tucked it away and kept it. For twenty years. Twenty years later, I was the compliance director at an international art marketplace. A young woman submitted an auction application for a series of paintings. The Desert Madonna Series was about to be sold to collectors and private museums around the world. The collection was valued at more than $150 million. I opened the file. In the artist field, I stared at the name for a long time. "Application denied."

To keep my grandmother's failing organs stable, I simmered a medicinal broth for her every day and strictly controlled her diet. Then the Whitmore family's long-lost real son was brought home. "You're feeding my grandmother something that looks like slop? Julian Whitmore, what kind of heart does a fake son like you have?" The butler wiped sweat from his forehead. "Sir, this is Mr. Whitmore's specially prepared medicinal broth. The old madam's been drinking it for years, and her health has only--" "Shut up!" Tyler Whitmore threw an all-foreign-language menu in my face. "I've consulted top nutritionists overseas. What Grandma needs now is protein!" "I've had the finest bluefin tuna flown in. From now on, I'll handle Grandma's diet myself." My grandma, Irene Whitmore, stayed silent. She merely glanced at me, which counted as approval. I forced out a smile and turned to leave. "Fine. Then take good care of her." They had no idea Grandma had been poisoned with a rare tropical toxin. That bowl of medicine was a suppressant I had prepared specifically for her. Once she stopped taking it and touched seafood or other triggering foods, the poison would backlash instantly.

Twelve years after I burned to death at the border sanctuary, I stood before Ryan again during his final Moonlight Trial. My name was Erin. At eighteen, I was the packless lone wolf everyone on the border knew as trouble, and Ryan Blackwood was the nameless boy who had grown up beside me. We hunted together, fought together, and survived winters that should have broken us. Before the fire, his wolf had already recognized me as his fated mate. We had not completed the bond yet. We thought we had time. Then an enemy pack attacked the sanctuary at night and set the cabins on fire. I dragged Ryan, bleeding from a silver wound and barely conscious, through a burning hallway and shoved him outside. Then I went back for Mara and the last pups. I never came out. Ryan survived with severe smoke inhalation, broken memories, and a wolf that went completely silent. When he woke, he no longer remembered me, the promise he had made to me, or the bond his wolf had already chosen. Vera Ashford stayed beside him and gave everyone a simpler story. She said she had saved Ryan. She said I had sold the sanctuary routes and caused the fire. For the next twelve years, she stood beside him through trial after trial. The pack came to treat her as the woman who would one day stand beside the heir for good, even though Ryan's wolf never woke enough to complete a true mate bond with her. By the time his hundredth trial began, my grave had been cold for twelve years. The first sign that the trial had called me back was not a voice. Every wolf in the stone hall lifted its head at once, hackles rising as a faint smell of charred wood drifted through the moonlight. Then I stepped out of the forest mist.

My mother-in-law lives alone. One day, her house suddenly catches on fire. It's a life-threatening situation. I call my firefighter husband several times before he answers impatiently. "I don't care why you're calling—can't it wait? I'm fixing Sophie's pipes!" I tell him about his mother being trapped in a fire, but he merely sneers. "How dare you curse my mother just to make me go home? You're insane!" He hangs up without another word. I'm left helpless. All I can do is wait for his colleagues to arrive, but they only come half an hour later. Their expressions shift to horror when they see the blazing fire. "Didn't Captain Scott say his wife was lying?" My mother-in-law dies due to the delay. My husband even misses the funeral because of his first love. I give up on him and ask for a divorce. However, he rips the divorce agreement to shreds and shatters the urn that contains his mother's ashes. "Drop the act—I would definitely go through with the divorce if not for my mother!" I laugh. He doesn't even know his mother is already dead.

I came home late one night to find another woman in the apartment I shared with my boyfriend, Alistair Westwood. She was wearing my silk slip, which barely covered her thighs. Barefoot, she pressed herself against him. His hand was wrapped around her bare waist. "Nika isn't feeling well, so I told her she could stay here for now." Nika peeked out from behind him. "I'm sorry. I didn't know this was your place." "Where is she going to sleep?" I demanded. "And why is she wearing my clothes?" Alistair frowned. "Nika is sick. Obviously, she'll sleep with me so I can look after her. Can't you just let this go for once?" "It's fine. I can sleep on the couch," Nika offered. Alistair cut her off at once. "No. You're too sick to sleep there." I stared at the two of them for a moment. Then I grabbed a pillow and a blanket. "I'll take the couch." As soon as the bedroom door closed, I opened my laptop and reached for an invitation on the table. Half an hour later, I typed my answer. By the next day, Alistair's company had lost one of its biggest partnerships.

