Short Stories & Novels

Miles Wright's first love, Faith Green, announces that she's leaving the country on the day he's supposed to marry me. She claims he'll never see her again. He ignores her and continues with our wedding. Even later, when the plane crashes and leaves Faith's body mangled and broken, he merely says coldly, "It was written in her fate." Miles only reveals his true colors after he uses me to become Wright Group's CEO. He moves into a monastery under the guise of wanting to repent for his sins. He has a rosary with him at all times and turns into a man renowned in the city for his piousness and kindness. Meanwhile, he forces me to kneel before Faith's gravestone every night. He also makes me pray and chant for her in atonement. I climb up a long staircase every day so I can pray for her well-being. Finally, I'm tormented to the point of miscarriage, and I die on a snowy winter night. Fortunately, the heavens were kind enough to bring me back to my wedding day. This time, I'm not making the same mistake. If Miles, an illegitimate son, thinks he can use me as a stepping stone, he's wrong! He's not worthy of that!

I'm forced by my mother, Karen Brown, to raise Matt Brown, my uncle Jared Brown's illegitimate son. She justifies the coercion by saying that family should always help each other. I sacrifice everything to raise Matt for over a decade, only to discover that he despises me. It stems entirely from Mom and Uncle Jared telling him that I'm raising him with ulterior motives, that I'll be able to get back double the amount of money I spend on him in the future. I'm lecturing Matt once more about studying hard when he suddenly lashes out in frustration and murders me. Mom and Uncle Jared not only cover up for Matt, but they also take all my assets for themselves. I'm definitely not raising anyone's child now that I have been reborn, as the parents should raise their own child. It has nothing to do with me!

In my previous life, after I got divorced from Serena Langston, the court had given me custody of my newborn daughter, Talia Poole. Meanwhile, my son, Lucas Poole, was to live with Serena. Many years later, Talia got into a top prestigious university. I had raised her to be a humble and polite young lady. On the day the SAT scores were released, the mass media fought with each other just to get an inclusive interview on how I raised and parented Talia. Meanwhile, Lucas had already dropped out of school when he was still a junior at high school. After that, he eloped with a delinquent, only to impregnate her before he even hit 16 of age. Just like that, he was treated as the living educational material of what a teenager shouldn't become when they grew up. At the age of 30, he was still mooching off Serena without an achievement or a job under his belt. Serena's dream of watching Lucas succeed in life was completely shattered. In fact, she was utterly humiliated by his existence. On the day Talia's celebratory banquet was held, Serena showed up and picked a fight with me. She insisted that I had given Lucas all of our bad DNA, which resulted in him being a massive failure in life. During the fight, Serena stabbed me in the chest. Then, she jumped off the building and died. When I open my eyes again, I've returned to the day the court will be giving us custody over our children. This time, Serena quickly requests the judge for Talia's custody. I can tell right away that she's been reborn as well.

The day Alpha Marcus and I marked each other, his first love, Cecilia, threw herself off a cliff into a ravine overgrown with wolfsbane. The pack searched for three full days and nights before they found her, barely clinging to life. She was once the most spirited she-wolf in our pack, but the fall cost her a leg and the ability to bear pups. I grieved for the beautiful life that had been ruined, and I blamed myself for not seeing how fragile she'd become. Marcus comforted me gently. "Elena, this wasn't your fault. Cecilia made her own choice. You did everything you could. Don't beat yourself up." Later, not long after our pup, Rylan, turned five, a sudden illness tore through him, and he died in my arms. Night after night, Marcus held me, wiping away my tears. "Don't be sad, Elena," he would murmur. "We'll have other children." I had always believed my mate was the most considerate, most protective Alpha in the entire world. Until the day I overheard him speaking with his Beta, Adrin. "Alpha, the dosage of wolfsbane we gave Rylan was perfect—just as you ordered. It looked like a genetic defect. No one will ever suspect." "It's been so long. Don't you think it's time to forgive the Luna?" "What's one pup compared to what Cecilia lost? She lost a leg, her future as a mother. Everything."

Captured by the Black Forest pack guards, I was about to be torn to shreds. In a desperate bid for survival, I reached out through the mind-link to my mate, Killian, Alpha of the Moon Crescent pack. The link was blocked. Refusing to give up, I called his phone. He hung up without hesitation. It wasn't until my fourth attempt that the call finally went through. "Are you ever going to stop annoying me?!" "Killian... save me. The Black Forest pack—" "What kind of trick are you pulling this time? Just to make you feel better, Elena left the pack all by herself! If anything happens to her, I will personally kill you!" His venomous words cut through the line. He sounded like he was talking to a sworn enemy, not his Luna. As sharp fangs tore into my flesh, my hand went limp, and my eyes slowly closed. You won't have to lift a finger, Killian. Just as you wished, I am already dead.

