Short Stories & Novels

On our wedding, my boyfriend of five years, Lucas Hunter, is in the middle of sliding the wedding ring onto my finger when a little boy rushes up to him and hugs his leg. "Daddy, please don't ditch me and Mommy!" At that moment, his first love, Isabella Welch, walks over and shows the paternity test report in front of all the guests. "On the night Lucas and I broke up six years ago, I was already pregnant with his child." Lucas' expression changes drastically. He subconsciously glances at me afterward. "I didn't know about this, Vivian!" "Well, you do now," Isabella cuts him off. "By the way, not only am I your son's biological mother, but I'm also the sole daughter of the richest woman in Andaysia." She then shows Lucas something on her phone. The next moment, his gaze becomes passionate immediately. "I've given up on my marriage alliance just to seek you out, Lucas. I am the woman you should be marrying instead of that…" Isabella eyes me up and down. "Instead of that regular corporate slave." Lucas stays silent only for a moment before retracting the ring that has touched my fingertip. Then, he slides it onto Isabella's finger. I can't believe it. Is this really the man I've loved for the past five years?" "Have you thought this through, Lucas?" Lucas leans in to murmur into my ear, "Vivian, once I've secured the major project in the company with Isabella's help and get custody over my son, I'll give you an even grander wedding." I just chuckle icily in return before leaving the altar without even sparing him a glance. After that, I call Alexander Shaw, an admirer who has loved me for ten years, on the phone. "Are you busy? If not, come here and marry me." Then, I turn back to look at the new couple, who are in the middle of making their vows. Isabelle calls herself the daughter of the richest woman in Andaysia, she says. But how is it possible for me to not know that my mom has swapped me out for another daughter?

When my brother Beau Campbell and I drowned together at the age of four, I was the only one who survived. From that day on, my mother came to loathe me. She would often creep into my room at night with colorful "candies" in her hand, trying to pry open my mouth. However, Dad always stopped her just in time. Later, I cut off my long hair and threw away all my dresses, desperately trying to become Beau's shadow. Only then would Mom spare me a glance. Three years passed, and Mom got pregnant again. She said it was Beau coming back to us. I was happy for her and told myself it was good that Beau was back. After all, it also meant this family no longer needed the stand-in who had lived in his place. So, I found the same "candies" Mom once tried to force into my mouth, and I quietly swallowed them.

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.

I ordered a vampire online—Adrian. Hot, aloof. He was supposed to be my bodyguard and live-in housekeeper. But he was always staring at my neck like he was starving. Fangs popping out, eyes glowing red. And he was always walking around shirtless, wearing nothing but an apron. When I tried to stop him, he’d look all hurt and ask, "You don't like it?" "But you're blushing." I didn't know what to do, so I messaged customer service. They suggested, "You could form a bond with him. He'll be more obedient." So I did. But I had no idea I was forming a two-way mate's bond instead of a one-way master-servant bond. The night we bonded, he climbed into my bed, eyes glowing red. He licked my skin, hungry, grinding against me desperately and begging, "Master, just one bite, please? I'll make you feel so good..."

It's pouring, and after half an hour in the rain, a cab finally pulls up. My boyfriend, Harvey Moore, rushes to grab the door before I can and tells the driver, "My friend here has some trauma. Could you drop her off first?" That friend is his ex, Vivian Blake. The driver catches sight of me behind him, looking uneasy. "Actually, this young lady called the ride." Only then does Harvey seem to remember I exist. But he still says, "She won't mind. I'll pay extra." As Vivian gets in, he instinctively snaps a photo of the license plate and repeatedly asks the driver to make sure she gets home safe. He doesn't check on me once. He just gets in his own car and drives off. To keep our personal lives separate, he never gives me a lift to or from work. So I stand alone in the downpour. Two hours pass, and not a single driver accepts my request. I open my phone and see Vivian's latest post, containing a dense grid of license plate photos. Her caption reads, "After all these years, he still hasn't forgotten the habit." I zoom in on the grid. From the day they met until now, Harvey has taken over 1,300 of those photos. He preaches discretion with me, yet under the guise of being "just friends", he ensures her safety every single day. He claims he moved on long ago, but his instincts tell a different story. It hits me all at once. If my safety doesn't even matter to him, I don't want this relationship anymore.

My husband's latest lover is a dab hand at making coffee. I'm curious, so I go to her coffee shop to try a cup. When I get home, my husband grips my neck tightly as he warns, "Stay away from her." I'm reminded of how he did the same thing to my betrothed at the time before snatching me away. "Do you like her that much?" I laugh and watch as Ray Prunier loses control. I guess I'll give him what he wants, then.

