Unattainable Love Bittersweet Short Stories & Novels

My father had always been against my marriage to Ryan Kane, a vampire of noble birth. He believed that as a human, I had no place in the vampire world. He warned me that if Ryan ever changed his mind, without his protection, my half-blood child and I would be nothing more than walking blood bags in the eyes of vampires. But I believed in Ryan—and in our love. My husband had always been gentle and attentive. He had even defied everyone to make me, a human, his vampire bride. That was before Ryan's human ex-fiancée had her engagement called off and returned to the country seeking his help. I went to the hospital alone. While I was learning that my pregnancy was high-risk, Ryan was there attending her prenatal checkup, even introducing her to the doctor as his wife. All he had for me was one cold line: "Keep pushing me and I'll file for divorce." I pressed my hand against my stomach and dialed a number I hadn't called in years. "Dad, you were right... I want a divorce." Two weeks. That was all it would take for me to disappear from his life completely. But later—that same vampire who had discarded me like I was nothing showed up at my wedding to another man, trembling all over, calling my name in a broken voice.

The tenth time one of my paintings appeared under my sister Rose's name, I handed Adrian the divorce papers. He raised an eyebrow and tossed the agreement aside without a second glance. "Don't be dramatic. Your hand is ruined -- where would you even go without me?" I said nothing. He smiled, his tone dripping with casual indifference. "You should be grateful. Rose was the one I was supposed to marry. A few paintings is a small price to pay. A little gratitude wouldn't kill you." He blew a ring of cigarette smoke directly into my face. I choked, and the sting brought tears to my eyes. Through the blur, I was transported back to the moment my tendons were severed for his sake -- a pain that had drilled straight to the bone. He thought I had no choice but to take it. What he didn't know was that I'd already accepted an offer from the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Soon, I would be free of him for good.

I had been married to Derek for six years, and we had a three-year-old son. He was poor, earning only $2,000 a month, but I had no complaints; I took care of everything at home for him. After getting dinner on the table for the whole family, I finally had a minute to check my phone. A video popped up on my feed: a twenty-two-year-old girl from a rural area whose hands, roughened by years of hard labor, looked like they belonged to a sixty-two-year-old woman. I looked down at my own hands, just as worn and scarred, and stared at them blankly before tapping into the comments. I expected people to feel bad for her. However, to my surprise, the comments section was flooded with a single sentiment: "Why would anyone marry a penniless loser?" One of the top-liked comments came from a couple; in their photo, they were pictured holding hands—fingers tightly intertwined—with the girl sporting a massive diamond ring. The accompanying caption read: "A man who truly loves you would never bear to let you suffer." I felt a pang of envy. Given the choice, who wouldn't want a glamorous life? As I was about to close the app, I accidentally tapped on the couple's photo, enlarging it. In the background, previously too blurry to make out, was a face I recognized. It looked exactly like my husband, Derek Sterling. I froze, and almost against my will, I tapped into the account's profile. Post after post of lavish photos of them together flooded my screen. And then I saw him clearly. The scar above his brow, the one he got when a shelf fell on him while protecting me, was still plainly visible. It was my husband. It was Derek.

Damian and I have been together for five years. He's the heir to the Hartwell family, a family of old money, but he's incredibly devoted to me. He planned a perfect trip to Iceland to see the Northern Lights, intending to propose. He held me close and whispered, "They say couples who see the aurora together will be together forever. Nora, you and me -- never apart." As the brilliant lights danced across the sky, I truly believed our love would last an eternity. Then I saw him snap a photo and send it to Sophia with the message: "Wish you were here. Sending you some aurora magic." I froze. Sophie was Damian's childhood friend. The kind of woman who always draped herself all over him, and sent him provocative selfies in the middle of the night. The next second, Sophia called on video. "Damian! I'm so dizzy... When are you coming back to keep me company?" It was then I realized Damian had brought Sophia along on our proposal trip and was staying at the same hotel as us. I turned around and made a phone call without hesitation. "Mr. Parker, the three-year assignment to Germany you mentioned—I accept. Yes, the sooner the better." But why has this Billionaire been searching for me all over the world for three years after I left?

