Historias cortas y novelas de After Death Marriage

Yvonne Foster, my wife from an arranged marriage, is a control freak who loves me to her core. From business operations to the smallest details of daily life, she takes charge of everything herself. If someone dares to target me in business, their company is shut down for investigation the very next day. Women who set their sights on me always disappear without a trace. Yvonne always acts as if she can't stand me, but I know she is the kind of person who acts tough on the outside but cares deeply on the inside. This goes on until my parents find their true biological son, and I turn out to be the fake heir. The real heir, Fabian Madden, has spent his whole life in the countryside. I hear that he has an honest, simple personality. But when every bone in my body is shattered, and I'm thrown into an abandoned factory with my mouth stuffed full of blood-soaked dirt, he stares down at me haughtily. "You darn parasite living off a woman! You stole more than 20 years of wealth and privilege that should have been mine. Die! Just die already!" He buries my body in the garden and uses it to nourish a vast bed of roses as a birthday gift for Yvonne. Pointing at the sea of roses, he says ingratiatingly, "Yvonne, do you like this field of roses?"

On Christmas Eve, I giddily wait for my husband, Hunter Gibson, to come home while nursing my eight-month pregnancy. Unexpectedly, Hunter bursts through the front door with his childhood friend, Winter Jones, in his arms. I attempt to help him out, only to get shoved to the floor instead. My belly bumps into a corner of the coffee table, causing pain to shoot up my nerves. Cold sweat soon beads on my forehead, and yet Hunter doesn't even spare me another glance. "Get out of my way! Someone drugged Winnie's drink at the bar! If I don't purge the poison out of her, she'll die!" As I shield my belly, I dig out my phone. "I'll call an ambulance for her—" But Hunter snatches my phone away before hurling it at the floor, breaking it into splinters. Then, he grabs me by the neck angrily. "Are you trying to ruin Winnie's reputation? If word gets out, how is she going to live with her head hung high?" In order to prevent me from "ruining his plan", Hunter decides to trap me on the balcony while disregarding my pleas and the fact that I'm only wearing thin pajamas. "You should take some time to cool off! Once you've finally learned your lesson, you're only permitted entry!" I can only slam my palms onto the glass door desperately with tears running down my face. There, I'm forced to watch as Hunter and Winter go at it like desperate rabbits on the carpet in the living room, with the Christmas songs serving as their ambiance. A heavy snowfall has occurred that night. At the crack of dawn the next morning, Hunter finally remembers that I exist. He calls my number, yet my phone was turned off. Furious, Hunter yells, "Where the hell did you go? Winnie's stomach is in discomfort! Get your ass back here right now and cook her some soup!" What he doesn't know is that I'm right outside the balcony door. The thing is, dead people are incapable of answering phone calls, not to mention Hunter has already broken my phone, to begin with.

My wife had such a compassionate heart that she brought the young homeless man outside our apartment home for dinner, then demanded I give up my room so he could stay there. She spent the entire down payment I had saved on designer clothes for him and took him to five-star restaurants. She said she was only helping him and told me not to be so petty. Then, I got sick and ended up in the hospital. I called my wife and asked her to use the emergency funds in our bank account to pay for my surgery. She agreed right away. Despite that, I waited an entire day and missed the surgery, and the doctor told me I had only one month left to live. She never brought the money. Instead, I saw the photos she had posted on social media during her travels. My wife leaned against the homeless man in front of a famous landmark, smiling like she had everything she wanted. The caption read, "Wyatt said he's never been to any famous landmarks, so even if I have to spend every last cent, I'm going to take him around the world so he won't have any regrets. Also, someone was so afraid I'd spend money on Wyatt that he lied about being sick. He has no compassion at all!" Only then did I realize her so-called sympathy was just an excuse for falling for someone else. In that case, I did not want her anymore.

