After Death Revenge 단편 소설 & 소설

I woke up from a three-year coma to find another woman beside my parents and my fiancé, Matteo Rossi. Her name was Sofia Bellini, and she had spent those three years with them in my place. Her father, Sal Bellini, had died saving my life in a gunfight. So after I woke up, no one could bring themselves to send her away. I felt guilty too. So whenever she helped herself to my things and my privileges, I let her. I kept letting her, right up until the day Matteo and I were supposed to get married, when my own parents begged me in tears to let my fiancé go save another woman. In the dressing room, I stood in my wedding dress and looked over at Matteo by the window. He was smoking a cigar, his mind somewhere else. I'd known him for more than ten years. One look told me he was torn and worried. The church bells had already rung once. Out there, over 200 guests were waiting for the groom to show up. But Matteo was gripping his phone. On the screen was the last text Sofia had sent him. "Go get married. Don't worry about me." She had ditched her guards and walked alone into a nightclub controlled by our enemies. Now there was gunfire inside. In the end, Matteo came over to me. "I'll go get her. An hour, tops, and I'll be back to finish the ceremony." With that, he turned and walked out. My father went right after him with his men. My mother hesitated for two seconds. Then she let go of my hand too. Twelve minutes later, I walked into the church alone and told every guest the wedding was off.

Mom and Aunt Denise Taylor fell off the balcony in the midst of their heated argument. Dad rushed in just as they hit the ground, each with a broken arm. Without hesitation, he left Mom behind and hurriedly took Denise to the hospital instead. Later, Mom filed for divorce. Dad's face twisted in anger as he yelled, "Enough, Nicole! So what if you broke an arm and can't hold a scalpel anymore? What's the big deal? Dee is a genius designer. If she had lost her hand, her life would've been over! Of course, I had to save her first!" Watching all this in my ghostly state, I couldn't help but laugh. Did Dad really think that Mom had only lost the use of her hand? Mom didn't just lose her hand. She lost me. After all, I had severe heart failure, and the only person who could perform the life-saving surgery was Mom, the medical master herself. But none of that matters now, because I'm already gone.

My wolf was hurt three years ago. I have to sleep eighteen hours a day, or my heart gives out. My Alpha mate’s best friend says I’m lazy. She puts ice in my bed and alarm clocks under my pillow, and she streams it for her followers. My Alpha ruffles her hair and tells me not to take it personally. The night before my Mating Ceremony, my doctor warned me that one more forced wake-up could stop my heart. I sent Dominic the diagnosis. “Don’t worry,” he wrote back. “I’ll tell her to back off.” At three in the morning, she fired a cannon next to my ear. I grabbed his pant leg and begged him to save me. He pried my fingers off one at a time, turned out the light, and told me not to be late. Two hundred guests are waiting at the hotel. My Alpha is furious that I overslept. He has no idea I’ve been dead since 3:07.

As Gamma of the Creed Pack, I'd held the Northern Border alone for three full years. Every time I called in to ask when I could come home, my mate — the Alpha of Creed — picked up the phone himself. He told me the rogues weren't cleared. He told me the rival packs were still circling. He said, "Nora. One more year. Once we have completely eliminated all our enemies, I will hold the grandest mating ceremony for you. I swear it on the Moon." I believed him. When I dragged myself out of a pile of dead rogues with a silver arrowhead still lodged an inch from my heart, bleeding too fast for a medevac, my warriors had to shift and run me back in wolf form all the way to Creed territory. The moment we crossed the border, I saw fairy lights strung from every streetlamp along the road to the pack house. Pack wolves on the sidewalks were talking loud, smiling at each other. "The Alpha's Mating Ceremony is tonight. He's taking the Elder's daughter as Luna. Three years of peace on the border. It's a good time to be Creed." I coughed dark blood into the fur on the back of my warrior's neck and laughed, short and bitter. He hadn't needed me holding the border. He just hadn't wanted me home.

Two months after I died, it finally occurred to my parents that they'd forgotten to bring me back from their trip. My father scowled in frustration. "She was supposed to walk back herself. Does she really need to make such a big deal out of it?" My brother, ever smug, opened our chat and sent an emoji, along with a message. [You'd better die out there. That way, Scarlett and I will split Grandma's inheritance.] He received no reply. With a frosty expression, my mother said, "Tell her if she shows up for her grandmother's birthday on time, I'll let the whole pushing-Scarlett-into-the-water thing go." They never believed I hadn't made it out of those woods. After digging six feet into the ground, they finally found my bones deep in the forest.

