Historias cortas de After Death y novelas con Mistress ambientadas en Regret

I used to be the most promising composer of my generation. But while I was working on my latest piece, my husband Charles Lambert's childhood friend destroyed everything I had. She slashed my face, stole my compositions, and set fire to my house—leaving me to burn alive alongside the kitten I'd just adopted. Then, as if my death were just a spark for her success, she posted my compositions online, claiming I'd plagiarized her. And people believed her. Everyone did. Strangers on the internet sneered and spat my name, and my own husband, Charles, chose to believe her over me. Even the International Musical Society rescinded my award and handed it to her without a second thought. My students, who once followed me loyally, were now fawning over her. I became the laughingstock of the entire internet—mocked, discredited, erased. It wasn't until a week later, when someone stumbled upon the charred remains of my lakeside studio, that they found what was left of me.

It has been three years since I traveled back in time, but today, I stumbled upon a helicopter hidden right inside the manor’s yard. Looking down at my crippled leg, my husband, Ethan Miller, decided to finally drop the act. “Three years ago, you couldn’t accept the fact that I was marrying Vanessa and that you were just the mistress,” he said. “So, we had no choice but to trick you into believing you had traveled back in time, just to keep you locked up here. After serving as a maidservant and an unofficial mistress here for three years, I’d say you’ve finally learned your lesson.” I stared at him in disbelief. Suddenly, the steward standing beside him ripped off a mask, revealing himself to be my brother, Logan York. “Eva, now that Vanessa has safely given birth to her baby, you can finally go back,” Logan said carelessly. Then, he turned to someone else and added, “Hudson, your plan was absolutely flawless!” I slowly turned my head to look. The manor’s resident physician was standing there, smiling right at me. “You didn’t mistake my identity back then. I am your childhood friend, Hudson Jones,” he admitted. “We only set up this entire illusion because we were afraid you would hurt Vanessa.” For three long years, I believed I had traveled back in time. During this time, I was beaten, sold off, violated by countless strangers, and eventually bought by Ethan to be kept as a broken slave and mistress. By now, I had lost the use of my legs and was completely blind in one eye. I went from crying day and night, begging to go home, to living a numb, submissive existence. However, as it turned out, I had never traveled through time at all. The reality of it all made me break down. Just as I was about to end my life, an eerie line of text suddenly appeared before my eyes. [Congratulations to the tragic AI female protagonist for awakening. Countdown to reincarnating as a real human: Two days.] [Countdown: 48 hours.] [Countdown: 47 hours, 59 minutes, 59 seconds.]

On the eve of the SAT, the authorities notify me that I need to claim the body of my father, who has died tragically in prison. My mother comes to me and says she wants my father to take the blame for her first love, Joe Anderson, for a second time. "Where's your dad? Joe accidentally caused a patient's death during surgery. Ask Andrew to go to prison for him again. Consider these two prison terms as compensation for that slap he gave Joe last time. "After this, I'll return to the family and stay with you and your father." I don't even look up as I mumble absentmindedly, "Dad is dead." Mom lets out a scornful laugh and locks me inside a sauna room. Clenching her jaw, she presses the button on the remote control in her hand, turning the temperature up rapidly. Then, she sends an angry message to my dad to threaten him. She writes, "Andrew Miller, how dare you teach our son to lie to me? I'd like to see what kind of stunt you're trying to pull! If you don't want Chester to get hurt, show yourself right now!" My skin turns bright red due to the burst capillaries. I pound desperately on the door, trying to explain and beg for help. But Mom is busy comforting the frightened Joe and pays no attention to me at all. As my body becomes severely dehydrated, I let out a bitter laugh. I sneer inwardly, "Mom, Dad and I are making it up to your first love with our lives. Is that enough?"

"If you're so set on targeting Nancy, you can stay locked in here and reflect on what you've done, Mira. It's time for you to experience what it feels like to lose your freedom for a change." Nancy Sterling, my adopted sister, accidentally gets locked in her room for an entire day. Maverick Lovell, my brother, and Luca Lockwood, my betrothed mate, immediately have me locked up in a sealed chamber once used to execute criminals. I notice that the sealed chamber reeks of wolfsbane fumes. I struggle frantically and cry out for help. "There are wolfsbane fumes in here—this is where they execute criminals! Please let me out, Maverick and Luca!" I feel a glimmer of hope ignite within me when I hear their footsteps come to a stop—only for their next words to crush it. "You can drop the act now, Mira! Those wolfsbane fumes were cleared out years ago!" "Aren't you tired of putting on an act all the time, Mira?" They instruct the guards to keep a close eye on me, then walk away without looking back. I fight with everything I have to stay alive, but there's nothing I can do. They finally take pity on me and open the door a week later, only to be driven mad with regret at the sight of my cold, lifeless body.