My mother suddenly suffered a brain hemorrhage, and I needed to pay $80,000 for surgery immediately. I called my wife right away. Before I could finish, she cut me off impatiently. "Gabriel Cole, didn't we agree when we got married that we'd keep our finances separate? Your mother being sick is your family's problem. Why should you touch my savings? Can't you have a little respect for the contract?" Then my stepson's sneering voice came through from her side. "Uncle Gabriel, can you stop morally blackmailing my mom? As a grown man, isn't it pathetic that you can't even pay your own mother's medical bills? Stop bothering us while we're eating sushi." Because I couldn't pay the fee in time, my mother missed the best window for surgery and died. It wasn't until noon the next day that my wife called me. Her first words were an accusation. "What's wrong with you? It's already noon. Why aren't you back to cook? Don't you know Mason has tutoring this afternoon?" "My mom died of a brain hemorrhage!" I roared through gritted teeth. My wife froze for a second. The first thing she blurted out was: "Well, don't expect me to pay for the funeral. That's a matter of principle. "And your mother dying is your mother dying. That's not a reason for you to skip cooking." In that instant, I knew the devotion I'd poured out for more than ten years meant nothing to her. Rage hit my heart. I suffered a heart attack and followed my mother into death. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day my wife proposed separate finances after marriage.

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.

Mom always said my sister was the little princess of our family, while I was a tough little monkey who could take anything. So whenever my sister caused trouble, I was the one who got punished. When she refused to eat vegetables, Mom made me skip dinner for three days. When she played on her tablet instead of doing homework, Mom smashed my favorite Star Ranger figure. When she climbed onto the windowsill to retrieve a toy, Mom made me stand outside in the sun all day. Mrs. Parker from downstairs always praised her. "You're such a wonderful mother. Most parents would have scolded their daughter." Mom would tap my forehead and answer as though it were obvious. "Boys are tougher. A little punishment won't hurt him, but my Lily should never have to suffer." One Saturday, my sister and I were home alone. She turned on the stove because she wanted to toast marshmallows. Mom came home just as the burner clicked on. Without asking a single question, she shoved me into the kitchen, opened a burner valve without lighting it, and told my sister, "Lily, the next time you touch the stove, I'll punish your brother again. Let this teach you a lesson." I pounded on the door and begged Mom to let me out. The door never opened. The rotten-egg smell grew stronger and stronger. And my eyelids grew heavier and heavier...

In the fifth year of our marriage, my firefighter husband, Mike Anderson, who never had the time to have a wedding ceremony with me, suddenly found time to do so. On the day of the ceremony, I could not contact Mike at all. It all became clear when I saw the video that had been sent into the firefighter family members’ group chat. His junior, Mia Scott was holding his arm as he received a heroic award from the mayor. Everyone in the group chat was making envious remarks. [Chief Anderson’s wife is so beautiful. She doesn’t look like a regular house wife like my husband claimed to be.] [That’s right, she looks so elegant and poised. She must be a great wife to Chief Anderson.] My rough hands were trembling. I was just about to tell them I was Mike’s wife, when I heard a loud explosion from my kitchen. As the searing heat consumed me, I called him for help. However, he interrupted me impatiently. “Why are you bothering me? I lied to you about the wedding ceremony because I was afraid of you coming up with such nonsense. “Mia’s father died because he saved me, so I let her accompany me to receive the award as my wife. Isn’t that reasonable?” I was stunned. Then, he hung up on me.

The year I die, my wife, Liana Chandler, despises me more than ever before. Unable to handle her endless emotional abuse, I choose to end my own life by swallowing pills. At the crematorium, she watches the roaring flames in the cremation chamber with a rare smile. "Filth like him doesn't deserve a proper burial," she comments. When the employee hands her my cremation urn, she swiftly overturns it, scattering my ashes all over the floor in an instant. All this time, she has believed that I'm the one who caused her first love's death. So, she took great pains to formulate a plan—all for this very moment. When everything is over, she walks away without looking back, trampling my ashes underfoot. But before long, she's on her knees, begging for the funeral parlor to give my ashes back to her.

