Cerita Pendek After Death Werewolf & Novel Bias

When I'm on the verge of dying, the kidnapper who has kidnapped me calls my fiance, Connor Weston, who's also the youngest patrol officer in the pack. The call goes through, only for us to hear Connor's voice, which is filled with suppressed rage. "Sylvia Kline, I'll give you three seconds to stop bothering me. Vivian's initiation ceremony will take place at night three days later. If you dare pull off another one of your tricks again—" "Connor…" Blood gushes out of my mouth as soon as I open it. My voice is so hoarse that I don't sound like myself at all. "Save… me…" "Your acting's pretty good," Connor cuts me off, his tone filled with disdain. "Listen, if you dare skip out on the ceremony and embarrass me in front of the entire pack, you can forget about going home." After that, the line goes dead. In the end, I die from mutilation. It's fine, Connor. I can't go home for real this time.

On the day of my mate-bonding ceremony, my parents suddenly brought my mate home and told me the marking ceremony that day would be with someone else. “Your sister was poisoned by wolfsbane. There's no cure, and her dying wish is to become David’s mate.” “You’re her older sister. Can’t you be kind and help her out?” My mate also tried to persuade me. “Don’t worry, it’s just for show. After she dies, we’ll still be each other’s one and only.” Still, I refused. However, my parents forced me to drink a potion that blocked my mind link, tied me up, and threw me into the silver mine behind our villa. “We’ll untie you once the ceremony goes smoothly,” they said. But soon after they left, I was attacked by a vicious rogue wolf. After endless torment, I was killed. It was only when my body started rotting that they remembered I was still bound in the mine.

My mate is the bravest patrol chief of the Sundara Pack. When the rogue straps a bomb laced with wolfsbane to me, I try to reach him through our mind-link. Once, twice... He blocks me 99 times. The rogue forces me to call for help, and when Aiden Campbell finally answers, his first words come blazing with anger. "Lina Rutherford! You're risking your life over jealousy again? Kate's pet snow wolf has been stuck in a tree for three days! "She loves that wolf like her own child—if I'm late to save it, that's on you! You'll be a murderer!" I laugh so hard that tears stream down my face. That so-called "trapped" snow wolf? It's simply climbed onto a slanted pine tree in the yard so it can lazily sunbathe on the branches. No one trapped it—it just doesn't feel like coming down. "Thank you, Aiden. You're amazing!" There comes a soft, delicate voice through the phone. It's Kate Summers—Aiden's late brother's widow and also his childhood sweetheart. The bomb's countdown ticks down to three minutes. With a calm heart, I send my final message. "In the name of the Moon Goddess, I sever our mate bond." And then, I cut the mind-link.

To save the three most important men in my life, I made a deal with the Moon Goddess. Trade my life for theirs. If I could make any one of them truly love me within five years, I'd get to live. But on the final day of the countdown, all three still had negative feelings toward me. According to the rules, I'd failed. My life was about to be erased. "Moon Goddess, could I send one last message? One final try?" Maybe out of pity, she granted me this last attempt. This message was my final shot. I hit the voice button in our group chat, fighting to keep my voice steady. "Could you guys love me just a little? I'm really going to die." After a moment of silence came their merciless laughter. "You'll do anything to compete with Lidia for attention, won't you?" "Cut the lies. This just makes us hate you more." "If you're so desperate to die, then just do it already." Mission failed. I gave them exactly what they wanted. But when I was about to die, they all freaked out.

I was born a liar. That was the label my mother gave me. In the Dark Moon Pack, every pup carries a Lunar Mark on their wrist. Green means truth. Red means liar. My twin sister Maya slashed Mommy's ceremonial dress with a blade and blamed the pack hounds. Her wrist stayed soft and green. My mark went crimson when I said I was cold. "Mommy, I'm telling the truth. Please believe me." Elena would crouch down, look me in the eye, and say the same thing every time. "The Goddess's mark is absolute, Selena. Your own heart betrays you." She never touched me. She just looked at my wrist with disgust. No matter how honest I tried to be, my heart would race when I was scared. And every time my pulse spiked, the mark turned red. I lied when I said I was hungry. I lied when I said I loved her. I lied when I cried. After enough years, I stopped fighting back. I started to believe her. Maybe I really was broken. Maybe I was just born wrong. The night I died, I wrote one last line in my Penance Journal. "Mommy, help me. It hurts. Please — just believe me once." She never saw it. She had already locked the door and walked away. I'm sorry, Mommy. I died still trying to get it right. In my next life — will you hold me?