My wife, Caroline Bailey, was a forensic pathologist. For her first love, Ian Lawson, she was willing to break every rule she held sacred and allowed him into the autopsy room to observe. She even let him throw acid onto a corpse's face. That was, until Caroline took on a new case. As she stood over the disfigured body on her operating table, she began to fall apart. The acid-burned face was starting to look more and more like mine.

When I was in college, my mom had terminal cancer, and our family company collapsed due to heavy debts. Just when I was at my lowest, my childhood friend Zach Hall rushed back from overseas. For seven years, he stayed by my side and helped me heal. …Until the night before our engagement ceremony, when I was diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer. I wanted to tell Zach, but instead, I overheard a conversation between him and the lead surgeon who had operated on my mother. "Zach, your fiancee's mother could've been saved back then. But you stopped me from treating her, just so Jessica could get that poor woman's corneas. If Jessica is the one you love, why marry your fiancee?" "I do feel guilty toward Annie, but I don't regret it. It was the only way for Jess to pick up a brush again and keep chasing her dreams." Through the crack in the door, I saw clearly the tenderness on Zach's face when he mentioned Jessica. "What if Annie finds out?" the surgeon asked. Zach fell silent, rubbing the band on his ring finger. "I don't know. I've already decided to marry her. I'll love her, protect her, and spend the rest of my life making it up to her." The pain hit me so hard at that moment that I almost collapsed, as if my heart was being ripped out.

There is a running joke in Salbury. "If your husband is giving you trouble, just send him to Ian Rutherford. He's the only man who can watch his wife bring a different man home every night and still put up with it for the sake of their child." Whenever a group of married women gets together, someone always jokes, "I wish my useless husband had even half of Ian's patience." But they don't know that the man they see as the most patient and accommodating husband is done. I ask for a divorce, and I don't even want custody of our child. However, no one believes me, not even my wife, Celine Erwin.

After my sister-in-law Lydia had my brother Caleb's kidney removed and spent three years draining his blood, he escaped back to our hometown barely alive. He lay on a bed at the clinic, holding my hand tight as he said, "Noah, don't go after them. You can't afford to cross Lydia's family." Three days later, he died in my arms. I buried him on the hillside behind the town, under the old oak tree he had loved to climb as a child. On the seventh day after I buried him, a black Maybach stopped at the edge of town. Lydia got out with a frail man who looked like he could fall over at any time. She stood outside my house's door and looked at me. "Noah, where's your brother? Tell him to come out. Evan needs bone marrow this time." I wiped the dirt from my hands and raised my head as I smiled. "You want to find Caleb, right? Then start digging."

It was our seventh year of marriage when my husband, Joseph Lowe, brought my best friend, Teresa Shaw, to my ward. And they were the picture of a perfect couple. I gave them my most genuine blessing. "You two make the perfect match." Joseph tossed an agreement in my face. An asset transfer. He demanded that I give Teresa everything I had. I took the papers and signed my name without wasting a moment to think. Teresa laughed happily, pleased with my obedience. She then hugged Joseph and said, "Thanks for taking care of Joseph for me, Selina. Oh, there's the divorce papers, too. How about…" I noticed the look of impatience in Joseph's eyes, so I snatched the papers from Teresa's hand. "Yeah, I'll sign them all."

My wife's childhood friend and I were brought into the same hospital after a car crash. I had suffered a ruptured heart and needed emergency surgery. But my wife, Cassandra, was the hospital director. Instead of treating me, she ordered every available doctor to Miles Rowland's room so he could receive a full examination for a few minor scrapes. I begged her to save me. She only snapped, "Can you stop competing for attention for once? Do you have any idea Miles almost broke a bone?" In the end, I died in a corner where nobody found me. But when the wife who hated me most learned I was really dead, she lost her mind.