I'm the most sought-after makeup artist in horror games. Before each round begins, the bare-faced NPCs sit obediently in a row, waiting for me to work my magic. With my makeup skills, they're twice as intimidating to players, and their performance soars. Even the Demon Boss seeks me out. As I face the Demon Boss with all 16 heads and 32 eyes staring at me, the corner of my mouth twitches. "Sure, I can do your makeup, but it'll cost extra."

I was raised in another country since I was a kid. Mom is worried that I might find her a wife who's of foreign descent, so she quickly finds me a beautiful and talented fiancee based in Bellevue and tells me to return to the country just to proceed with the engagement. So, I head over to a fancy boutique to pick out my suit for the engagement banquet. That's when I notice a black suit with dark patterns woven into the material, which I quite like. But when I'm about to try on that suit, the man next to me glances at it before telling the sales assistant, "This suit is pretty stylish. I'd like to try it on." The sales assistant rips the suit from my hands immediately. I retort angrily, "Hey! Ever heard of 'first come, first served'? I have my eyes on this suit first! You're being unreasonable right now!" But the man just looks at me in disdain. "This suit is worth 188 thousand dollars! You really think a broke guy like you can afford this? "I'll have you know that I'm very close to Yvonne Gardner, the CEO of Gardner Group. She dotes on me as if I were her brother. The Gardners are the ones ruling over Bellevue, you know!" What a coincidence! Isn't this Yvonne woman my fiancee? I call her on the spot. "Hey, your so-called brother has stolen the suit I plan on wearing to our engagement banquet. How do you think we should resolve this situation, hmm?"

The vampire town had one sacred custom. On the night before a Blood Oath Ceremony, the groom had to climb the abandoned church's bell tower alone. There, he tied a blood oath sash bearing his bride's name to the feet of the Goddess’s statue, calling on the ancient bloodlines to witness their vow: they would share the endless night and never let dawn tear them apart. I had spent seven years at Silas's side in that vampire town. At last, through driving rain and circling crows, he had climbed the tower for me. He came home wrapped in the night's damp chill. I had warm blood wine waiting for him, but outside the manor gates, I overheard him talking to another vampire. "You've lost your mind! If Evelyn sees Vera's name on the blood oath sash, don't you think she'll tear the whole ceremony apart?" "She wouldn't dare." Silas pulled off his black leather gloves with an air of complete indifference. "She's a human orphan her own family cast out. Who else can she marry in Ravenmist but me?" "If Evelyn hadn't been so reckless back then, Vera would never have lost the use of her legs in the Holy Silver Chapel. This sash is my way of making it up to her." "As for Evelyn... I'm marrying her anyway. Giving her a Blood Oath Ceremony should be more than enough." He thought that was more than generous enough. Those four words struck me with the cold mist of the rainy night, each one a silver needle piercing flesh. All the hopes I'd kept secret before the wedding amounted to nothing more than his attempt to make amends to another woman. I turned and sent a message to my family back in Harbor City. "I give up." "I'll come home and go through with my engagement to Theodore Blackthorn."

My husband's first love gets engaged. To make her regret it, he abandons me, his newlywed wife, and joins a research project down at the southern tip of the earth. I've made 999 attempts across several years to visit him, with each one ending in failure. After five years, I stopped going. During a lively birthday party, he suddenly shows up. When he sees my slightly bulging belly, he howls in anger. "I spent five years at the research base, and not once did you care about how I was doing! Who's the father of the bastard child you're pregnant with?" "It's none of your business," I calmly reply.

On Frankie Sutton's birthday banquet in the tenth year of us being together, all of our family, friends, and relatives were confident that I'd propose to him again. After all, I gave up on my family's assets that are worth tens of millions of dollars back in Glufford just so I can travel all the way to Arkvine with Frankie in order to start a pig-rearing business. I've been clinging to him for ten long years so that I can marry him. But even when the clock hits 5:00 am, I'm still nowhere to be seen in my wedding gown. All Frankie receives is a text from me, stating that I'm breaking up with him. In ten years, I've reared countless batches of piglets and watched them grow into full-fledged pigs. Alas, I can never warm Frankie's heart up with my love. Now, I choose to abandon him and the piglets I'm forced to rear.

As the flames engulfed my body in the underground warehouse, I used the last of my strength to call my brother, the new Don of the Moretti family. Just as I was about to draw my last breath, Lorenzo finally answered, his voice as cold as the Sicilian winter wind. "Isabella, what the hell are you up to now?" "Brother, save me…" My voice was barely a whisper, but he cut me off without a hint of mercy. "Can't you go one day without causing trouble?" "Liliana's debutante dinner is next week. If you don't show up, I'll drag you back here myself." He hung up without a second thought, completely oblivious to the desperation in my voice. Despair mingled with the searing agony that wracked my body as the flames danced higher, and I couldn't hold on any longer. As I closed my eyes, tears still trickled from their corners. You won't have to drag me back, my brother. I'm never coming back.