Everyone in the pack thought I was a gold digger. I was an outsider wolf with no family, yet Alpha Adrian had chosen me as his mate. His parents, friends, and even the elders insisted I wanted only his fortune and the title of Luna. Adrian alone believed me. Then, on the night of our mating ceremony, I asked him to lend me three hundred thousand dollars. From that night on, he was convinced I was vain and greedy, that the only thing I loved about him was the wealth he possessed as Alpha. When I begged him to attend my father's funeral, he sent me money. Six months ago, when I was diagnosed with wolfsoul degeneration, he believed I was just looking for an excuse to get money. The last time he transferred money to me, he was away on vacation with his childhood sweetheart, Selene. He did not know the healer had just told me my wolf soul was in the final stage of degeneration. I had seven days left. He had no idea that I borrowed money on our wedding night because Selena had poisoned me with silver, and I needed the money to save my life. My body is now beyond cure, ravaged by illness. He never chose to trust me. After my death, he went mad with regret.

I was the one who broke Kane Blackwood's heart. He was the Alpha heir, my boyfriend since we were kids, and I pushed him so hard that I drove him all the way to the Northern Stronghold. He stayed there for seven years. Now he was back. He had a new woman with him, and they were going to hold their bonding ceremony here, in our pack. That same week, the pack witch told me I had three months left to live. When my mother wheeled me outside to see him, Kane's mouth curled into that cruel, mocking smile I remembered too well. His dark eyes swept over me from head to toe, taking in the wheelchair, the thinness of my arms, the paleness of my face. "Well, well," he said, his voice low and sharp. "Seven years and you look like hell. Can't even walk anymore?" I tugged my sleeve down, hiding the scars—the silver tracings left by years of failed treatments. I kept my voice steady. "I fell. Broke something. It's nothing." He let out a short, cold laugh. "Right. Anyway, my bonding ceremony's coming up. You should be Vivra's maid of honor." I smiled back at him. I had gotten good at smiling through pain over the years. "Sorry, but I'm leaving soon. Somewhere far away." Then I patted my mother's hand. She didn't say a word, just gripped the handles of the chair and pushed me back toward the house. I didn't look behind me.

In the second month of suffering from wolfsbane poisoning, my Alpha mate, Stanley, finally agreed to take me to the hot springs in the south to treat my condition. Along the way, the temperature inside the cabin kept dropping, and my wolf spirit grew increasingly restless. I instinctively looked out the window. Suddenly, I saw an endless expanse of ice and snow beneath a vast, open sky. I looked at Stanley, who was laughing and joking around with my younger sister Mila, and asked in confusion, "Isn't this the way to the snowcaps in the north?" Stanley quickly wrapped his arms around Mila, who was shivering, and shot me an impatient look. "We'll help Mila get to the summit of the snowcaps first. Then we'll take you to the hot springs." My older brother, Bryan, rolled his eyes at me. "Wendy, even when we're out having fun, you try to have things your way first. You're really making a fuss over nothing." My mom, Karen, sighed. "Wendy, Mila spent years suffering out in the wilderness. You should be more considerate of her." The moment the cabin door opened, freezing air swept over me from head to toe, and the poison in my bloodstream began to surge. "But my body–" I tried to argue. Stanley frowned and cut me off when he saw me trembling all over. "Stop acting so fragile. The wolfsbane poison in your body isn't nearly as serious as you make it out to be. "Enough. If you can't keep up, climb at your own pace. We'll meet you at the summit." He had no idea that I would never make it to the summit.

After I was brought back to the Frostridge Pack, the sentence I heard most often was: "Don't let Lily feel like she's the one who got kicked out." So there was no seat for me at the long table at the winter solstice feast, and the wooden name plaque that symbolized family recognition could only hang behind the guest room door. I threw a fit once and tossed the place card that said "Visitor" into the fire. My brother said a child raised by Rogues, of course, only knew how to fight for scraps. This year, before the winter solstice, I called my mother to ask if the feast could save me a seat. She spoke first. "Lily just lost her pup. Just catching your scent will make her sick. Can you come back after the solstice, okay?" My intended mate, whose marking ceremony hadn't even been completed, had already promised to go with her to the hot spring lodge in the mountains. But the healer said the silver poison in my body had already reached my bone marrow. My wolf wouldn't make it past the solstice either. I rented a small cabin by the sea, outside pack territory. "Okay. Don't save me a seat this year." I was dying anyway. I didn't want to fight her over this family anymore.