Seven years into my marriage to Sebastian, we had our first child. On Logan's first birthday party, one of the old friends Sebastian had known since prep school rattled a little velvet cup of dice in Logan's face and laughed. "Come on, Mrs. Forsythe, humor us. Let the birthday boy roll. A game. For old times' sake." Logan giggled and slapped at the cup. "If he rolls a six," the groomsman went on, grinning sideways at Sebastian, "Sebastian goes and picks Serena up from the airport tonight. Deal?" The moment I heard her name, my blood went cold. I turned to Sebastian. He'd been keeping in touch with her behind my back. All this time. He caught my eyes. He covered my shaking fingers with his and frowned slightly. "Don't be jealous over nothing. We're all friends. It's just a ride from the airport." And then, without quite meaning to, he nodded. Permission given. Logan laughed and opened his little fist. The dice clattered across the linen. A six. "That's fate!" someone whooped. "Serena's flight lands in two hours. You'll make it!" The room erupted. Glasses up. Backs slapped. Sebastian surrounded. His face softened and he turned and went for the door. Watching his back disappear through that door, I didn't do what I used to do. This seven-year bet of mine — I had lost it, completely.

I used to be a top ballet dancer. The year I was diagnosed with a spinal hemangioma, my boyfriend Julian Blackwood said, "Wherever you go, I go." We'd been together three years. He walked beside me as I went, step by step, from the most luminous dancer on that stage to a woman in a wheelchair. Every time the nerve pain hit and I collapsed, he was the one who lifted me off the floor. Every round of electrostim and acupuncture, he sat in the corridor outside the therapy room and waited for me to come out. Before I got sick, he promised me—the night I finished my final performance of Swan Lake, we'd sign the marriage license. He'd bought tickets for that show three months in advance. I never stood on that stage again. And the marriage license never came up. Until the morning I noticed the collar of his white dress shirt carried a smudge of lipstick that wasn't mine. I heard him on the balcony. A woman's voice on the other end. "Mr. Blackwood, you left your jacket at the hotel last night. I'll bring it over." I stared at that smear of red, and something in me snapped. I laughed. "Send me to Westbrook. The locked-down rehab facility. I don't want to drag you down anymore." Something flickered in his eyes—a brief, animal panic. Then he nodded. He thought I meant rest. He didn't know I'd already signed the papers to donate my body to science. I was going there to die.

Despite being married to me, Don Massimo Cortese has forgotten my birthday once again. On my 25th birthday, he brings his most capable Underboss, Catia Sangalli, home with him. "Catia is pregnant." His tone remains even, as though this is nothing more than routine business. "She's pregnant with my child." My eyes become as wide as dinner plates. I can only stare at Massimo in disbelief. There isn't a trace of guilt on his expression. If anything, there's a hint of calculation in his eyes. "My family needs an heir, which you can't produce at all." That's when I finally give up on Massimo. After wiping my tears away, I pass him a divorce agreement that I've prepared in advance. Massimo just smiles lightly as he signs the agreement without hesitation. His friends are confused, to say the least. "Aren't you going to ask the Donna to stay, Don Cortese? Everyone in Napango knows very well just how much you love her. Are you seriously going to let her go like this?" Massimo says firmly, "Don't worry. She will never be able to leave my side. Angelica doesn't even have any family in this world. Who else can she seek out but me? "She's far too temperamental right now, so she needs to be taught a lesson. Once she finally learns her place, she will come back to me." I pretend to not hear the conversation as I pack my luggage quietly. What Massimo doesn't know is that I've taken the initiative to give up on my inheritance rights to the Rocchi Famiglia's assets five years ago because of the family rule that states, "No Rocchi is allowed to form marital ties with other forces." This time, I'm going to cut all ties with Massimo and return to the Rocchi manor as their heiress alongside my unborn child.

I gave Evan Cole six years. I changed my name, walked away from the Moretti family, and became the kind of woman he could handle: quiet, useful, easy to overlook. I paid the bills, fixed his proposals, opened doors he thought had opened by luck, and waited every time he said we were almost ready. Then Maracame back. His first love. The woman he swore he hated until the second she needed him again. After that, I became the problem. Too jealous. Too dramatic. Too hard to please. Evan thought I would break down and beg for my place. While he played house with Mara, I saved every receipt, every post, every lie. Then I cut off the money behind his perfect little life and called my family. On Christmas Eve, he asked if I would wait. I smiled and let him believe Leah was still waiting. By the time he learned my real name, Alessia Moretti was already gone, and the mafia princess he never knew had finally chosen herself.