My cousin, Monica Newman, turned down a blind date with a rich guy and insisted on marrying a broke kid instead. She begged me to steal her papers from my aunt so that she could get her way, yet two years after the wedding, she ended up killing me. She said it was all my fault that she had married an average guy and spent every day stressing about money. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the same day Monica was to meet that rich guy for the blind date. This time, I told her, "How do you know he's wrong for you if you won't even give him a try?" Since she blamed me for ruining her dream of marrying into money in my last life, this time, I would give her exactly what she wanted.

I'm the last of my father's bloodline, the old Alpha of the Moonlit Howl Pack. To keep me safe, Dad wanted me to mate with either Rhys, the pack's bravest, or Finn, our top warrior with insane fighting skills. They were supposed to be the next Alpha. But the only one they actually gave a damn about was that pathetic, vicious Omega, Cassidy. They even spat on pack tradition and marked her, thinking they could kick me out after Dad died! So, after Mom passed, and they asked me with disgust who I’d finally picked as my mate… I didn’t choose either of them. I turned my back and walked straight to Harris, the Alpha of the Shadow-fang Pack. The Alpha they say is eaten up by an ancient blood curse, a terrifying monster. However, on the day Harris was supposed to come for me, Liam and Seth actually stood in front of my den, begging me like whipped pups to stay.

In the Cesare family, every bride's wedding gown had to be handmade by an elder. Tradition held that the more elaborate the gown, the happier the marriage would be. My twin sister and I were getting married on the same day. At the fitting, Cersei's gown was breathtaking. Tens of thousands of crystals and diamonds covered its sweeping train. Mom had spent more than six months weaving the delicate lace for her veil by hand. "Cersei, my darling, you look so beautiful!" Mom gazed at her, her eyes filling with tears. "When you walk down the aisle to Antonio in that gown, every guest will be speechless!" Then I looked at mine. The seams were sloppy, the fabric was wrinkled, and there was not a single decoration on it. Worse, it had been stitched together from scraps left over from Cersei's gown. "Mom, Dad, is this my wedding gown?" Dad immediately shot me an annoyed look. "Is there a problem? Your sister is marrying the son of the Di Lauro family's capo. If her gown isn't lavish enough, both families will be humiliated! That bookish nobody you're marrying is just some low-level lackey who opens car doors for his boss. When we met him, he even tried to make himself sound impressive by claiming he owned a startup!" Mom made no effort to hide her contempt. "If you wore anything fancier to marry a man like that, his family would think you were showing off." Cersei quickly chimed in with a smug smile. "Exactly, Lilith. Mom and Dad are only looking out for you. Don't be ungrateful!" "Bookish nobody?" I almost laughed. Raphael was the Don's chosen successor. He simply kept a low profile and never flaunted his position. To outsiders, he described himself only as a businessman. So where had this nonsense about him being some employee who opened car doors come from? "Sorry, Lilith. I happened to see Raphael opening a car door for someone, so I told Mom and Dad what I saw. You don't mind, do you?" Cersei sounded apologetic, but the mockery in her eyes said otherwise. I shook my head

My wedding to Dante Moretti, the Don of the Chicago Mafia, was only days away. When I got home from my final dress fitting, I found he had made the house over into something painfully romantic. Flowers, candles, stacks of gift boxes... Excited as I was, I could not help wondering why. Today was not a special day. He pulled me into his arms and fed me a mouthful of wine from his own lips, his eyes smiling. "I knew you'd forget the anniversary of the day we got together." My stomach dropped. The anniversary was not today. While he was in the shower, his phone went off. A calendar alert popped up on the screen. "Today is your relationship anniversary." I frowned, opened the calendar, and scrolled back through a few pages. Every date he had marked, I realized, traced back to Camille Ricci, his first love. Her period, her birthday, her lucky days... Twelve months, hundreds of entries, packed so tight there was barely any space left between them. I gripped the phone, and the cold went all the way through me. Dante came out with a towel around his waist, saw me still standing there, and teased me with a grin. "Why are you just standing there? Want me to carry you to bed?" I did not call him on it. I said I needed to go over the wedding schedule, and I left. That night I returned the dress, canceled the wedding, and accepted the offer from the university in New York.