After seven years of marriage, Kayla Campbell had finally become pregnant. But during her prenatal checkup, she noticed something was wrong. The space to fill in the name of the child’s father was blank. She instinctively spoke up. "The father should be Luke Hudson. Was it missed during registration?" In Havenport's upper circles, almost everyone was aware of how devoted the head of the Hudson family was to his wife. He loved her so deeply that he had once been willing to undergo a vasectomy for her. "Kayla, watching you take medicine and get injections again and again breaks my heart. You're everything to me. If having a child means you have to suffer like this, then I would rather never have one." Perhaps the heavens were touched by them. Luke was a man known for his decisive and ruthless nature. On the day they confirmed her pregnancy, he had knelt and pulled her into his arms, crying until his voice gave out. He had personally handled all the medical registration paperwork afterward. With how carefully he treated her, a mistake like this made no sense. The staff member was clearly new to the job, and she worked at the computer for a long while before finally nodding. "The father's name was blank when the file was created." As she continued checking, her expression changed slightly. "But Mr. Hudson's name does appear in another patient's record. He's listed as the father of her child. The mother's name is Stephanie Campbell. Do you know her?" Kayla froze. Her thoughts went blank. People in their social circle all knew Kayla's background. She had been adopted by the Campbell family. But when the family finally found their biological daughter, they accused Kayla of having taken their real daughter's place for years and kicked her out without mercy. That biological daughter was Stephanie.

The day my mother brought her childhood sweetheart back to the villa, my father—who had already quit smoking—stood on the balcony and smoked through the entire night. Back then, his colleagues at the research institute all envied him for having a wife who was a CEO. They said he should have stayed home and enjoyed life—why work so hard outside when all he needed to do was keep a firm grip on the household finances? But my father never agreed. "Those things are all external," he would say. "As long as the feelings are still there, we'll be fine whether we're rich or poor. And if one day she no longer loves me, I'll leave with nothing and walk away alone." He never expected his words to become prophecy. My mother truly did stop loving him. Later, when she appeared before the media, arm in arm with that man, my father didn't look back. He boarded a flight overseas and disappeared from our lives. And as I stared at the photo in my social feed—my fiancée's hand entwined with someone else's—I knew it was time for me to leave too, just like my father had.

The first time I found Adrian and his private assistant, Mia, texting each other good night after midnight, we had our biggest fight yet. After that, when I asked him to keep his distance, he deliberately got even closer to her, determined to make me stop being so sensitive. He took Mia shopping for furniture for our future home, let her sit beside him in his car, and when I was sick with a fever, left me alone while he took her to his family’s estate. Every time I said something hurt me, Adrian pushed a little further. Eventually, I stopped asking. Adrian thought he had finally won. At the housewarming party for our new Tribeca penthouse, I pressed my finger to the smart lock. Fingerprint not recognized. His friends laughed. “Stop trying, Claire. Mia’s fingerprint was added days ago.” Then one of them grinned. “Adrian bet you wouldn’t make a scene. He said if you could handle this, you were finally ready to become Mrs. Moretti.” Everyone waited for me to explode. I stared at the red light and realized Adrian had gotten exactly what he wanted. I didn’t care anymore. “Then don’t add mine.” I turned toward the elevator. “Cancel the wedding too.” I was leaving anyway. There was no point in having the wedding anymore.

Alaric and I had agreed to elope together. But he changed his mind the moment I signed the papers to leave the pack. Standing outside the back booth at the hotel bar, I overheard him talking with his friends. "You tricked Sophie into leaving the pack just so you could have more alone time with Vivienne? Aren't you worried she'll lose it when she finds out?" Alaric took a lazy sip of his drink. "Why would she? She's so obsessed with me she'd cling to me all day if she could. Tell her what she wants to hear afterward and she'll forgive me, guaranteed." "Besides, Vivienne's family has real pull. That kind of backing could tip the scales in my fight for the Alpha position. Sophie will just have to deal with it." Every word sliced through me until I couldn't breathe. I fought back the urge to storm in and confront him, and turned away instead. Back home, I pulled out my phone and scrolled to the very last contact in my list. "Dad. That arranged mating you mentioned — I accept."