A tsunami was coming. My wife was the captain of her ship, and she gave her true love the only chance at escaping, all to protect him. I begged her to save me first, or else I would die in this disaster. She told me impatiently, “Drop the act. Everyone knows you’re a first-rank seafarer. We’d be better off if selfish souls like you really do die!” She had forgotten one thing. I could no longer go into the sea. Not after I developed thalassophobia from saving her.

I was the only human at the vampire banquet, and the fiancée of the Prince's heir, Lucien. As a child, I once saved Lucien from vampire hunters, and the Prince and his wife chose me for him, sealing our engagement. Everyone envied me. I was merely the daughter of a human nobleman, yet I had the fortune to marry above my station into the Prince's family. To be worthy of him, I worked to make everything perfect. But among vampires, I always seemed slow and clumsy. They moved faster than me, heard far more than I could, and even the simplest vampire customs took me longer to memorize. Every time I reacted a step too slow, Lucien would remind me with a frown. "How are you ever going to be a proper wife like this?" He always said that compared to the girl he grew up with, his former fiancée, I still fell far short. Every single time, I was laughed at without mercy. Lucien would never let anyone hurt me, but he never once defended my dignity. Eventually, I broke off the engagement and decided to marry someone else. Lucien's face darkened. "You're really going to marry this human?" "Yes. Because he has never once called me stupid." Lucien scoffed. "That's your reason?" I nodded. "That's my reason."

On the night of our wedding, Simone Laurent did not inject the promised capital into the Holt family's company. Instead, she had someone carry in a crate of scratch-off tickets. She undid the top buttons of her blouse, her eyes lazy with amusement. "Here are 2,000,000 dollars' worth of scratch-offs. Whatever you scratch off, that is what you get. Be good, Spencer, and maybe next time I will give you something real." I knew what she was doing. She punished me because yesterday I had ruined her evening, and I had thrown a glass of red wine all over her assistant, the one in the see-through shirt. I did not cry this time. I did not make a scene. My fingers found an ultra-thin condom in her pocket that was not my size, and I simply wiped my hand clean and said nothing. The surprise in her eyes lasted half a second before it softened into a satisfied smile. She wrapped her arms around me from behind, warm breath spilling against my ear. "That is right. Now you are starting to act like a husband who knows his place." She pulled out an unlimited black card and pressed it to my chest, the plastic cold through my shirt. "Take it. This should be more than enough for your family's company." I managed a stiff smile, pulled the card free, and handed it back. "I do not need it." She did not know this. During the days she spent breaking me in, my father had already been cornered by debt collectors on a rooftop and forced past the edge. Dead men did not need money.

The day I have only 220 dollars left in my savings, I buy a 200-dollar ticket to a piano recital. When my friend finds out, she asks if I have gone crazy. I reply without a hint of emotion, "I just want to see what kind of woman is worth taking all our savings and spending it on a concert grand piano for. "That money was supposed to save our daughter. Summer was counting on it for her surgery." The recital lasts two full hours, and everyone praises the beautiful music. But all I can think about is the woman onstage and my husband, Zander Stafford, sitting right in front of her. He's dressed in a sharp suit and looks so refined that I barely recognize him. At the end of every song, Zander is always the first to applaud. There is a fervor in his eyes I have never seen before. It isn't until the recital ends that I finally receive a message from him after two months of silence, along with a bank transfer. "I'm sorry, Sabina. Things are tight at the construction site right now, so I'm using some of the money from that account," he writes. "My boss says he'll pay me back as soon as the money comes in. "Didn't you say Summer is sick and in the hospital? Take these 5,000 dollars for now." I look up at the two people embracing in the center of the stage. I return the money and reply, "It's not necessary." I no longer need it. I will never need his money again. Summer is already dead, and nothing matters anymore.

