Short Stories & Novels

I'm Nathan Moore. There are 37 days left until the college entrance exam. But that's when my mother, Hannah Dunn, gets beaten and miscarries. The culprit is the cafeteria manager, Leon Powell, who trashes Mom's egg stall in the corner of the school cafeteria. When she collapses, she lands stomach-first. Her blood mingles with the raw egg, pooling across the floor. My unborn baby brother's dead. My father, Eric Moore, is hanging by a thread in the ICU. The doctor says he won't make it if he suffers any more stress. 500 dollars sits on the desk in the principal's office. The principal, Harvey Fletcher, tells me it's the school's compensation for what happened. Then, he informs me Mom's been dismissed from her job. Leon sits beside him, picking his teeth, a smug smile on his face. "Paupers like you are such a pain in the ass. I have connections in the Department of Education. If you've got a problem with me, go ahead and sue me!" I fish out my phone. There are 473 people in the group chat, and all of them are my classmates. I send a single message into the group. "Gather outside the cafeteria at 8:00 pm tonight." I looked up at the principal. "I'm not going to sue you, Mr. Fletcher. I'm going to start a riot!"

Eight years ago, at Black Pine Pack's full moon trial, my wolf went silent forever. Vivian Hale was responsible. She was my best friend. She was also the woman my Alpha mate Adrian Cross had protected since childhood and never been able to let go of. After the accident, Adrian personally banished Vivian from Black Pine territory and severed her mind-link with the pack. Vivian bore the blame before the Inter-Pack Council. For eight years, she was too afraid to return, and Adrian never said a word in her defense. Adrian stayed by my side through the agony of every failed shift and helped me adjust to a life where I could no longer hear my wolf or feel the pack. Then Vivian came back. She wanted to rejoin Black Pine Pack, and she asked Adrian to preside over her reinstatement ceremony himself. I refused on Adrian's behalf. I said, "She hurt the pack's future Luna eight years ago. She has no right to stand before the Moon Goddess and take the oath." But Adrian suddenly smiled. The smile stayed on his face even as his eyes reddened. "Eight years. "I haven't seen her, haven't protected her, haven't spent a single full moon with her. "Because of you, she lost her pack, her family, and her standing. She's been in exile for eight years. "All you lost was a wolf. "What she lost was me." My inner world went dead silent. But he seemed unable to feel the mate bond in my chest suddenly constrict. "I've already acknowledged you as my fated mate and let you serve as acting Luna for eight years. "What more do you want from me?" I once believed that losing my wolf was the most hopeless moment of my life. It wasn't until that moment that I learned what despair really was. That night, I signed off on the paperwork for Vivian's reinstatement ceremony. Then I left my resignation as acting Luna on Adrian's desk. Then I booked a flight to Silver Ridge territory. From that day on. His pack, his beloved, his belated concern—none of it had anything to do with me anymore.

In the New York Mafia, everyone knows that Cassian, the ruthless Don of the Valeriano family, loves me. His devotion is practically a legend. A cold-blooded killer like him spends a month every year at his family's estate in Sicily, praying for my health. I always thought I was the only queen in his empire. Until the day I saw an encrypted video. My best friend Bianca was holding a little boy, smiling at the camera. "We couldn't keep our hands off each other at the villa back then. That's how Nico was made." "So every year, we come back to thank God for this gift." A second later, a man's hand reached into the frame to tuck her windblown hair behind her ear. Gentle and practiced. But the man's collar was slightly unbuttoned. It revealed the cross necklace I designed for him—the one holding the fatal bullet I took for him years ago. I sat in a room with a roaring fireplace, but my blood froze. Right then, my private doctor called. "Miss Aria, I have bad news and worse news." "Your fetus has a rare genetic defect. It requires a high-risk in-utero surgery. The success rate is under thirty percent." I looked up blankly. My face was wet with tears I didn't even know I shed. My voice trembled, but it carried a newfound coldness. "Cancel the surgery. I'm not keeping the baby."