The Westmere pack had one rule about the Alpha's seat: only the Alpha's biological children could inherit it. I was my parents' only child. For as long as I could remember, I'd known I would become the first female Alpha in our pack's history. The trouble was that I hated being tied down. My father spoiled me, so he took in my cousin Evan Hale to take care of pack business for me. Evan had to pass an annual review on New Year's Day to keep his job as my assistant. But in 13 years, I never once took those reviews seriously. I passed Evan every single time. Over time, every wolf in the pack came to see me as the Alpha heir in name only. They believed Evan was the one my father really wanted to take over. Then Evan decided to marry Winona Crane, the daughter of Victor Crane, the Emberwind Alpha. Victor had heard all about Evan's achievements, and he agreed to the marriage without a second thought. To celebrate, I went out and conquered three new territories as a gift for Evan. I also gave Winona a villa to welcome her to Westmere. But on their first day as mates, she sold the villa. On the second day, she revoked my fingerprint access to every restricted area in the pack. Then she sent me a bill. "Lorelei Hale, I had no idea you'd spent 85 million dollars of Evan's money over the years." "You're a grown woman now, You can't keep dragging Evan down, can you?" "I want you to swear on the Moon Goddess that you'll pay back every cent within a month." I pointed at myself, wondering if I'd heard her right. "Me? Pay you back? Is this what Evan wants too?" Winona frowned. "What, are you trying to weasel out of paying?" I actually laughed. Sure, Evan had handled pack business for me for 13 years. But Westmere had never belonged to him. The only reason he'd kept his job as my assistant was that I'd waved him through his review year after year. And as it happened, the new year was only three days away. There was still time to revise Evan's review.

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.

Attending a high school reunion, I rode my motorcycle to the venue. By the time I arrived at the Moon Valley Hotel, most of my former classmates were already there. Everyone seemed to be doing well for themselves. The parking lot was filled with luxury cars belonging to high-ranking pack members. There was even a Rolls Royce that belonged to the son of an Alpha. As I dismounted from my motorcycle, a former male classmate I barely remembered looked at me with disdain. "Well, well, if it isn't our former class president. Still riding a basic bike like an omega, I see." During dinner, everyone was fawning over the Alpha's son while completely ignoring me in the corner. Only Derek, our former class monitor and now a beta, sat beside me with a sympathetic look. "Don't worry about it. Even though you're still just an omega like your parents, I'm sure one day you'll rise up in the pack rankings." I couldn't help but smirk, whispering under my breath: "This isn't just any motorcycle. It's the Royal Guard's official vehicle."

I turned my family's old building into shared apartments. Five floors. Downtown. Huge courtyard. I tore down every non-load-bearing wall and redesigned the layout. Singles. Doubles. Four-person rooms. Something for everybody. Rent was half what everyone else charged. I only rented to people who'd graduated within the past three years. And instead of cramming more rooms into the courtyard, I added a gym and cafeteria. Brand-new gym equipment. Two cooks. Meals that cost about the same as dining hall food. And the first month? All meals were free. I really thought I was doing something good. Giving people fresh out of school a little breathing room. A place to call home. They called me their "dream landlord", gave me thank-you cards and posted about me online. Looking at all those young faces, I figured all the work had been worth it. Then Toby McLean showed up. Silver suitcase in hand. He stopped outside the building, pushed up his gold-rimmed glasses, and stared at the sign. "Kindred Residences." Then he smiled.

After receiving the report for an STD test, I went back to the barbeque restaurant, and there I ran into a young woman who was about three months pregnant. She asked me to let her cut in line, and, feeling sorry for her, I agreed to help her out. I quickly made arrangements for her and made sure she had a seat. But to my shock, after she finished her meal, she had a miscarriage. The girl posted about the incident online, and before I knew it, I was trending on social media, facing a wave of cyberbullying. The internet users went even further, digging up my health records and finding that everything came back positive. [She's positive for everything—she's clearly a woman with a messy private life!] [No wonder she caused the woman's miscarriage just by being near her—she's a biological hazard!] The cyberbullying got so bad that it pushed me into depression. Even my fiancé turned against me, accusing me of being filthy and breaking up with me. The emotional weight became too much, and in my pain, I drove straight into a reservoir. Meanwhile, the girl gained millions of followers online and skyrocketed to fame as a popular influencer. It was only after I died that I learned the shocking truth—this girl was my fiancé's first love. To boost her own popularity, she and my fiancé had come up with this entire scheme together. When I opened my eyes again, I found myself back on the day when she asked me to let her cut in line.

