Tragic Love Short Stories & Mistress Countdown Novels

The marking ceremony had reached the moment when the Luna crown should be exchanged, but my mate in name only still refused to lower his head. Once Drake Blackwood bit the side of my neck and completed the marking, our 66th ceremony would finally become real. Yet his eyes stayed fixed on his phone, and he did not even look at me. All because his widowed sister-in-law, Scarlett Moore, had posted a claim-release statement an hour earlier. Her late husband had been Drake’s older brother. Under pack law, Drake was obligated to protect her. Attached to her post was a ticket for a private pack flight, showing that she would land in an hour. Drake suddenly rose and announced in a low voice to the elders and pack members that the marking ceremony would be postponed. Then he left me standing there alone, turning me into a joke before the entire pack. I calmly packed away the Luna crown, calmly apologized to the guests, and calmly saw everyone off. After that, I opened Scarlett’s latest post on the MoonNet feed. In the photo, Drake stood beside her, holding out a newly hunted moonstone. I gave a bitter smile and called my birth parents through the private pack link. “Father, Mother, I’m willing to come back now.” “I’ll accept the marriage alliance for the Frostvale Pack.”

04:00 AM. JFK International Airport. I switched off airplane mode, and my phone lit up. The first notification was an Instagram story from my husband, Donovan Valentino, Don of the Valentino family, posted at 3:30 AM: a photo of Seraphina Moretti’s back, captioned, “Run 50 completed. Package delivered safe.” An hour before that, my flight had hit catastrophic clear-air turbulence, dropping two thousand feet in seconds. I’d clung to my seatbelt until my knuckles turned white, the crumpled threat letter from a rival crew pressed like a blade against my ribs. In those blind, falling seconds, one thought burned through the panic: If I live through this—if Donovan is waiting at arrivals—I’ll tear up my transfer papers to Dubai and stay. But there were no missed calls. No messages. He’d been too busy collecting Seraphina. He knew my flight details. He just didn’t care. Four years of marriage. 50 fully armed security details for Seraphina. For my 112 long-haul flights over those same four years? The most I ever got was a driver in an unmarked sedan. Even the night Gambino’s crew tailed me from Manhattan, and I spent six hours locked in a diner bathroom. He didn’t pick up until dawn, after the twelfth try. My transfer to Dubai was confirmed. The signed divorce settlement was in my bag. This was the last time I’d ever come back for him.

He had lied to me sixty-six times, promising he would let go of his childhood sweetheart. But whenever she needed him, he still ran to her first. I lied to him only once. I slipped the Mate-Bond Dissolution Agreement into the ceremony documents and had him sign it. In my previous life, I stopped him from going to her one last time. Iris died under the claws of border rogues, and Damon hated me until his wolf soul shattered. This time, I chose to let him go. Today was the final day of the public notice period. With three hours left, I packed my bags and booked a private pack flight back to the border. With two hours left, I severed every moon-energy tie between us and burned our only photo. With one hour left, I left him a letter. “This is the tenth year I have loved you, and the first day I leave you.” Later, he chased me to the airport like a madman. But this time, I would not look back.

I was Alpha Adrian’s mate, his Luna, and the woman who held his pack together for ten years. Then he decided Bianca needed “protection.” Protection meant giving her his name in front of the Pack Council. It meant letting her stand at his right hand, wear the Luna jewels, and let her daughter call him Daddy while our son waited for him at home. He called it duty. He called it temporary. He expected me to understand. I did. I understood that every time he had to choose, he chose someone else. So I stopped begging for the place that was already mine. I took our son, walked into the severance ritual, and tore our mate bond out by the roots. Adrian thought I would come back once his guilt caught up with him. But by the time he realized what he had lost, I was already free.