I was born into the noble Valerie family, gifted by blood with the rare ability to bond with vampires and bear them powerful hybrid children. Since I was a child, I had been secretly in love with James, the vampire noble I was betrothed to. Everyone knew his heart belonged to one person only — his childhood companion, Vicky. But she was engaged to James's older brother. The night of their engagement banquet, James accepted my confession. He said we could try. I nodded and told him I didn't mind. I was willing to wait until he let her go. Then he gave the wedding I had designed with my own hands to Vicky. He stood in the groom's place, holding her hand through the rehearsal. And I stood below the stage, the laughingstock of the entire room. That night, he got drunk. He held me and said he loved me. I thought he had finally laid down his obsession, so once again I forgave him and let go of my pride. Until he called out Vicky’s name. In that moment, I finally understood. The one James loved would never be me. I had stored up enough disappointment. The next day, I disappeared from his world for good. Five years later, I ran into him by chance, a hybrid boy in my arms. He came rushing toward me like a man gone mad, eyes red, begging me to come back.

At the Crestwood Academy gala, a voice cut through the noise. We stood before a wall of portraits, our past selves staring back at us. "To our time at the academy. Three words." Victoria, the academy's fallen golden girl, raised her glass. She'd been silent for years. "Strength. Passion." She paused. Her gaze, hot as an ember, locked onto the one wolf every eye was already on—my mate. "And... Caspen." A hush fell over the room. They were the academy's most tragic couple. Caspen, the reckless Alpha. Victoria, the radiant pureblood. Their love had been a wildfire, wild and consuming. But they had broken apart on the night of the Blood Moon, just before graduation. Every wolf here had witnessed their legend. Including me. I glanced at Caspen. His power was a physical weight in the air. That untamed wolf had sheathed his claws. He was my mate now. The Alpha of Alphas. Powerful. Composed. But his heart was not mine.

My best friend Caleb and I mated with the most beautiful and strongest female Alpha twins of the Creek Pack. Everyone said we were the luckiest guys in the territory. But the pack didn't know that Victor, their stepbrother, was the one the female Alpha twins truly loved. My best friend Caleb and I planned to sever the mate bond, but the night before we were due to leave, Caleb was poisoned with wolfsbane. I called his mate Selene, but she sneered, "Ryan, my sister says your and Caleb's little tricks are getting really old. Are you going to tell me tomorrow that Caleb accidentally fell off the cliff?"

The day Lorenzo got kidnapped by a rival family, I found out I was three months pregnant. I took the million dollars his father offered, and I ran. The next time we met, I looked him in the eye and told him I'd been a mole for the rival family the whole time. He was chained up in a cellar, staring at me through the iron bars utterly despairing. He said he'd kill me himself, and then grind my bones to dust. Seven years later, when I saw him again, there was a beautiful woman on his arm. They were getting married. And I was so far down I had to beg him for a loan. He pulled out a thick stack of bills. Lit it on fire right in front of me. He said he'd rather burn it than give it to some whore feeding another man. He didn't know I was begging because my son was dying. His son too.

It was at our engagement banquet that I finally learned the truth. I wasn't the true heiress of a noble human family. I wasn't the "fated bride" destined to bear a half-blood child for the vampires. I was just the wrong baby someone had brought home from the hospital. A fake. I'd thought that Alexander, the boy who'd risked his life to drag me out of a burning house, the boy I'd grown up beside, would love me the same as always. Instead, in front of everyone, he let go of my hand and looked down at me with cold eyes. "Without that bloodline, do you really think you deserve to stand beside me?" Then he reached out and slid the engagement ring off my finger himself. He turned, and led the true heiress up to the high platform. Everyone laughed at me. The fake heiress, delusional enough to think she could marry the vampire heir. I was thrown out of the only home I'd ever known. The only kindness left to me was Alexander's, a scrap of charity that let me stay at his side as the lowest thing a vampire could keep. A blood slave. And then, later, I died in an explosion. Saving him. Alexander knelt in the blood and lost his mind, screaming at everyone around him to save me. But there was something he didn't know. I hadn't died. Later still, at a vampire banquet, he saw me again at last. I walked past him on another man's arm, smiling. And this time, it was his turn to lose his mind begging me to look back at him.