On my eighteenth birthday, my three adoptive brothers gave me a present—a stray she-wolf. My eldest brother, Caine, said her obedience might finally tame my vicious temper. Rhael said her delicate nature would make my rough strength stand out even more. Lucian said her beauty might distract everyone from how plain I was. But that she-wolf had only one ambition: to become a Luna. When a blind Alpha from a distant pack came seeking a bride, she volunteered to marry him in my place. She never made it. Worn down by the grueling journey, she died along the way. My brothers were consumed by grief. When an enemy pack attacked, they threw me into the enemy ranks with their own hands. I stared at them in disbelief. Caine accused me, “You knew Sophia might die. That’s why you let her take your place without a second thought!” Rhael glared at me with hatred. “You love throwing your status around and bullying others, don’t you? Today, you’ll learn what it feels like to be completely at someone else’s mercy!” Lucian turned to the wolves around us and ordered, “No one helps her. I want her to know what it feels like to be abandoned by everyone!” When I died, there wasn’t enough left of my body to piece together. Then I opened my eyes—and found myself back on the day Sophia volunteered to marry in my place. Remembering how my three brothers had shielded her behind them in my previous life, I smiled. “Father, I’ll marry him.” Father frowned. “Knox is blind and brutal. Are you sure?” “I’m sure.” Since my brothers couldn’t bear to part with Sophia, they could stay with her forever.

In the New York Mafia, everyone knows that Cassian, the ruthless Don of the Valeriano family, loves me. His devotion is practically a legend. A cold-blooded killer like him spends a month every year at his family's estate in Sicily, praying for my health. I always thought I was the only queen in his empire. Until the day I saw an encrypted video. My best friend Bianca was holding a little boy, smiling at the camera. "We couldn't keep our hands off each other at the villa back then. That's how Nico was made." "So every year, we come back to thank God for this gift." A second later, a man's hand reached into the frame to tuck her windblown hair behind her ear. Gentle and practiced. But the man's collar was slightly unbuttoned. It revealed the cross necklace I designed for him—the one holding the fatal bullet I took for him years ago. I sat in a room with a roaring fireplace, but my blood froze. Right then, my private doctor called. "Miss Aria, I have bad news and worse news." "Your fetus has a rare genetic defect. It requires a high-risk in-utero surgery. The success rate is under thirty percent." I looked up blankly. My face was wet with tears I didn't even know I shed. My voice trembled, but it carried a newfound coldness. "Cancel the surgery. I'm not keeping the baby."

My sister Kira and I had shared one body since birth, each controlling it for half the year. Even so, my CEO boyfriend Aiden loved me more than life itself. He built me a glass-domed garden where it was always spring so I could experience the seasons I slept through, tattooed my name over his heart, and promised, “You’re the only one I love.” I believed him. Yet our wedding was postponed eighteen times in six months. Before every wedding date, I was caught in an accident. Each time, I was badly injured but never killed. After I woke from the eighteenth accident, my private doctor told me my soul had suffered too much damage. When Kira woke in three days, I would disappear for good. I stumbled home in a daze and overheard my father talking to Aiden. “Eighteen accidents are too many. What if you really hurt Roxy?” “I calculated the risks in every accident,” Aiden said calmly. “None of them was supposed to kill her. How else was I supposed to keep postponing the wedding until Kira woke?” Tears blurred my vision. “As you wish.” Three days later, Kira woke as usual, and I never woke again. But after I died, Aiden went mad with regret.

After graduating from high school, my twin sister, Ella, and I were both accepted to Newland University. My parents put eighty thousand dollars in Ella's college fund and gave her a three-thousand-dollar monthly allowance, but put only eight thousand in mine and gave me three hundred a month. They took it for granted that I would move to Newland to look after her. The day the whole family threw a graduation party for my sister, I boarded a flight to the West Coast with a single suitcase and a full scholarship to one of the country's top engineering schools. What they didn't know was that the reporter who showed up that afternoon to interview "the outstanding Ashford graduate" had never been looking for my sister. The person they wanted was me, the daughter they'd already pushed out the door.