On the day of her daughter Nina’s funeral, before the pastor could finish the eulogy, Rosalind answered Samson’s phone call. “Change of plans. Let’s meet earlier. I’m on my way now.” Ethan held the small cremation urn in his arms. His knuckles turned white from gripping it too tightly. Nina had been critically ill with leukemia. Only Samson’s bone marrow matched hers. Driven to the brink, Ethan desperately begged Rosalind to go along with Samson’s request. She promised that she would only be playing pretend and would not fall for Samson. However, as time passed, she eventually fell for Samson and indulged him in every way. On the night when Nina needed the transplant the most, Ethan called her, frantic. However, she was unreachable because she was camping deep in the mountains. Ethan helplessly watched the three-year-old die in the emergency room. Later, Rosalind even protected Samson and let him stomp on Nina’s cross necklace. She even forcibly confined Ethan to a sanatorium and forced him to donate blood to Samson. It was not until Rosalind learned that Samson had deceived her from the very beginning that she felt piercing regret. She gave him fifty percent of her shares, knelt for hours at the cemetery, and tried to make amends wherever she could. However, no amount of regret could bring back the man she had deeply wounded.

I spend three years in prison taking the fall for Dwight Reed, the precious assistant of my hospital director wife, Gretchen Payne. On the day I am released, the first thing I see is yet another Medical Malpractice Liability Acknowledgment. "Sign it, Dustin. I want you to take the blame for this incident, too. Dwi has a bright future ahead of him. He can't have a stain on his record." Gretchen shoves a pen into my hand. "You've already served time. So, one more charge isn't going to make a difference." When I don't budge, she clicks her tongue impatiently. "Dustin, you're a convicted felon. You should be grateful for the chance to take the fall for Dwi! It's only five years! "Don't push your luck. Or is this about money? In that case, name your price!" I look at Dwight, who's sitting in the car with his arm around her waist, and let out a silent, bitter chuckle. My hand tightens around the late-stage leukemia diagnosis in my pocket. Gretchen, how am I supposed to serve five years when I only have seven days left to live?

Everyone said my wife, Zoey Harper, was an amazing wife and mom who'd do anything for me and our son, Leo. Leo's doctor warned us three times that he might not make it. Then he died. Zoey claimed she was overseas for work. She wasn't. She'd invited Peter Cole—the first love she'd never gotten over—and his family to our apartment for dinner. I came home carrying Leo's urn, ready to confront her. Instead, she tossed my luggage into the hall. "We have guests, and we're out of rooms. Go stay somewhere else for a few days."

To help her childhood sweetheart, David Middleton, take my place studying abroad, my wife, Sharon Griffin, destroys my records and deliberately fills in false information, ensuring that I'm permanently denied a visa. She even severely injured my hands before sending me to the Behavioral Reform Center. My mother-in-law, Paula Brown, who has always treated me with affection, takes Sharon's side. "Kyle is so ungrateful. We gave him everything, and he still wanted to get a PhD abroad to find his biological parents. Who's going to take care of me if he's gone?" Sharon snorts. "He's just vain. When he found out I'd turned down Westbridge's offer of admission, he gave me the silent treatment and threatened to divorce me. If I let him go abroad, he'd think he could do whatever he wanted. "As my husband, he has everything he could ever need, yet he still wants to take David's opportunities away from him. Maybe the Behavioral Reform Center can teach him to appreciate what he has." A semester later, Sharon goes to the airport to pick up David, who's returning from his studies abroad. For the first time in a long while, she asks her assistant, Adam Norris, "It's been so long. Has Kyle learned his lesson? Tell him he can come home for the winter break." She doesn't know that I've already died on the very first day she sent me to that reform center.

When I found Silas Pembroke, he was carefully untangling a strand of another woman’s hair from his tie clip. The two of them were wrapped around each other, far too close to pretend otherwise. He let out a mocking laugh. “Jenna, what exactly are you going to accuse Sienna and me of this time?” Sienna Vale smiled sweetly. “Mrs. Pembroke, you stayed away longer than usual this time.” I steadied myself and said, “I’m not Jenna. I’m her twin sister, Summer Sinclair.” Silas burst out laughing. “What is this, your latest stunt?” Then his expression hardened. “Keep pushing me, and I can’t promise you’ll stay Mrs. Pembroke forever.” I only looked at him and said quietly, “Silas, my sister left three keepsakes behind for you.”