The cocktail hour had just ended when I picked up a video call in the bridal suite. It was Ethan, three years from now. By then, time‑travel tech had matured enough to let him contact me three years into the past. After enough specific details, I finally believed it. The man on the screen really was Ethan, three years older. I rubbed my aching ankle and pouted at him through the screen. "Ethan, smiling at all these guests is exhausting. But the second I remember I actually married you today, I'm happy all over again." "We're still happy three years from now, right?" He was leaning back against a headboard, and he didn't answer. His face was flat and unreadable. Then I heard it: a woman's voice from his end, low and breathy, asking to be kissed. I froze for a second, then covered my mouth and laughed. "Is that future me? In broad daylight? Get a room." Ethan turned the camera into the bed. My maid of honor was lying there, naked, sprawled across his chest. Her body was covered in hickeys. He looked straight at me as I started to break, and his voice didn't shift at all. "As soon as the reception ended, I told you I had a client meeting. I went to her room instead." "Jo, now you know what's coming. The guests haven't gone home yet. If you want a divorce tonight, you can have one. Up to you."

I'm the type who has the urge to overshare my life with him. It can be anything, be it the flowers blooming by the side of the road, the unpleasant coffee I end up having, or the sunset I've seen when I'm on my way home from work. Heck, when I think of Edwin Howell all of a sudden, I can't resist texting him at all. His replies are always short and perfunctory, though I suppose they count as a form of response from him. Hence, over the past six months, I've relied on these cold-sounding yet present replies to give me enough strength to deal with the engagement party, go wedding gown shopping, and choose the wedding venue all by myself. Somehow, I've managed to hang in there till the week before the wedding. But five days before the wedding, I discover an AI program that's installed within Edwin's computer. It can categorize every single sentence that I've sent to Edwin and extract the keywords. Then, it'll draft the most perfunctory responses that will never go wrong. If I miss Edwin, the AI will reply, "Mm-hmm." If I feel aggrieved, the AI will reply, "Got it." When I try to vent my frustrations to Edwin, the AI will reply, "Don't make such a big deal out of it." It turns out that Edwin isn't the one who has been responding to my need to overshare. The thing is, he has been texting another woman nonstop in another private chat. They talk about anything and everything under the sun, from exchanging simple good mornings and good nights to asking, "What are you having for lunch today?" and "Do you wanna go to the beach someday?" Finally, I realize that Edwin isn't the silent type who keeps his love in. If anything, he's the flashy type who will proclaim his love anywhere, anytime. It's just that… his love has never been mine to have. As for me, I've finally made up my mind to stop spending my life waiting for a response that will never come.

I came to Chicago with my friend to visit her boyfriend. Three days in, her boyfriend said he'd show us "something fun." The car kept driving—farther and farther out. By the time we realized something was wrong, we were locked inside an abandoned factory. My friend was gone. Her boyfriend shoved me into a room and threw me a line: "Your friend sold you for twenty grand. Stay put and wait for arrangements." I scanned the room. A few men in black suits leaned against the doorway. Silver-gray pins on their chests. Shield-shaped. Dark red thorns. An inverted dagger. The family crest of Caleb Richardson—don of the New York mafia. I was held captive by him for three years. I barely escaped with my life— And now I've been handed right back to him.

For three consecutive months, an extra five hundred dollars mysteriously appeared in my desk drawer. Attached to each stack of cash was the same brief note: “Overtime Pay.” The only problem? Our company didn’t offer overtime pay. It wasn’t until I finally checked the security camera footage that I uncovered the truth. Every single night, my boss was sneaking over to my desk and slipping cash into my drawer.

I was a two-hundred-pound girl. But on the night of graduation, I slept with Nova, captain of the Ashbury Ravens hockey team. The next morning, laughter drifted down the hotel hallway from his teammates. "Nova slipped his room key to Sienna last night, right?" "What, you think he'd give it to the Zamboni? That tub of lard. One look at her gives you nightmares for three days." "Did you guys see her reporter's notebook? It's covered in Nova's name. She's actually got a crush on Nova. Disgusting." So the room key that had slipped into my notebook wasn't meant for me. And the name he murmured against me in the dark wasn't mine either. My eyes burned with humiliation. I got dressed, walked out alone, and disappeared for six years. Six years later, my mother, Diane Quinn, was three months behind on her dialysis bills, and the sports website I worked for was on its last legs. My editor, Claire Bennett, slapped a file on my desk. "Nova. Newly crowned MVP. Not one interview in six years. Land him, or you're out."