In my third year as a blind massage therapist, Henry Young took his employees on a company retreat. By sheer coincidence, he ended up booking me. When he saw me, he remained perfectly composed, so much so that even his breathing did not falter. I served him the same way I treated every other client. Then his phone rang. My hands paused for a moment as my own voice, young and girlish, came through his phone speaker. His employees immediately started teasing him. Henry simply explained in a gentle voice, “My wife recorded that when she was young and didn’t know any better.” Just as he was leaving, Henry suddenly turned around. “Anya Walt, I’ve never forgotten you. “Are you really going to keep living this hard life, with my child by your side?” I rubbed my fingertips again and again, but said nothing. It seemed he still had no idea. Back then, I kept our child and delivered the baby. But the baby was stillborn.

To save her first love, who suffered from uremia, my wife, who was a judge, used her influence to pressure the hospital into awarding one of my kidneys to him. I explained to my wife that I had kidney failure. Transplanting another kidney would mean certain death for me. However, my wife yelled at me in disgust, “His illness is serious, and you’re still acting jealous and competing for my attention? Do you even have a heart?” With the lawyer she hired, she won a court ruling that sent me to the hospital for the kidney transplant. In the end, my kidney failure worsened. I died alone in a forgotten corner of the hospital.

After seven years together, Ruby Longley ghosted me the day before we were supposed to get our marriage license. I freaked. While tearing through the city looking for her, I got into a nightmare crash. That night, she finally texted: [Steven cut his wrist. He's really fragile right now. He can't deal with any drama. He needs me at the hospital.] [Let's push the wedding back three years. Don't contact me until then. Let him heal.] [Handle our parents. And don't upset Steven. Just tell them you're the one who got cold feet.] The ER nurse's eyes were red as she pressed my bloody finger to my phone and typed back for me. [The PATIENT is in critical condition. Please come to the HOSPITAL immediately.] A second later, my phone lit up again. Steven Buffrey. Ruby's childhood friend. The social feed showed a photo of two hands locked together, fingers making a heart. In the middle sat a bandage over one tiny scratch. Caption: [She said my life matters more than anything. Bro, quit faking sick and sulking.] Ruby's friends smashed the like button. They called it true love. Not one person said my name. Like tomorrow's marriage license appointment had nothing to do with me. I laughed, bitter and weightless, floating above the ER as my heart monitor flatlined.

My pup Asher had been sick for six months. Every time I personally cared for him, he became even sicker. I finally believed the witch's prophecy: I was cursed. My very existence would harm my own pup. I went to the moon temple and prayed that the moon goddess would lift the curse and ensure my pup's safety. From then on, my Alpha mate Damon brought Asher up the mountain every day to see me. Hundreds of miles of mountain road. They made the trip over a thousand times. Our bond never faded with the distance. Until today. A group of rogues broke into the Sanctuary and pushed me down the stone steps. I called Damon all night. No one answered. Then I received an anonymous video. Damon knelt in front of a woman, kissing her swollen belly. Asher stood next to them, grinning ear to ear. "I'm gonna have a brother! Aunt Serena, your pregnancy must have been so tough. Me and Dad will be your knights forever." He turned to Damon, his young face bright with pride. "Dad, I faked being sick pretty well, right? Pretending to feel awful every day, tricking Mom into taking me to the Healer over and over. They never found anything wrong, and she really believed that curse stuff. Went up the mountain all on her own." "But what if Mom finds out? Won't she be mad?" Damon didn't seem worried. "Don't worry. I've got the whole mountain sealed off. She won't find out." Only then did I understand. Everything had been a lie, planned by my mate and my son. I turned around and knocked over the Hope Flame that I had lit for Asher without hesitation. This flame was lit at the cost of my wolf’s strength, offered to the Moon Goddess so that she might bless Asher with health. Through the flames, a familiar figure sprinted toward me.

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.

I'm about to give birth to my second child, but my husband wants to care for his true love. I snap, "Aren't you afraid of me dying in labor and taking the baby with me?" He says I'm being unreasonable. Then, he leaves without another look back. Later, the postpartum care center I'm at catches fire. My husband doesn't hear my cries for help. Instead, he carries his true love out of the fire. He subsequently loses his mind after learning of my death.