On the day I was reborn, back at the royal bride selection, my older sister Amelia immediately claimed Lysander, the husband I'd had in my previous life. He was the serpent King's illegitimate son. Watching her cling to Lysander's arm in wild delight, I knew my sister had been reborn too. In our previous life, Amelia had immediately chosen Draco, the rightful heir. Draco was famously cold. He never once touched her after the wedding, then died in battle in the North less than a month later. Amelia was widowed young and became the laughingstock of the entire shifter world. As the second daughter, I was forced to marry the illegitimate son, Lysander. Once Draco died, my husband Lysander inherited the throne, and I became the kingdom's celebrated Queen. Driven mad by jealousy, Amelia stabbed me to death in broad daylight. In this life, she couldn't wait to claim Lysander for herself. One look at her greedy, self-satisfied smile, and I almost laughed. She had no idea that choosing Lysander was the road to hell. I had earned everything I ever had through my own strength. I had never needed a man!

His gun-roughened hands burned against my waist, every breath laced with the cold, unyielding possession that had made him the most feared Cosa Nostra Don in all of Sicily. A shrill ring sliced through the haze. He answered in guttural Sicilian. It was the dialect I’d learned years ago to fit into his world, so I caught every word. His consigliere was screaming down the line at him for filing a valid, legally binding marriage license with Sofia Lombardi, the woman who’d abandoned him when a bomb left him mute for seven years. Luca’s order was cold as a trigger pull. “Secure the original license in the family vault. Draw up a forged, null-and-void marriage license for Isa to keep her compliant.” In the eyes of the law, of his entire crew, I was nothing but his mistress. After seven years of laying down my life for him, I’d been reduced to nothing but his mistress. Another call flashed. Luca turned to me, the lie already shaping his mouth. “Family matters. The guards will see you home.” Without a word, I stepped out into the Palermo night, my hands shaking as I dialed his mother, Anna Vitali. “I’ll take your fifty million euros. I’ll leave Luca. For good.” Anna once said Luca and I were worlds apart. I had to admit she was right. This time, I want to leave with dignity.

After an unexpected miscarriage, I left my ward in search of Victor. I saw him inside the doctor’s office. Just as I was about to knock on the door, I overheard their conversation. “Give my wife a hysterectomy. I don’t need her to bear me any children.” Victor Gayes pulled the woman beside him to face the doctor, his hand rubbing her belly. “The baby inside her belly will be my only child. You must protect it no matter what.” I knew the woman very well. She was Victor’s secretary of three years, Rachel Aniston. Victor reminded the doctor again and again, sternly and anxiously. “You have to give her the best medicine. I won’t allow anything to go wrong with this baby!” I pulled my hand back, all my blood running cold. To think Victor would do something so heartless to me, just after I lost our baby. To think my faith in him would become a dagger, stabbed straight into my heart. If love had another face, it would probably be letting these feelings go with a smile.

After my mom got into a car accident and urgently needed surgery to save her life, I gave the surgery slot to my best friend’s son, Isaac Halstead. After all, in the middle of the night, there was only one doctor in the hospital capable of performing the surgery. At the same time, Isaac had swallowed a blade and gone into shock. But after the operation, Isaac died under mysterious circumstances, and Corinne Halstead blamed his death on me. She started a livestream and twisted the truth. She falsely accused me of bribing the doctor, stealing the surgery opportunity that originally belonged to her son, causing them to miss the critical treatment window, which led to Isaac’s death. In the next moment, the police rushed into the hospital and took me, along with the doctor and others, away for investigation. My mom, whose condition was critical, missed the surgery and died. The incident trended online, and I was subjected to massive cyberbullying. The doctor who performed the surgery turned out to be my dad, Dr. Alistair Brennan. In the end, he was deliberately run over and killed by an extremist netizen. In despair, I drank pesticide to prove my innocence. Not long after I died, Corinne moved into a luxury villa with Isaac and my husband, Grant Kessler. Only then did I realize that Isaac’s death had been fake all along. This had all been part of her scheme. She not only took Grant, embezzled the inheritance, but also rode the wave of attention to become an internet celebrity, earning tens of millions. When I opened my eyes again, I returned to the night my mom was rushed to the hospital after the accident.