The night before I awaken my wolf form, my parents host an apology live stream on my behalf. They train the camera on my face and force me to confess that I tried to kill my younger sister, Daisy Clifford, in the fire seven years ago. They want me to claim that I did it by deliberately locking Daisy in her room. My father, Henry Clifford, bellows at me before the audience, "If you still refuse to apologize to Daisy, get out of this house right now!" Daisy cries so hard that she can't catch her breath. "Katherine, I just want justice…" My mother, Rose Miller, glares vehemently at me as she hugs Daisy. My eldest brother, Hans Clifford, shreds all my capes in front of all the werewolves watching the live stream. "No amount of clothing can hide such a wicked heart!" he declares. My second brother, Hayden Clifford, kicks over my plate of cookies and shouts, "Hurry up and apologize to Daisy! Are you expecting us to beg for it?" The live stream chat is filled with vicious comments telling me to die. Even a good friend I grew up with sends in a message that reads, "You disgust me. I really regret ever knowing you." I stare at the message, amused. For seven whole years, not a single person has asked me how I received the burn on my arm. I straighten and swallow back the blood that threatens to rise in my throat. I ask, "What if I was the one who saved Daisy during the fire back then?"

The night of the Blood Moon Hunt, our pack was ambushed. We were being slaughtered. Yet my mate, Alpha Ridley, chose to save his first love, Yolia, without a second thought. He told me to stay behind and hold the line, claiming it was my duty as Luna. He claimed his precious Yolia was a vital warrior who needed to be protected. Even my own son, Leo, stood by Yolia's side to defend her. I was captured by the rival pack, tortured with a silver dagger until I was on the brink of death. Just as I was about to give up, a voice echoed in my mind. "The blood of the Luna Prime flows through your veins. You have three days. Let your life end before the eyes of your fated mate, or the one you love most, and you will be reborn." A power surged inside me, calling to me. I ran toward that glorious death, embracing it. But as I drew my last breath, I saw Ridley and our son, Leo, fall to their knees, howling my name, begging for a return I would never grant them.

The first thing Alpha Kieran Voss did upon his return from the Northern Front was announcing Celeste as his chosen mate. However, my pack had signed a treaty with the Frostfang Pack, and the deal was for the Frostfang Pack’s Alpha to take a she-wolf from the Graymoon Pack as his mate. To honor the treaty, Kieran chose to form a mate bond with me. Nevertheless, he declared to his pack that Celeste was his Luna, while I was nothing more than a mate chosen for political convenience. For the next seven years, I carried on with life as freely and recklessly as I always had. Kieran treated me right as well. Be it pearls from the Southern Seas, or gemstones from the Northern Territories, I could expect any little thing that caught my eye to show up in my chambers the very next day. Spoiled and willful as I was, I didn’t restrain myself before the pack elders. Kieran always cleaned up after me with a smile, then showered me with precious stones and jewelry to put a grin back on my face. I mistook that as his feelings for me. With a pup in the picture, I believed that our bond would only grow stronger. Still, seven years passed. Celeste had given him three pups, while I struggled to bear his pups. One day, I knocked over a potion sent by Celeste, only to discover the truth. The potion wasn’t meant to restore my health, but to keep me from ever bearing Kieran’s pup. The pack healer examined me and stayed silent for a while. “Long-term aconite poisoning has pretty much weakened your wolf. You have lost your ability to heal. Even if you stop taking the poison now, you have no more than three months left.” I kept the evidence, petitioned to the council to sever our mate bond, and got ready to return to the Graymoon Pack. Somehow, Celeste managed to frame my departure as an act of treason. Taking Celeste’s words for it, Kieran locked me up in a silver-plated cell, despite how ill I was. Once he finally got the bottom of everything and rushed to the tables to find me, I was already dead, lying next to my old, faithful companion.

I was dismembered and thrown into an abandoned warehouse. Before my consciousness faded away, I used the last bit of my strength to send a message via mind link to Timothy Russell, the Alpha heir that I had loved for six years. "Timothy, I'm in so much pain..." The next second, a cold mental barrier crashed down between us, cutting off all communication. That was his response to me. I knew I had been too presumptuous. I had disturbed him while he was at an auction helping his foster sister, Rochell Lucas. The moment my heart stopped beating, Timothy, who was helping Rochell put on a bracelet, felt his chest cave in. While everyone watched, the future Alpha knelt on the ground as countless bone-deep wounds appeared across his body out of nowhere. He convulsed in agony, screaming my name. Only then did everyone notice a glowing blood pact mark appearing on his tongue. I remembered. Once upon a time, he swore an oath to the moon. "If I ever betray Leah, every bit of suffering she has endured will return to me tenfold."