The year Chelsea Shelton, a Hawthorne Bay heiress, hated me more than ever, she brought home one guy after another. And after she was done with them, she made me pay them off. I'd cursed, fought, even landed in the hospital after throwing hands with escorts. Eventually, I stopped caring and signed one million-dollar check after another. All so she'd keep paying Dad's medical bills. Then Dad went into cardiac arrest again. He was critical. Hands shaking, I called Chelsea. She told the hospital to kick him out of the ICU. "Rowyn Reynaud, that's not how you beg. I don't like it." I tore home through the rain and begged her to let him stay. She made me stand outside all night and listen to her hook up with another guy. By morning, I signed another check and handed it over. Before I could ask her to spare Dad, a fist cracked across my face. Chelsea's college-age boy toy glared at me, pissed. "Chelsea, does this freeloader seriously think I'm some escort? We love each other. Who the hell does he think he is, throwing money at me?" Chelsea frowned. "Rowyn, apologize. Or do you want Frederick dead?" But the hospital had just texted me. Dad was already gone. Sometime during the night, he'd bitten through his oxygen line and ended his life. With the last of his strength, he'd left me one final note in blood. [Rowyn, I can't keep being a burden to you.]

Being locked away by my parents as a child left me with severe claustrophobia. Every time it flared up, I not only lost my voice but also lost my ability to use the mind-link with anyone in the pack. In my parents' eyes, a strong werewolf should have gotten over something that happened so long ago. Each time I lost my voice, only Alpha Caius Thorne stayed by my side. He kept notepads and pens throughout the estate and kept our conversation pinned to the top of his messages. He even learned sign language just for me. When another episode struck, I signed to him with trembling hands. "Does this ever make you tired of me?" My mate's scent enveloped me, calming my restless wolf. "Never. If anything, I'm glad we have a language that's just ours." Then Sage Mercer returned. She was a human healer and one of my closest friends. She tricked me into entering an underground stone chamber and locked me inside. The sealed space triggered another episode. I couldn't call for Caius, even though he was standing right outside the door. All I could do was sign frantically. But he acted like he didn't understand and stood there as Sage sealed the heavy stone door. Panic took over. I shifted into my wolf form and threw myself against the door with everything I had. Again and again, I slammed into it until my body was drenched in blood, yet not a single cry for help escaped my throat. Then I heard Sage speaking to Caius on the other side of the door. "Elara has to face her trauma head-on. Protecting her every time this happens won't help her get better. "A Luna represents her pack. With a condition like hers, she'll only hold you back. "Once she can call out for help on her own, we'll let her out." Caius said nothing. I understood his silence for what it was: agreement. So that was how Caius really saw me. A burden. But they had forgotten this underground chamber was designed to hold untamable beasts. Once the heavy door was sealed, almost no fresh air could get inside. No matter

On the day of our wedding, my vampire husband confessed that he had a severe emotional disorder. He could barely understand other people's feelings and had no idea how to respond to them. Because I had already fallen in love with him, I chose to accept it. I believed that if I gave him enough time, he would eventually learn how to love me. The day the vampire hunters attacked, I threw myself in front of a bullet meant for him. A bullet struck my arm, and the pain nearly brought me to my knees. Adrian Blackwood only glanced down at the carpet. "Go get that wound taken care of." He frowned. "Don't get blood everywhere." Every vampire in our circles knew my husband didn't love me. I had become the punchline everyone whispered about. But I never blamed him. I truly believed he simply wasn't capable of loving anyone. Until I finally got pregnant and went to surprise him with the news, only to hear his human blood servant laughing on the other side of his office door. "She actually believes you have an emotional disorder?" To my shock, Adrian laughed too. His voice was so gentle I hardly recognized it. "She loves me that much. Of course she believes it." "If it weren't for an heir, I never would have married her." I stood outside the door and looked down at my arm. The scar from the silver bullet was still there, jagged and ugly. There was no point in sharing this surprise anymore. I would take my baby and disappear from his world for good.