During a game of truth or dare, my boyfriend, Ryan Patel, chose to kiss his childhood friend, Michelle Woods, for three minutes to save her from a penalty. When I found out, I was furious. I called him in tears, confronting him about the unbearable intimacy between them. He remained silent for a long time before speaking coldly, "Are you done crying?" Then, he drove Michelle home. I crouched in the rain, watching couples huddle under umbrellas, and from that moment on, I never contacted Ryan again. Three months later, at an auction, I bought a men's wristwatch. When Ryan heard about it, he chuckled. "Forget it. In three days, I'll go and coax her back myself. She just needs a way out." His friends all sent me messages, congratulating me on how well I had him wrapped around my finger. I didn’t reply to any of them. I simply posted a picture in my feed—my newly issued marriage certificate.

Three years after being brought back into the family, my fake heiress sister took my hand warmly and offered her congratulations. "Abby, I'm so happy for you!" she said. "Mom and Dad are going to announce tonight that they're transferring all their company shares to you—as compensation for missing out on your upbringing all these years." I pretended to be deeply moved, hugging her tearfully like I was overwhelmed with emotion. Then came the highlight of the banquet. My parents took the fake heiress by the hand and announced that they were transferring every single share to her. They even publicly declared that they were cutting ties with me. The fake sister wiped away her crocodile tears and said, "Abby, I know we were switched at birth, but you just can't force Mom and Dad to love you. Please don't blame them…" My biological mother even jabbed a finger at my nose and snarled, "You ungrateful little brat. Let's make this perfectly clear starting today: stay away from our family!" The onlookers gave me sympathetic looks, but I nearly burst out laughing. I couldn't have cared less. After all, I wasn't the original girl who'd spent years craving family affection. I was a gold-tier task agent from the Quick Transmigration Bureau. And my mission? To bring this company down. Now that they'd concentrated all the shares in the hands of an idiot, driving it into the ground would be easier than ever.

When the Blackmoor Alpha heir returned to the capital territory, everyone said he was dying. They said he had caught a vile infection, his wolf was already failing, and he had less than half a month left. The mate had originally been mine. But when the Moon Registry chose my name, Sylvie cried for days until Father altered the record and gave the Blackmoor contract to her. Now that the Blackmoor Alpha heir was rumored to be dying, she cried again, threatened to kill herself again, and begged everyone to make me take back the match she had stolen. My father agreed. My fiancé, Cedric, held her in his arms and said coldly, “The ceremony hasn’t started. There’s no mark yet. It doesn’t count.” Then he looked at me. “You’re the elder sister. Taking her place is the least you can do.” They all thought they were sending me into a grave. So I smiled and picked up the Blackmoor contract. “Fine. Let it be exactly as you wish.” Only later would they learn one thing. The Alpha heir they feared was not the one dying. And the mate they threw away was the one Blackmoor had been waiting for.

The day I get shot, my husband's assistant, Rosa Fontana, claims she has a headache. He diverts the medical team treating me to take care of her instead. As I lie there, rapidly losing blood, I have no choice but to beg my husband, Guglielmo Muratori. "Guglielmo, if my life is in danger, my family will never let you get away with this!" During our three years together, I've never told him that my parents are the heads of the most powerful mafia family in Sicaro. They rule the place with an iron fist. Anyone who dares stand against me would, at best, lose their life. At worst, their entire bloodline will be wiped out. Guglielmo simply scoffs. "Anna, do you really think I'd believe something like that? You're just an orphan. I let you stay by my side because I thought you were kind. "But you've been targeting Rosa out of jealousy every chance you get. If she's unwell, makes a mistake at work, and the company loses millions of dollars, will you take responsibility for that?" I reach out and grab his arm, trying to explain. He remains unfazed, leaving me with only one cold sentence. "If your family is so powerful, tell them to save you." Before passing out from blood loss, I decide to send a distress message to Papa. What Guglielmo doesn't know is that the moment that message is sent, neither he nor his family would have any place left in Sicaro.

My childhood friend promised to marry me once we came of age — but at my wedding ceremony, he gave my wedding ring to my stepsister, Summer Hugh. At the time, it was Victor Lowell, the fearsome mafia heir, who saved me by publicly announcing he had loved me for years. In the five years we had been married, he would fulfill every wish I had, even those I mentioned offhand. I truly believed I was the center of his world. All that changed when I stumbled across a top-secret folder as I was cleaning his bookshelf. The very first page was a file on Summer, with three red words printed in bold, “Top protection priority.” It was followed by a mission report I knew too well. On the night of the mission, there had been an attempt on my life. My blood had almost run dry before I was saved. When I woke up at the hospital, I found out that I had lost a baby I did not know I had been carrying. I wept bitterly in Victor’s arms, but I did not tell him about the baby. I did not want him to worry about me more. Now, I finally found out — Summer had been attacked that night as well, and Victor’s orders had been: “Save Summer first.” My tears soaked into the paper, smudging his handwriting. “Alright,” I said softly but firmly into the silence. “If my marriage had been a lie all along, I’ll disappear from your life. Forever.”