I had lost my memory for three years. I'd been through hell and high water with Adrian Vance for the past three years. He told me we'd grown up together on the same block, two kids who'd fallen for each other young. He told me that once he had a real foothold in the Family, he'd marry me in front of all of Palermo and make the whole city come to watch. I believed him. With a steady trigger hand and a mean streak, I cleared every man who stood in his way. I dragged him up from a nobody bastard son into the inner circle of the Family, one body at a time. Then the day finally came, and what he said was, "I've already asked the Don for his daughter Camilla. It's settled. I'm marrying her." "Camilla's a mafia princess. The Don's pride and joy. Not some no-name orphan girl with nothing and no one behind her. She's the one who can actually lift me up." "Be good, Vera. As long as Camilla never finds out, we can go on the way we always have." "Be good. You mean play your mistress in the dark, is that it?" What Adrian didn't know was that my memory had already come back. My real name was Hale, heir to the Hale family, the one enemy the Marlowe outfit he'd sworn himself to feared most. Childhood sweethearts, princesses, Don. In the end they were all just one more debt I'd settle on my way to paying the Family back in full.

After my family went bankrupt, my husband, Felix Skye, paid the price. The debt collectors drowned him in the river. To pay off the debt, I took a job at an underground casino as a human punching bag. Every punch I took earned me five dollars. Then one night, I was sent to deliver drinks to a private room. Through the crack in the door, I saw Felix, my husband who was supposed to be dead, sitting at the head of the table and slowly savoring a glass of fine red wine. "It's been more than three years since I last saw Avery. I wonder how she's doing." My supposedly bankrupt mother, Ivy Schotz, sat there dripping in gold and jewels. She sighed. "She'll just hide away and grieve for a few years. Once she's over it, she can remarry. "No matter what," Mom went on, "as long as she believes you're dead, you and Riley can finally live in peace." Riley Mackenzie was the daughter my mother had with her first love. Every face in that room was familiar, including my best friend and the very "enemies" who had supposedly killed Felix. It had all been an act from start to finish. The only thing real was the three years of hell I'd lived through. Holding twenty bottles of beer, I smiled and shook my head. Once I scraped together enough money for my coffin, they would all be free.

The day I cross paths with Aileen Jordan again, I've just finished a deep-sea haul. Unlike her, standing composed on the cruise ship deck, I'm sprawled on a battered fishing boat reeking of fish and salt, too exhausted to lift a finger. Even so, her first instinct is to step in front of Mateo Bowers, my former friend, shielding him from me. It takes a moment before she realizes that ten years have passed since she got that prophetic phone call. Mateo won't be beaten to death by thugs on my orders, and I won't pick up a knife and try to take them down with me. She hesitates, then says, "Hendrick, none of what that call predicted is going to happen now. We're here to take you home." I don't answer. I just force a faint smile and reach for the oars, ready to push off. Mateo calls out to me, his gaze swimming with mixed emotions. "Hendrick, I know you still hate me. But if you won't think about yourself, think about your kid. "You took on the hardest, most backbreaking fishing jobs just to stay alive. Wasn't it all so you could wait for Aileen to come for you?" I offer no explanation and never look back. At the very end of my life, I have neither the strength nor the time left to deal with them. I just want to save enough money to reach that deserted island and lie in endless sleep beside the child who has waited for me for so many years.

Three months after my liver cancer diagnosis, I found out the only contact Evelyn Pritchard had pinned was one of her male students. Suddenly, all those cute reaction gifs she had been using made sense. I didn't spiral. I gave Evelyn two choices. "Divorce me, or cut him off." Evelyn said nothing. She locked herself in the study for the entire night. When she came out the next morning, her eyes were red, and she looked at me like she already knew she had ruined something she couldn't fix. "He doesn't know anything. I'm the one who crossed the line. It won't happen again." We had been together for six years. I couldn't bring myself to end everything over what I kept telling myself was one mistake. Then, during my surgery, Evelyn answered a phone call. "My parents are trying to force me into a marriage. Please, you have to come help me!" Her hand slipped out of mine. And then, she ran for the door. Pain tore through my abdomen, but I gritted my teeth and shouted, "Evelyn, if you walk out of this operating room today, we're getting divorced when you come back!" She stopped for half a second, but still left anyway. The heart monitor began to shriek. Evelyn never looked back. That was when I finally understood. This three-year marriage should have ended a long time ago.