Five years ago, I was his life and I thought we would be the end game until Rosalin, his new assistant, seeped into our life. It began with urgent late night meetings. Our dinner conversations, once filled with shared secrets and soft laughter, were replaced by the rhythmic tapping of his thumbs against his phone. He stopped looking at me across the table, his gaze permanently fixed on the glowing screen as he replied to her "emergency" texts. When I’d walk into his office, the air would turn brittle. He’d stop talking mid-sentence, Rosalin leaning over his shoulder with a look that wasn't professional. But the breaking point was when he left me waiting for six hours on our anniversary Gala to celebrate Rosaline’s birthday. “We got occupied with something, Victoria.” He said, “Rosaline has brought cake for you. It was her birthday as well.” Just then a notification came into my phone. It was Rosaline’s post. She had posted a picture minutes before entering the gala. She was sitting in a seven-star hotel, the one I asked Jayden to book for our Anniversary but he refused after saying it was full. She had been cutting her birthday cake surrounded by red candles’ flames and a pair of hands had cupped hers. Jayden’s hands. He had ghosted our Anniversary Gala to celebrate Rosaline’s birthday! That was when I realised, I had no future with this man. I will disappear from his world, taking his child with me.

For our ninety-ninth engagement ceremony, Julian booked us a skydive. He said he wanted to tell me he loved me at thirty thousand feet. My chute didn't open. I got tangled in a big tree. I survived, yet suffered multiple fractures all over my body. In the ward, I accidentally saw a message on the screen of our jump instructor's phone. It was addressed to Julian, and it carried a video. The video showed someone tampering with my chute before we boarded. So the "accident" was Julian's idea? I dragged myself out of bed on crutches, every bone in my body screaming, ready to confront him. I made it as far as the hallway. He was already there, talking to someone, and the moment I saw the other man, the floor tilted under me. The man across from him was the same driver who'd hit me with his car the night before our last engagement. The hit-and-run that should have killed me. "Mr. Veil, if you ever need me again, please reach out." Julian's voice was flat, almost tired. "There won't be a next time. I've tried everything I can think of. The engagement can't be postponed anymore." "And the woman you actually love, sir?" "I'll keep loving her," Julian said. "But Ada is the one I marry. Her mother gave my father a kidney. That's the debt. I have to pay it." I stood there shaking, and the truth rearranged itself behind my eyes. The camping trip he had planned, where I got lost and nearly died of hypothermia in the woods. That had been him. The vitamin C he had handed me, the one that put me in the ICU. Him too. And this time — the skydive, thirty thousand feet, “I want the sky to witness our love”. All of it. Every single one of those accidents was him trying to delay the wedding. But Julian, I thought, I could save you the trouble. The next morning I accepted an offer that had been sitting in my inbox for weeks: an invitation from a world-class orchestra on the other side of the planet.

To stay by the side of award-winning actress Victoria Quinn, I gave up the system's one-billion-dollar cash reward. I also drained every last one of my luck points to make her paralyzed legs heal. The price was that my life became bound to her loyalty. If she ever betrayed me, emotionally or physically, my soul would be ripped from my body and erased completely. At the moment of binding, I hesitated. But when I looked into her eyes and saw the depth of her love, I believed her. I believed her when she said, "Out of all the people in the world, I only want you." So I chose to become the man who stood silently behind her, giving everything without complaint, and I pressed confirm. For seven years, we loved each other as deeply as we had in the beginning. Hand in hand, we weathered every storm together. Until our wedding anniversary. I was in the kitchen making her favorite soup when I suddenly coughed violently and spat out a large pool of black blood. Then I looked down and saw my fingers slowly turning transparent, so faint that I could no longer even touch the glass in front of me. At the same time, a piercing alarm rang through my mind. "Warning. Bound target's love value has fallen below the critical threshold. Erasure protocol activated..."

On New Year's Eve, I went to court for the last time. The judge asked if I still wanted to file for custody of my daughter. I shook my head and said, "I'm here to withdraw my case. I'm going to stop fighting for custody anymore. I agree with the divorce." Vivian and I had been married for nine years, and the divorce had dragged through six hearings. I spent six New Year's Eve in court. There had been no joy, only hysterical accusations. I was tired. My daughter was tired, too. So, I finally stopped holding on. I had already booked my flight home for the year.