"Max, I'm so itchy down there. Could you use your stick to scratch it for me?" Beneath the desk, my boss's daughter was perched on my lap, her round little bottom in the air. I was in the middle of a project meeting with my team, a whole group of them standing in front of my desk. She was driving me crazy. My hardness was itching and swelling by the second. I was about to lose it.

My name is Christina Scott. In my previous life, Xavier Quinn, known as Don Quinn of the Quinn family, had asked me to choose one of his two sons to marry. The chosen one would then inherit his seat of power. Without hesitation, I chose the one I loved—Fletcher Quinn. He married me and assumed the role of the Don, but he blamed me for choosing him. He claimed that it drove his foster sister, Sabrina Quinn, who loved him, to leave. After our wedding, Fletcher hired someone to abduct me, causing me to die with our unborn child. The one who cried the hardest over my body turned out to be Lucas Quinn, a man whom the world called a cold-blooded demon. "Christina, if I had known this would be our ending," he confessed, "I would never have allowed Fletcher to have you." ... Now that I have been reborn, I will leave Fletcher to Sabrina, his foster sister, his true love. As for me, I choose to marry Lucas this time. However, when I chooses to marry Lucas, Fletcher begins to regret. "Christina, I love you. I love you most in the world."

I took my in-laws to our place for Christmas without telling my wife. It was supposed to be a surprise, but the moment George, my father-in-law, stepped into the house, my wife's assistant shoved him. He crashed into the shoe cabinet and threw out his back. "Ms. Sampson's villa doesn't let homeless people in. I can't believe you're her father-in-law. Look at you. Even a homeless guy wears better than you." I told the maid to hold George, but the male assistant stopped me again. He even shoved my mother-in-law, Diane. "You think you own this place? That's Ms. Sampson's maid. It's enough she has to serve a leech like you. You don't get to make her serve your parents." The fury consumed Diane whole, and she had a heart attack. I called my wife and asked her to come to the hospital. Wendy Sampson, however, shrugged it off. Scoffing, she said, "Zack told me everything. I can't believe you brought your parents to my house! And you want me to see your mother? She's faking her heart attack! I know she is! I want them out of my house! So what if they die? Best Christmas gift I could ever hope for."

I took a drugged drink for Moretti, the Don I had loved for seven years. He helped Bella, my frightened sister, to her feet first. "Bella is fragile. I'll get her to the car." "Iris, wait here. I'll come back for you soon." My stomach burned like fire, but my fingers were turning cold. I stood there frozen for a long moment before a bitter laugh slipped out. It was the ninety-ninth time he had chosen Bella. In college, I once waited for him in the library with a fever, expecting him to take me home. Then Bella called and said her panic attack was back, so he told me to wait. Years later, I entered the Valtieri family and became his underboss. I balanced his books, negotiated his deals, took bullets for him. He still believed I would always wait. I bit my tongue and forced myself to stay clear-headed while I handled another round of probing from the rival family. At one in the morning, Moretti still had not come back. Bella's post appeared first. In the photo, Moretti was making her a late-night meal. That was when I understood. This time, too, he would not come back for me. And I no longer wanted to wait. I opened my phone and bought a ticket to Sicily three days later. Moretti, goodbye.

The day I remarried Caitlyn Sullivan, the fake heir set my adoptive mother on fire and left her face burned beyond recognition. The moment I called the police, I was knocked unconscious. When I opened my eyes again, Caitlyn had personally replaced my face and made me take the blame for the fake heir. Three years later, on the day I was released from prison, Caitlyn's legal team was on standby around the clock. If there was even the slightest sign of revenge from me, they were ready to send me to a psychiatric hospital for another three years. My daughter even used money I had given her to build a 99-story safe house to hide the fake heir on the top floor. She named it Mason Tower. The fake heir was Mason Sheppard. They were terrified that I would hurt Mason in the slightest. But I disappeared from their lives as if I had never existed. The next time we met was in front of my food cart where I sold gourmet burgers. I lit the gas stove, casually wiped my oily hands on my apron, and skillfully sliced open buns. In a calm voice, I said, "A dollar for an extra egg, and two dollars for a spicy patty." Caitlyn's fingers trembled slightly. Her voice turned hoarse. "I'm allergic to eggs. Our daughter can't eat spicy food." She paused. "Did you forget?" I didn't need to remember. I only needed to remember that after selling 33 more burgers, I would have enough money to pay off the remaining balance for the grave next to my adoptive mother's.