My blood-bonded vampire mate left me while I was pregnant to be with his "first love" in the human world. When danger struck, he abandoned our son to protect her human child, who was not in any danger. While our son was struggling with lethal UV burns and calling for his father through a high fever, he was celebrating under citywide fireworks with that human boy, who only had a common cold. He even took the life-saving serum I had prepared for our son, just to use it for the boy’s "pre-transformation conditioning." He coldly stated, "Vampires are resilient; he’ll endure it. Human children are too fragile." After four years of raising our son alone, I finally decided to leave. I officially cut our blood ties and moved away with our son. Only then did he find out that his "first love" had been lying to him all along. After learning the truth, the arrogant vampire prince wept and begged for us to come back.

Ean's face twisted with anger as he grabbed me by the arm, dragging me toward the old, rusted freezer in the corner of the warehouse. "You're going to feel what Helen felt," he spat. "Maybe that'll teach you not to mess with her." I struggled against him, panic rising in my chest. "Ean, this is insane! It was an accident! Let me explain—" He wasn’t listening. He shoved me inside the freezing metal box and slammed the door shut. The echo of the lock clicking into place made my heart pound in my ears. I banged on the door with my fists. "Ean, please! You can’t do this!" I screamed, but the sound of his footsteps grew fainter as he walked away. He left me with nothing but a single bowl of water, like I was some kind of prisoner. I slumped against the cold metal, shivering. The temperature plummeted almost instantly. The hum of the freezer kicked in, and I realized too late—it wasn’t broken like he thought. It was working, and I was trapped. My body shook uncontrollably as the cold seeped into my bones. I screamed for help until my throat was raw, clawing at the walls in desperation. My bloody handprints smeared across the icy surface, a silent plea for mercy that no one would hear. Seven days passed. When Ean finally returned, the look on his face was one of smug satisfaction. He had expected me to beg, to apologize. But when they pried open the freezer, all they found was my frozen body, stiff and silent, my suffering long over.

A week before my death, my Alpha mate's childhood sweetheart Sarah returned to our pack. That night, he didn't come home. The next day, I received his mind-link. "I've purchased a mate-bond severing potion from the pack witch. Come home now so we can break our bond." In our pack, the Moon Goddess was very serious about mate bonds. Once two wolves chose to form a mate, the mate bond could not be severed, unless the witch's potion was used. This potion was very expensive, costing up to $500,000 per bottle. I smiled bitterly. He was very generous to sever the bond with me. I coughed twice before answering, "I'm in the healing center." His voice turned ice cold. "I don't care where you are. Even if you're about to die, you need to come back." I calmly replied, "Fine." He didn't know that I really was dying. Three years ago, during a rogue wolf attack, I blocked the silver dagger for him to protect him while he was unconscious. I was poisoned by silver and became weaker and weaker over the past three years. I only had one week left to live. On the day of my funeral, my mate was busy holding his marking ceremony with Sarah. Later, he knelt before my grave in pristine white ceremonial clothes, clutching my headstone and whispering through tears. "If there's another life after this one, I still want to marry you." That day was his marking ceremony with his childhood sweetheart. It was also my funeral.

My mate's adoptive sister asked me to go for a walk in the mountain forest and we encountered a sudden flash flood. My mate Nathan, the Alpha of Snow Peak pack, rushed to save us. But because we were both trapped on a breaking tree branch above the raging flood, he could only save one person at a time. To save his physically weak adoptive sister, my mate abandoned me - his Luna who was five months pregnant. I begged him desperately to save me. He watched as the flood waters dragged me under. "Sarah has always been weak since childhood. If we leave her here, she'll die." "Your wolf is strong enough to swim, but Sarah can't swim." But after my death, he went mad.

I came home from a night shift and caught my husband in bed with his secretary. After the screaming and the chaos, I ran out like a woman losing her mind. Derek chased after me. We ended up at the river, fighting. Somehow we both fell in. He nearly drowned trying to save me—the doctors said the oxygen deprivation had caused severe brain damage. When he woke up, he could barely function. No memory. No independence. He followed me around like a lost child. "Wifey, don't leave me. I'm scared." Looking at that helpless, broken man, I gritted my teeth and held this family together. The secretary vanished without a trace. Six years passed. Derek slowly seemed to recover. He was gentle with me, attentive, loving. I even got pregnant with our second child. Then came the family dinner. Derek knocked back two glasses of whiskey and suddenly slammed his hand on the table, his face twisted with frustration. "My oldest boy is already in first grade, and I haven't made it to a single parent-teacher conference!" I thought his brain was glitching again. MY sister-in-law Vanessa rushed to cover his mouth, but he shoved her away and let out a cold laugh. "You really thought the water scrambled my brains?" "Chloe gave me a son. I haven't forgotten about him for a single day!"