After I got back with Lily Reid, I finally had a chance to catch a breather. She no longer returned home late, and she no longer hid her social media posts from me. Finally, I no longer felt like an insecure madman in our relationship. It was as if nothing had happened before. Things were very peaceful. It seemed as though love could ease everything. One day, Lily got into a car accident. My childhood friend was with her, and he was found completely naked. The police passed the mediation letter to me and said sternly, “The surveillance footage showed that your girlfriend was driving distractedly and hit the car in the opposite lane.” I signed the letter numbly. Then, I collected the items from the car accident. There were a pair of sexy leggings, birth control products, and a guarantee letter that had been torn into pieces. [I, Lily Reid, promise to cut all ties with David Anderson, or I will rot in hell.] When I rushed to the hospital, Lily was struggling to sit upright and shield David. “I was the one who went to him. If you’re angry, direct it to me!” I shook my head and laughed in relief. It turned out no matter how hard I held on, I could not save the romance. The air tickets that I bought for our anniversary trip became my exit.

[No matter how carefully you plan, fate can erase everything with a single stroke.] The moment I confirmed that Delilah Carter was cheating on me, that post appeared on my phone. I opened it calmly and scrolled to the comments beneath a thread titled "Unfaithful". Then I added a few lines of my own. [How unbelievable can it be?] [A coworker snapped a casual vacation photo and posted it online. Out of thousands of people in the background, my fiancee and my best friend just happened to end up in the same frame.] [Our wedding is in three days, yet here I am, rushing across the country in the middle of the night to catch them together.] After posting the comment, I locked my phone. The wallpaper display happened to be our wedding portrait. Leaning against the white wall of the hotel corridor, I closed my bloodshot eyes in exhaustion. Only after the intense, frenzied noises inside finally stopped did I raise my hand—still wearing my wedding ring—and knock on the door. "Who is it?" Delilah opened the door wearing a silk camisole. I pushed past her and walked inside. Marcel Graham froze when he saw me, unsure how to react. "Cedric Davenport..." Before he could say anything else, the beautiful Delilah threw herself in front of him. "It was me! I seduced Marcel! Whatever you want to do, take it out on me! Leave him alone!" They clung to each other like tragic lovers facing the end of the world, desperate to hold on to one another. I stood silently in the darkness, my expression vacant, as I breathed in the lingering musky scent in the room. I didn't argue or make a scene. I simply committed the moment to memory. I told myself not to look back or forgive. Then I opened the invitation to Europe that had been sitting untouched in my inbox for months. On the final day before it expired, I accepted. From that moment on, the two things I treasured most—love and friendship—became nothing more than illusions.

My CEO boyfriend, Dylan Abbott, has a phobia of getting married. Because of that, he sets up a weird rule that requires me to pass all 99 trials set up by his secretary, Lynette Woods, before finally agreeing to marry me. The first time we're about to get married, I wait for Dylan at the marriage registration department for three hours. But that's when I'm informed that Lynette has lost Dylan's ID, causing our registration to get delayed. The second time we're about to get married, Lynette happens to be driving around in my car. She stages a brake failure and hits a passerby on purpose. By the time I'm done dealing with the accident and rush to the City Hall with Dylan, it's already closed for the day. The 98th time we're about to get married, Lynette laces my glass of water with rat poison. Because of that, I'm taken to the hospital immediately to have my stomach pumped out, hence missing out on the marriage registration. When it's the 99th time for us to get married, I'm under the impression that I've passed Lynette's trials, which means Dylan won't flake out on me anymore. But I spend the day waiting for Dylan at the City Hall till nightfall. I've spammed so many phone calls and text messages to him, and yet he never shows up. In the end, I come across a post Lynette has made on her social media feed about her and Dylan being officially married. "My boss loves me far too much! All I said was that I wanted to get married as well, and he was quick to marry me at the City Hall! I love him so much!" I just leave a like on the post without losing my temper or kicking up a ruckus. That's when Dylan calls me on the phone all of a sudden. "Don't misunderstand the whole thing, Felicia. This marriage is just a joke. Lynette is a graduate hailing from an overseas university. I merely married her because I want her to keep working for my company without any complaints. "Once the divorce procedures are over, I'll marry you immediately before throwing you the grandest wedding ever, okay?" What Dylan doesn't know is that I've already signed an agreement with the system. If I can't get married with Dylan in five years, that means I've lost the bet. My time will be up in three days. By then, I'll get annihilated by the system. There will no longer be a future for me and Dylan.