I was the eldest daughter of the Costa crime family until an engineered car crash killed me three years ago. When I opened my eyes again, to my shock, three years had passed. I had been reborn. For three years, hatred had blinded my three brothers, and they had welcomed our true enemy as family. They trusted Elizabeth, the woman who copied my every move, without question. They let her join forces with our enemies and gut the Costa Family from within. Fools. Since I was given a second life, I would set everything right. Rebuilding the Family would start with my youngest brother, Nick, the Wall Street prodigy.

After I came of age, I entered the Gallo family's trial period. Only those who passed the family's trials within five years would earn the right to wear the family crest. Anyone who failed would be sent to the shooting range as a live target. This year's trial was to seize a weapons shipment at the port. I was the first to locate the weapons cache, but when Vera blundered into the ambush, I had to stay behind and clean up the mess to save her. After the fierce gunfight, my team's casualties ended up exactly one more than Vera's. At the crest ceremony, my mother Carmela once again pinned the family crest to Vera Gallo's chest, smiling with satisfaction. "Vera brought back the weapons with the fewest casualties. She passes the trial again this year, without question. "Not that the crest needs to be awarded twice, but Elsa, you really aren't as capable as Vera. Better luck next time." Better luck next time. I'd been hearing those exact words for four years straight. Ever since Vera was brought back four years ago, I, the adopted orphan, had become the most unwelcome person in the house. Because she claimed everything I had should have been hers. The moment she heard that Carmela had treated me well, she'd spiral into hysterics and threaten to kill herself. From then on, I waited four years and never once received the crest from Carmela's hands. This time, I was done waiting. I was going home. My real home.

When my sister and I were born, a witch prophesied that once my wolf awakened, it would kill my sister. To protect her, my parents had the witch place a curse on me. As long as my body temperature stayed above 102°F, my wolf could never awaken. For eighteen long years, I suffered through burning fevers every single day. On my eighteenth birthday, my wolf was on the verge of awakening. To prevent any chance of it happening, they kicked me into the heat chamber. I cried and begged them to let me out. But my father said, "Are you trying to awaken behind our backs? You know your wolf will kill your sister. Is that what you want? To drive her to her death?" The chamber was scorching, searing down to my bones. I pounded on the door with everything I had. "Mom, it's so hot in here! I'm in so much pain! Please let me out!" "Oh, stop putting on an act." My mother's voice was sharp and cutting. "Just tough it out and the awakening will pass! Your wolf can't awaken, and then your sister will finally be safe. Why are you always so selfish?" Footsteps faded into the distance. Sweat poured from my forehead, dripping onto my clothes, only to be quickly baked dry by the heat. I curled up in a corner, wrapped in waves of heat and pain. Eventually, my mind went dark, my body gave out, and my breathing stopped.

The day my mother, Dahlia Moone, gives birth to my younger brother, she goes into obstructed labor and suffers a catastrophic hemorrhage. My CEO father, Graham Kovane, orders every doctor and nurse out of the delivery room because his mistress, Selena Langford, says, "Her crying is giving me a headache." That day, both Mom and my unborn brother die. Not long after, I'm framed for a mistake I never made, driven out of the family, and left to survive on the streets. Living on the kindness of strangers, I fight my way up from nothing. Step by step, I rise until I become the head of Rockstone Tech, controlling a fortune worth billions. On the day of the annual evaluation for promoting interns to full-time employees, five candidate files are placed on my desk. My assistant, Ingrid Nelson, taps the file at the top of the stack, her voice full of admiration. "Ms. Campbell, Monica Kovane is exceptionally capable. Her performance has earned full marks from every department manager." I open Monica's profile, and my eyes stop on the family information section. Even in the worst of times, I will never forget those two names on the paper. After a long silence, I tell Ingrid to bring all five interns into my office. The employment contracts are handed out one by one. When only the last person remains, I look up and meet her confident gaze. She's almost certain the position is already hers. Calmly, I slide a termination letter across the desk. "Unfortunately, Ms. Kovane, you didn't pass."