I was twenty-two when my luck went bad. A flowerpot came off a third-floor ledge while I was walking under it. My brother Julian shoved me clear and took it on the head. Wolves heal from almost anything. The doctors told my parents he would never wake up. A month later, my sister Felicity rode with me to visit him. A truck ran the light. Her leg was crushed in four places, and it never healed right. A witch passing through Greyridge took one look at me across the pack meeting and told my Alpha father, in front of everyone, that I would bury whoever stood closest to me. He threw me out that same night. But my fiancé did not give up on me. The most powerful witch in the entire country said that as long as I remained alone on the island, I would not be affected by the curse. So he bought me an island. Five years. Nothing bad happened to me in all that time. The only thing was, Dominic had a pack to run, so I got him two or three days a month. I tried to go to him. But the boat docked fine. A car hit mine on the way to the airport and I spent two weeks in a hospital bed. "Mer, I'm scared every time you leave this island." His voice was shaking. "I can't lose you. I'll come more often. I swear." I missed him so much I couldn't sleep. I told myself to be good about it anyway. This year, he said a project would keep him away on his birthday. So I got on a boat without telling anyone. I wanted to see his face. The crossing was smooth. When I reached the Stonecrest pack house, the main doors opened. My sister walked in, wearing a couture gown, holding Dominic's arm. Felicity. On both legs. Two she-wolves beside my pillar were watching them too. "Five years mated, a three-year-old pup, and look at them. Still like that." "Alpha Cross never so much as looks at another woman. You won't find another one like him in any pack." A little boy in a tiny copy of Dominic's suit came running through the doors with his arms up. "Daddy! Happy birthday!" My hands went cold. Every accident had been bought. Every witch had been paid. Even my mating certificate was a fake. So I walked out of that hospital alone, got on the first plane I could find, and had every trace of me erased. Three years later, I walked into a ballroom wearing nine figures around my neck, under a name he'd never heard. Dominic Cross crushed a glass in his fist and begged for one more chance.

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.

The day before my mating ceremony, my mother caught my soon-to-be mate Derek in a passionate embrace with my step-sister Scarlett. The anger triggered my mother's heart attack need a transplant surgery immediately Fortunately, I was compatible with my mother for a heart transplant. I decided to give her my heart and use an artificial one instead. Faced with the enormous cost of the surgery, Derek, my coward of a mate, vanished. I went to beg my step-sister Scarlett, who had married an elderly but wealthy Alpha Marcus, for help. She claimed she didn't have enough cash, yet the next day she was showing off her new enchanted moonstone necklace. In my darkest hour, Alexander Stone appeared. He was the most renowned healer and Marcus’s son，the future Alpha. He covered all the costs and offered to perform the surgery himself. When I woke up, Alexander's face was filled with regret. He told me my mother had suffered a sudden rejection reaction during surgery and passed away. He pulled my tear-stained face to his chest, declaring his love and begging me to let him care for me for eternity. Seven years into our mating bond, I accidentally overheard his conversation with his beta: "So you gave Sarah's heart to Scarlett instead, right in front of her mother? That was brutal, even for you." "What could I do? Her heart matched Scarlett's perfectly." "But we had already found a suitable donor heart! Scarlett only needed to wait half a day. Why were you so impatient?" Alexander sighed, his voice heavy with emotion: "I couldn't bear to see Scarlett suffer, not even for a second."

Abductors bind me in a basement, subjecting me to the torment of dozens. Meanwhile, my husband, Evan Foster, dines by candlelight with his lover, Carmen Locke. My abductors grant me one chance to call for help, and I dial Evan's number. I'm certain he will come for me. I believe Evan would give his life for me, as he once vowed that his future held no meaning without me. Clinging to hope, I call the number etched in my heart. However, Evan scolds me for interrupting their date. "You think I'll come get you? Dream on. Maybe I'll bother to collect your body if you die out there." His words crush me, and I do die. Five days later, Evan stands before the autopsy table, grimacing at the mangled remains before him. Even as the police department's finest forensic expert, having dissected thousands of bodies, he condemns the killer's brutality. Yet, despite his cold dismissal of my desperate plea over the phone, he now wears a look of pity. Evan, if you knew these fragments belonged to me, would you still find me worthy of your compassion?

In my past life, my husband brought our daughter, who was down with a cold, to his father's hospital so she could see a doctor. Later, she was pronounced dead. When I hurried to the hospital after hearing the news, he'd already transferred her organs to his true love's son's body. It was later that I learned my father-in-law was the one who extracted my daughter's organs when her vitals were perfectly fine. I was heartbroken and devastated. I wanted my husband and his family to give me an explanation for this, but he and his parents killed me by poisoning. When I open my eyes again, I'm back to the moment my husband has just taken my daughter away.