Vivian Grant lost her memory and forgot everything about me. Her memory stopped in the year when she loved her ex-husband most. No matter how the people around her tried to explain it, she still believed I was the third party who had come between them. The doctors said her amnesia might be treatable, so I held on to that hope and refused to let go. For three years, we got divorced and remarried over and over again. We became the biggest joke in the city's elite circles. Some people even started betting on us. They bet on when I would finally give up, and when Vivian would finally remember. Then news of our eighth divorce hit the trending charts again. Reporters rushed into the law firm with cameras on their shoulders. They shoved microphones in my face, their questions full of provocation. "Mr. Sterling, as a divorce attorney, how does it feel to have been divorced eight times yourself?" The firm's sign was smashed. The commendation banners clients had given me were trampled underfoot. Before I could respond, my supervisor fired me for damaging the profession's reputation. "Julian Sterling, let me give you some advice. Have some self-respect. Stop clinging to Ms. Grant." I clenched my trembling hands and suddenly felt exhausted. They were right. This time, I really should give up.

In the third year of our marriage, my husband's first love got a divorce. He gave her the forty-five thousand dollars we had saved for a house because she was left with nothing and struggling to make ends meet. I urged him to ask for the money back, but he pointed at my face and angrily shouted, "You used to be so gentle and virtuous—what happened? Why are you so selfish, so shallow now?" "Is forty-five thousand dollars really worth you making a fuss over?" "Chloe is starting over with nothing, raising a child on her own. Don't you feel any sympathy for her?" Fine. He was noble, he was merciful. I did not argue further, because the one who needed money for cancer treatment was him, not me.

Amanda Gordon, my girlfriend, could never get quantities right. She always purchased one extra of everything. On our dates, she always ordered for three. “Oops, I ordered too much. Why don’t we invite Kevin too?” On my birthday, she bought two gifts. “Oops, I bought one too many. Why don’t we give it to Kevin?” After a while, I grew used to it and simply accepted that as my new normal. On the day of our wedding attire fitting, Amanda suddenly reached out and stopped me. “Leigh, the suit I designed for you is over there. This one is for the best man. I had it made for Kevin.” I looked up at the best man’s suit in front of me. It was sharply tailored, with clean, structured lines and tiny silver crystals set into the collar. The groom’s suit she had left for me, meanwhile, was plain, wrinkled, and stained. I finally decided to leave her at that moment. She had given the only bespoke suit she could commission to Kevin Burg. There was nothing left in this relationship worth holding on to. I quietly looked at my phone and sent a message to my former professor, Lawrence Hindle, who lived far away in Westmere. [Dr. Hindle, does your institute still have an opening for me?]

During rehearsal for the school arts gala, I got word from the school that I had been chosen to give the commencement speech as the outstanding graduate representative. Gideon immediately grabbed my hand and dragged me toward the grove behind campus to celebrate. The moment I stepped into the trees, strange floating messages appeared in front of my eyes. "Don't go in there. Gideon prepared sulfuric acid for you. He's planning to destroy your face so you'll lose your chance to speak on stage." "Three years ago, Gideon helped his childhood friend Lucy steal your identity and take your place as the long-lost daughter of the York family. Now he wants to ruin your face so you'll never have the chance to return to your real family." "After the attack, you'll endure countless reconstructive surgeries, only to be killed when the fake heiress switches your medication." "Meanwhile, Gideon marries the impostor, and together they seize the entire York family's fortune. Your parents end up homeless." "Go to the main stage right now. Let Mrs. York see you. This is your only chance to reclaim your identity." … Not far ahead, Gideon urged me to hurry. I looked at the messages hovering in front of me and stopped in my tracks, suddenly unsure of what to do.

For my birthday, I got a gift box. Inside was a dead silver fox. Its fur was peeled away. Dark, profane runes were carved into its flesh. My wolf cried out in agony, then shattered. I desperately reached for my Alpha, Darian, through our mate bond. “Darian… help me… My wolf… my heart…” His response was ice cold. “Maeve, stop being so dramatic. It’s just a prank. A Luna should be stronger than this. Amara has a fever. I’m with her.” He just cut the bond. He chose his childhood friend over me. Her mate had recently died, and she only had a low-grade fever. I was left to collapse in agony. I didn't get help until a pack beta found me and rushed me to the medical center. It took me three whole days to recover. When Darian finally came back, reeking of Amara’s sweet perfume, he sneered at me. "I knew you were faking it. How could a dead fox hurt you? You just wanted to stop me from comforting her!" I didn’t cry. I didn’t scream. I just handed him a document to sign. Compensation, I said, for choosing Amara over me. He signed it without even looking. "Is this about money? Don't be another jealous she-wolf. Don't cause trouble for me. I can give you anything. Amara and I grew up together. She's important to me. You know that." I just nodded. I didn't say a word. The next day, he took Amara to an Alpha-only alliance dinner. Pictures were all over the werewolf social feeds. He had no idea what he’d signed. It wasn’t a compensation agreement. It was a rejection of our mate bond. I counted down the three days. I calmly packed my most precious things. Then, I pulled out my burner phone. “Uncle Marcus? I need a private jet to the South.”