There's a rule in Pine Ridge—women are only allowed to leave the mountain seven times in their lives. If they aren't able to marry a foreigner who's not from Pine Ridge, they can only marry a local mountaineer and become a guardian of the mountain. Because of that, I've borrowed some cosmetics from my grandma seven times in a row. Every time, I'm often wearing my prettiest dress and waiting for the man, who has promised to whisk me away from Pine Ridge, to marry me. But despite having crossed the mountain and reached the same town seven times in a row, Joseph Kingsley is never there. In the village, the village chief, Arthur Langley, has a smoke pipe dangling from his lips. "This is your seventh time leaving Pine Ridge just to get your marriage registered. That director boyfriend of yours has gone over to the next village just to shoot more footage of the lass who has a really pretty smile. "Caroline, your boyfriend is already behaving like this. Why are you still waiting for him?" I clumsily pull out the phone Joseph has given me before keying in his number. The dial tone goes off three times before the call goes through. Only then does Joseph explain the truth to me. "When Gemma took us on a foraging trip, she got trapped by one of the bear traps in the mountain! You do realize that if a woman from Pine Ridge were to get crippled, no villager would want to marry her at all because she'd be a burden to them! "If I were to leave Gemma alone, her life would be ruined! This is the last time, Caroline! Once I ensure that Gemma's leg gets healed, I'll come marry you right away!" Joseph has been in Pine Ridge for four years so far. Throughout these years, I've hiked the mountain and braved the elements for him seven times in a row. But Gemma Watson keeps getting into trouble. Whenever that happens, Joseph will abandon me without hesitation. As I gaze at the phone, which shows that the call has gotten disconnected, I wipe away my tears quietly. There won't be a last time anymore. In three days, I will be marrying someone else.

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.

When my wife's first love was injured in a car accident and urgently needed a kidney transplant, she gave me an ultimatum. If I refused to donate my kidney, she said she would take our daughter and die alongside him the very next day. Crying, she begged. "Can you stop being so selfish? It's only one kidney. "It's not like you'll die! Are you really going to force me and your daughter to our deaths?" With a bitter smile, I agreed. What she didn't know was that our daughter had already died in the very same car accident that injured her beloved first love. And I was suffering from end-stage kidney failure. Once I went through with the surgery, I wouldn't be far behind from death either. Since she was willing to sacrifice everything for the man she loved, then I would give her exactly what she wanted. I would make her the person responsible for both my death and our daughter's so she would have to live with that regret for the rest of her life.

After I discovered Chelsea Stone’s infidelity, I ended the relationship without giving her a chance. I packed my luggage bit by bit. She watched me, then suddenly said, “Jensen Scott, do you know what was the most boring thing about you?” I paused and turned around. She blew out a puff of smoke and smiled in a flirtatious way. “You were so boring. You did not even know how to sweet‑talk in bed. It was so uninteresting.” I walked away with my things, and I held back my tears. Three years later, I ran into her in the hospital corridor. She wore a white coat, and the medical record book in her hand almost slipped when I bumped into her. Our eyes met. She looked me over, and her tone turned playful. “Oh, is this not my blockhead ex‑boyfriend?” I smiled and did not reply. As I left the hospital, she stepped in front of me and lowered her voice. “Three years have passed. Have you learned how to sweet‑talk in bed?” I raised my hand and showed her my wife’s ultrasound report. “I have, but not to you.”

Ten years after I accidentally crossed into the modern world, the system finally detected the glitch that was me. It was ready to send me back to the era I belonged to, but it gave me three days to say goodbye. On the first day, Corinne Whitford asked me to step aside so her childhood sweetheart could take my place at the altar. I did not cry or make a scene. I just smiled, slipped off my ring and handed it back to her. On the second day, she brought him home. She told me she was giving him a home. I did not argue, just stepped aside and let it happen. On the third day, she wanted to take him on a honeymoon to Wyndmere, the one place I had always dreamed of going. I helped her arrange everything, gentle as ever. When she stepped onto the train bound for Wyndmere, I turned and walked toward the road that would take me home. This ten-year dream had run its course. It was time to wake up.