My marriage to Lucian Hawke was hailed as the most perfect union in the mafia world. As the daughter of the Sinclair family and him being the sole heir of the Hawke family, our marriage united the two most powerful mafia families in the Northeastern. I thought we were unbreakable. Then, I was diagnosed with terminal cancer. As if life couldn’t get any worse, my husband's first love returned—on the very same day. That night, the man I’d been married to for years didn’t come home. The next morning, his voice was cold, distant. Indifferent. “I’ve got the divorce papers ready. When can you come sign them?” I hesitated, struggling to steady my voice. “I’m still at the hospital.” He didn’t even pause. “I don’t care if you're on your deathbed, Elara. Come home and sign the goddamn papers.” My heart shattered, but I refused to let it show. “As you wish, Lucian.” What he didn’t know was that I was dying—literally. A week later, at my funeral, Lucian wearing a tuxedo, weeping at my grave, whispering regrets he should have voiced when I was still breathing. Ironically, my funeral day, was also his wedding day with his sweetheart. But it was too late, my love. This time, you’ll never see me again.

My husband's first love had been trapped in a car for an hour. After they pulled her out, his rage shifted onto me. “It’s your fault she got hurt,” he spat, his eyes blazing as he grabbed me. Before I could make sense of what was happening, he forced me into a wooden box, slamming the lid down with a deafening crack. “You’re going to feel every ounce of the pain she went through,” he hissed, nailing it shut. I pounded on the walls, my screams tearing through the air. “Please, I didn’t do anything! Let me out!” My throat burned with the effort, my fists aching, but nothing stopped him. “Stay in there until you’ve figured out how to act like a decent human being,” he said, his voice cold, dripping with contempt. Hours passed. My body twisted unnaturally in the tight space, bones throbbing as blood smeared the wood beneath me. I whispered into the dark, the pain unbearable. "Please… just let me out…" But he didn’t care. A week later, he returned, his laughter echoing with hers as they entered the house, carefree from their trip. He finally opened the box. But by then, I was already gone. The woman he locked away was no longer breathing, no longer pleading. Just a cold, silent corpse.

I was the pack's chief healer, but my fiancé Domine was just an ordinary warrior from the neighboring pack. I didn't care about that because I believed in the guidance of the moon goddess. I worked hard to earn money, bought a house, and supported us both. But just a week before our Mating Ceremony, I discovered that Domine wasn't some ordinary warrior, but actually the Alpha of neighboring pack. He hid his identity to get close to me just to seek revenge for his first love. Three years ago, his first love secretly entered the forbidden zone and ate poisonous fruit. I fought with all my might to save her life, but she framed me for intentionally poisoning her and causing her to lose her wolf. Domine believed her. He even promised to publicly extract my heart’s blood during the ceremony to supplement Ella's strength and turn me into a complete cripple. He even stole my father’s life-saving medicine to make scented candles for her, which caused the death of my only relative. After discovering the truth, I didn't hesitate to turn around and leave. But Domine, who harbored a deep hatred for me, completely broke down. He knelt in the snow for three days and three nights, begging me to look at him just one more time.

I’d just wrapped up a short trip with my daughter, Elara. On the way back, I figured I’d swing by the Hale, our family’s casino, to check in on my son, Cassian. Maybe grab dinner together. I didn’t expect to be mistaken for his latest fling. Correction: not mistaken—accused. Violently. “You think you can just waltz in here like some queen?” she hissed. “I’m the woman Cassian loves! What kind of whore are you? And is this your bastard daughter with him?” She locked us in the basement. No phone. No light. Just concrete walls and the stench of mildew and madness. Then came the fists. She slapped me across the face—again and again—until my skin stung and my ears rang. When that didn’t satisfy her, she pulled a gun and aimed low. The bullet tore through my knee. I bit back a scream, shielding Elara with my body. “You need to die, whore,” she spat. One of her men hesitated, “We should at least tell Mr. Hale first. If we are going to kill these two in his casino.” Lila of course said no. But that man brought Cassian anyway. My son stepped into this dark little room like it was any other Tuesday—until he saw me. His whole body went still. The blood drained from his face. And then, in the smallest, most broken voice I’d ever heard from him, he whispered, “Mom? What are you doing in my basement?”

My husband was dead. He had saved a girl from drowning, yet he himself perished in the icy river. As I sank into a chasm of grief, the girl's father appeared at my door. He glared at me and demanded, "Where is my daughter's necklace? She was wearing it before she fell into the water!" Rage surged through me, and in the heat of our confrontation, he ended up dead. Then my phone… came alive. "Hide the body. The police are coming. I'll teach you how to dispose of a corpse…"