I move into Emerald Bay to restore the plant specimens my mother leaves behind. No one knows that the most exclusive lakefront community in the city is actually mine. That changes when Monica Sullivan, the wife of the property management company's CEO, sets her sights on Lakeview Isle, the private island I built. She wants to host her daughter's influencer-style wedding there, insisting that the island's glass greenhouse makes the perfect backdrop for their photos. Desperate to curry favor with Edward Prescott, the CEO of the property management company, Victor Hayes, the property manager, shows up at my door with a forged resolution and demands that I hand over the keys. Soon, the neighbors are calling me a kept woman in the group chat, claiming someone as young as me has no business owning a property that valuable. I ignore them until they break into my house. They destroy the plant specimens my mother leaves behind and pour red wine over her portrait. Monica grabs my chin and sneers, "Here at the Emerald Bay, I decide who gets to live here." I wipe the blood from my face and dial the number I haven't called in three years. "Get the board online. You have ten minutes." Then I look at Monice and smile. "I'd like to know exactly when this property management company became the Prescott family's personal business."

My boyfriend and I had planned to fly to LA to watch our favorite MLB team play at home. But on the day we were supposed to leave, I waited at the airport for three hours. He never showed. It wasn't until after dark that he finally called. “Sorry, Audrey. I forgot to tell you. Natalie found out we were taking engagement photos and got so excited she couldn't sleep. She insisted I fly out with her early to scout locations.” “You can make it here on your own, right? The three of us will meet at the stadium entrance tomorrow.” I stood frozen. Natalie Brooks was my best friend. She had watched Derek Sinclair and me go from high school sweethearts to planning our wedding, and always called herself our biggest supporter. Yet with one casual “fly out early,” Derek had left me, his bride-to-be, behind at the airport. “You two have fun.” I smiled faintly. “I suddenly don't feel like going anymore.” The next day, I saw Natalie's latest post. She had uploaded a photo of herself with Ryan Kane, my favorite player. The caption read: “Thanks to Derek for pulling strings to get me this photo. Location scouting complete. The things I do for my best friend!” I calmly liked the post. Then I called the wedding planner and canceled the wedding we were supposed to have in two weeks. Natalie never stopped talking about how much she cared about my happiness, yet she had already taken the trip and surprise meant for me. I was done sharing this relationship with a third person.

I was the most beloved youngest daughter of the Sun Palace. When my father, Apollo, began arranging my wedding, my three brothers were certain the bride promised to Hephaestus, the Fire God of the Northern Realm, was Daphne, a mortal girl he had adopted from the human world. They took my wedding gown, my red-gold crown, even the Sunset Cloud Sea, and used them all for Daphne's wedding. I told them I was the bride. My eldest brother Orion scoffed, "Father spoils you enough to pluck the stars for you. Why would he ever let you marry a crippled Fire God with a shattered divine core?" My second brother Pyron looked at me with disappointment. "Daphne is about to get married. Are you really going to take her one and only wedding away from her?" My third brother Zephyros stepped in front of her. "You have everything. All she has is us. If you keep fighting for attention, we'll make sure you can't even set foot in the wedding hall." They thought I was just fighting for attention, and they believed that no matter how unfairly they treated me, I would always stay at the Sun Palace. That certainty lasted until the wedding day, when Hephaestus descended from his molten-gold chariot and reached out his hand to me before all the gods. "Helias, I've come to marry you."