At the Thanksgiving dinner, Raphael's assistant Daphne was sitting in my seat. I frowned at Raphael. “Why is she in the Donna's seat? Doesn’t she know, and don’t you?” Raphael clicked his tongue, impatient. “You're the one who showed up late. People sit where they want. If it bothers you, leave.” I opened my mouth to argue, and his thoughts reached me before I could. [Scarlett, get angry. Fight back.] [Tell me you're my wife, the Donna of the Sterling family, that no one else has the right to sit at my side.] [Prove you love me. It's the only thing that makes me feel safe.] This time, I didn't give his thoughts what they were begging for. I slid the wedding ring off my finger instead. “That's the Donna's seat. If you've decided she belongs in it, I won't argue.” “Let's get divorced.”

When Vivienne Carter married Sebastian Cross at twenty-two, everyone said how lucky she was. He was ten years older, a mafia Don with terrifying power in his hands, and yet for three years he doted on her alone. He indulged her in everything, kept her sheltered under his wing, tender and attentive down to the smallest detail. Only in the dead of night did he turn possessive and overpowering, taking without limit, never once relenting even when she begged him through tears. She had always been certain she was the one thing he loved. Then her father died without warning. Drowning in grief, she called him ninety-nine times, and every call was cut off. In an instant, a single photo shattered every illusion she had. On a Paris street softened by dusk, the man she'd loved for three years was bending to hold another woman. That woman, gentle-featured and faintly resembling her, was her cousin.

Winter came again, and my husband and son broke out in rashes the moment the cold settled in. No doctor identified the allergen. To keep themselves safe, they drew a hard line and moved to a separate house for the season. It did not matter that I slipped and cracked my head open, or that I ended up in the hospital after a car accident. I fought every battle alone. We became strangers who shared a family name, and I became the thing that could kill them. I endured the bitter cold by myself, lonely and aching. I counted the days hoping that spring would bring my family back to me, until I overheard a conversation I was never meant to hear. "Daddy, we only get to see Daphne in winter. Cannot the allergies last a little longer?" Daphne Bullman, my husband's childhood sweetheart. My husband ruffled our son's hair. "All that allergy medicine is not good for you, and Daphne would worry. I will bring you to see her when I can." My son clapped his hands. "Yay! I love the mango candy Daphne gives me in winter, and I get to see her!" Mango. That was the fatal allergen I spent years keeping out of my son's reach. I stood in the freezing wind for a long time before I quietly walked home. Spring returned, and I stopped caring. "Eat whatever you want. If you think I am abusing you, call the police. I do not want custody anyway."

I was two hours late the day we went to see the wedding apartment. By the time I rushed over, Serena Dupree had already signed the purchase agreement and was leaning her head against Ryan Hale's, deep in discussion about the renovation. They'd gone from debating a gaming room to a nursery, and now they were arguing over whether the master bathroom needed a bathtub. Nearby, a middle-aged couple watched with amused smiles and teased Ryan. "You two are clearly decorating a newlywed home, young man. In a marriage, the husband listens to the wife." Ryan coughed, awkward, and glanced at Serena, whose face had gone faintly pink. "Fine, fine, whatever she wants." I stood a little way off, watching Serena and Ryan go back and forth, settling every detail of my own future home between the two of them. The three of us had grown up together. When we were kids, they were the ones who decided which school I'd attend, then let me know afterward. When we grew older and Serena and I started dating, they were the ones who picked the restaurant for every date, the destination for every trip, and told me where we were going. This time, even the wedding apartment, apparently, all I had to do was wait for them to tell me. Over the years, I'd turned into the shadow of the two of them. A shadow doesn't get a voice. It just keeps its head down and follows along. But even a shadow gets tired. Even a shadow can stop dead on some overcast day and refuse to take one more step forward.