In my past life, my boyfriend's childhood sweetheart, Kimberly Thatcher, claimed to be Lady Luck. She insisted on handing out sachets to keep our team safe for a hike. I, Priscilla Jensen, caught the scent and realized the sachets were stuffed with herbs that would attract wolves. So, I stepped in to stop her, saving everyone from an attack. But Kimberly thought I was looking down on her sachets, and that I was targeting her on purpose. Though she was the leader, she stormed off from the group in anger. We searched the forest under the raging storm. In the end, someone broke a leg, someone else was strangled by poisonous vines, and my shoulder was torn open. By dawn, we found Kimberly's corpse at the bottom of a valley. … On the seventh day after her death, her memorial service became an ambush. While everyone mourned for her, their eyes were fixed on me. My boyfriend, Fabian Lowell, was the first to lash out. He ripped off his bandage, revealing his wound. "If you hadn't stopped Kimberly from giving us those sachets, none of this would have happened! How dare you show up to her memorial service?" he yelled. Everyone turned to glare daggers at me. Suddenly, someone shouted, "It's all your fault! You're the reason we ended up like this! Go to hell!" In the next second, they hurled a pot of boiling stew at me. Then they set the private room ablaze and burned me alive. … When I open my eyes again, I'm back on the day of the hike.

At four months pregnant, I went to pick up my prenatal test results with my husband, Aiden Carter, who was an OB-GYN. The smile at the corner of his lips froze the moment he saw the report. Without a word, he grabbed my hand and tried to schedule an abortion. I stood there in shock. The attending physician, Dr. Marianne Cole, had just told me the baby was perfectly healthy! I tore myself free and demanded, "Why do you want me to get an abortion?!" He didn’t answer and had already scheduled the procedure. When I tried to run, he yanked my arm tighter. "There's no way we are having this child!" Clutching my belly, I hurried to call my parents, who were both OB-GYNs themselves. Dad, who had always doted on me, raised his fist, aiming straight for my stomach. Mom’s face twisted in horror, shaking her head wildly. "No, this won’t work. It can’t be like this." "Find a few men. Lock Clara Hart in with them." I didn’t understand why they were so desperate to destroy my child. All I wanted was to escape. Instead, they locked me inside a pitch-black room. When I felt the blood trickling down my legs, I knew my baby was gone. Mom came smiling to fetch me. I fought, demanding to know why they had done this to me. Without responding, she turned around and sent me straight to Ravenwood Asylum. I was tortured to death there. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the very day I went to collect my prenatal report. Aiden looked at me, his face glowing with joy. "Baby, this is our first child. I can’t wait for the day he’s born."

My mate-to-be, Ethan, said he had some urgent work come up right before our planned full moon trip. He bailed. I was missing him like crazy, so I immediately drove for over ten hours to his city. I hadn’t told Ethan I was coming. There I was, flowers in hand, standing outside his mansion, ready to give my destined mate a sweet surprise. But then I caught the mixed scent of Ethan and another female werewolf. The scent was sickeningly familiar. Amber Collins. Ethan’s ex-mate. I fought back the burn in my nose, my eyes already red, and pushed the door open. And what did I see? Them, sharing a glass of red wine, cuddled up, practically on top of each other. When Ethan finally noticed me, he jerked his arm away from Amber, walked stiffly over, his voice laced with panic. "Scarlett, why didn't you tell me you were coming?"

After the War of the Gods, Olympus forged a new pact with the last of the Titans. From then on, the mortal realm was ruled by demigods. Those who carried the blood of the gods within them. Once a century, Olympus held the Sacred Marriage. The twelve ruling gods would choose mortal noblewomen as brides. Their goal: to sire heirs with divine cores. The rule was simple: whoever birthed a demigod first would see her husband crowned the next High Councilor of the Gods. In my past life, I married Deimos, the son of Ares, a man renowned for his fierce devotion. Soon after, I gave him a son—a demigod brimming with raw power. A prophecy declared our boy would one day rule Olympus, and Deimos rode that promise to absolute power. Meanwhile, my sister Evadne, blinded by the beauty of the Sun clan, insisted on marrying Lucian, Apollo's playboy heir. But Lucian's philandering left her with more than a broken heart. He gave her a divine blight, a curse that left her barren. She blamed me for it. She hated me with every fiber of her being. On the very night I was crowned Queen of the Gods, she set the holy temple ablaze, burning me and my son alive. Then I opened my eyes. I was back on the day of the Sacred Marriage. Evadne had already broken into the temple and climbed into Deimos's bed. I knew it right then. She had been reborn, too. But she didn't know the truth. The blood of the War God is violent. Deimos wasn't a prize to be won. He was a monster in disguise.