Mom always said she loved my younger brother Derek and me equally, but she had selective hearing. I've been gluten intolerant since I was little. I told her over and over not to make sandwiches, but she never listened. At every meal, she made Derek's favorite sandwiches. When Derek and I both came down with fevers, she couldn't hear me mumbling deliriously through a high fever, but the second he whimpered, she stayed at his bedside all night. When we were both living away from home, she turned a blind eye to me pinching pennies in a cramped apartment. But the moment Derek complained that he "needed a better space for networking," she didn't hesitate to make the down payment on a luxury condo for him. My heart went cold, and I learned my own kind of selective hearing. I used to hand over most of my paycheck for what she called the "family fund" and to cover Derek's bills. Now, I couldn't hear her hinting that I should keep bankrolling the family. The only thing I could hear was whether my dog was hungry. All the money that used to go toward Derek's bills went straight to the dog instead. This time, the one who lost it was Mom.

I'm a daughter of the Rayne family, part of the Black Dragon Clan, and I have a twin sister. Our family is about to hold an investiture ceremony for my sister Cecilia and me. We would each receive our own title and domain. The Elders argued for an equal split, but my brother insisted on giving all the domains, mines, and guards to Cecilia, leaving me with nothing but an empty title stripped of land and power. Lorne, the boy I'd grown up with, was the first to agree. My parents went along with it. All because Cecilia was prettier than me, better at charming everyone. In their eyes, she deserved everything. What they didn't know was that although my dragon soul had awakened later than Cecilia's, I carried the oldest bloodline of all! This time, I would never be Cecilia's stepping stone again.

My Alpha, Lucas Belville, is extremely possessive. We've been mates for seven years, and he tells me the same thing all the time. "You're a treasure that the Moon Goddess bestowed upon me. I want to hide you away if I can. I don't want anyone else to see you." It's why he never brings me to any pack meetings and forbids me from appearing in his social circle. In the past, I believe that this is Lucas' way of expressing his love for me. But everything changes when I accidentally stumble across his secretive, alternate account one day. Lucas has uploaded over 600 posts over the course of three years. Another she-wolf, Maria Anderson, is featured in every single post. They walk along the snowy plains in the north, exchange vows in the temple of the Moon Goddess, and indulge in wine and merriment during pack festivals. Although I'm Lucas' mate, I've never appeared in any of his photos. Lucas' latest post is an intimate photo of him and Maria. In the photo, he's leaning his head down and kissing her. Maria is wearing a moonstone necklace that identifies her as the Luna of the pack. The caption reads, "To love someone is to let the entire world know that she belongs to me." Excruciating pain lances through my chest. My wolf whines in despair. It turns out that Lucas isn't hiding me away because he's scared of losing me. It's just that he has never once considered acknowledging my existence. I close the page, wipe my tears, and book a plane ticket to the south. Since Lucas is unwilling to announce me as his mate, it's up to me to tell everyone that I no longer belong to him.

It was my first day taking over the branch office, and to get an honest read on the place before anyone put on a show for me, I'd left my assistant behind. In the elevator, I noticed a female coworker struggling with an armload of supply boxes, unable to free a hand. I reached over and pressed her floor for her. I hadn't even pulled my arm back when the man beside her smacked my hand away. "Where do you think you're putting your hands? Just because she's a woman, you figure you can lean in on her?" The woman flinched, and she lowered her voice, pleading, "Honey, are you out of your mind? He was just helping me." The man shot her a vicious glare and grabbed my collar. "Helping you? Sweet-talking my wife right in front of me. God knows what you get up to behind my back." I frowned and tried to reason with him. "Sir, I'd appreciate a little respect. I'm new here, and..." "New, huh?" He cut me off with a sneer. "First day on the job and you've already got the nerve to seduce my wife? You think I'm stupid?" The elevator reached our floor, and I had no interest in dragging this out any further. I turned to leave. He must have mistaken it for guilt, because he seized my collar again and roared, "Trying to run after you started something? Guys like you, sponging off women to get ahead, don't belong in this company. You're fired, effective immediately."