I was diagnosed with Neurogenic Wolf Spirit Atrophy. In half a month, I would be dead. The day I received the diagnosis, I decided to give up treatment and donate my body to the Central Research Institute after my death. Through the mind link, I reached out to my brother, whom I hadn’t seen in six years, hoping he would help me sign the papers. He sneered and cut off the link without any hesitation. With the Spirit Severance Donation Contract, a formal waiver of my right to have my wolf spirit returned to my pack's sacred grounds after death, I crossed countless territories alone to the high-ranking city where he resided. He had been promoted to commander of the Silverfang Patrol, basking in glory. He casually signed the document without even looking at me, then said with chilling indifference, “Don’t ever come to me again. Given how ungrateful you are, I can't be bothered to give you a proper burial." I nodded lightly. “I understand.” He did not know that the money for his treatments in the past years had come from me. Now, there were only seven days left until my death.

My mate, Alpha Logan, was at the Sanctuary preparing to mark me when he was called away. “The mating doesn’t have to be on a full moon,” he said. “Something urgent has come up.” He left me alone in the sacred Sanctuary on the night of the full moon, all because his human friend, Lila, had been injured by a rogue wolf while hiking. A moment later, his text came through: [Lila needs a special serum. I have to get her to Canada within 48 hours. Let's reschedule the mating ceremony.] I’d lost count of how many times Logan had chosen Lila over me. But this time, I wasn’t going to get jealous, throw a fit, and ultimately cave like I always did. Because Logan has no idea that if we don't complete our mating bond by tomorrow, I'm going to die.

My fated mate left the pack, heartbroken, after I rejected him. Seven years later, he returned with his new mate-to-be. By then, the pack doctor had given me my final diagnosis. "Extreme wolf spirit decay." It was irreversible. My wolf would be gone within months. My life was at its end. My fated mate, Alpha Roric, now the most powerful Alpha in North America, smirked when he saw me. I was pale and thin, leaning on my sister for support. "Ayla. Seven years, and you're too weak to even stand straight? When you rejected me, didn't you say that beta was a better match? Where is he now?" His voice dripped with hate. I just tugged on the sleeves of my coat, hiding the way my fingers trembled. A tell-tale sign of my power slipping away. "It's just a cold." Roric's gaze swept over me like ice. "In that case, you should come to my Mating Ceremony with Cressida. I'll save you the best seat." I just smiled. "I can't. I'll be going somewhere far away soon. I'm sorry." Then, pulling my sister with me, I turned and melted into the shadows.

I was born with Wolf-Spirit Decay, and my family raised me like something precious, held carefully in their palms. My parents searched the entire continent for witch doctors. Every time I had an episode, they stayed by my bedside and never left. Until my stepsister Chloe was diagnosed with the same illness. Everything changed. She was afraid of the dark, so Mom slept with her. She said I bullied her, so Dad called me into his study and asked when I would finally grow up. When the only cure for Wolf-Spirit Decay—the Universal Red Potion—was finally refined, the whole family decided to give it to Chloe first. "Chloe's episodes are worse than yours. This one goes to her." "Your illness has been stable for over twenty years. Just wait a little longer. The next bottle will come soon enough." But the alchemist had said no one knew if the next bottle would take three years or thirty. And I only had three days left to live. No one believed me. They thought I was jealous, acting out for attention. In the last three days of my life, I signed over the company transfer agreement. My parents praised me for finally being sensible. Even when my mate Damian proposed holding a Marking ceremony with Chloe, I didn't object. I signed the Mate Bond dissolution agreement. He was relieved that I had finally learned not to be jealous. I wonder, after I die, will they regret it?

The day my birth parents found me, the reunion banquet they threw turned into their funeral. My parents and their adopted daughter, Leila, died of food poisoning that night. The only one who survived was my older brother, Alpha Kian. He didn’t like sweets, so he never touched the cake. The cake that I handed to them myself. “So you want to take Leila’s place. “You’re just jealous because she got all our love! “She was the only one who ever accepted you, and you still killed her!” Those were Kian’s exact words as he shouted at me right outside the hospital room. From that day on, I became a sinner. To make up for it, I barely slept four hours a night and worked five jobs just to buy back the villa the rival pack seized during the chaos. However, the day I finally saved up enough, I saw my dead parents throwing a birthday party for Leila in that very villa. Kian stood among them, looking at her with a warmth I didn’t recognize. My mother said, “Isn’t today also Lily’s birthday? It’s been eight years. Maybe it’s time to forgive her.” However, Kian didn’t hesitate to refuse. “No. Even though Leila sniffed out the wolfsbane and saved you, we agreed that Lily gets ten years. “We can’t risk her ever trying to poison Leila again. Not even a day less.” I clutched the diagnosis paper from the clinic tightly and laughed through my tears. I knew I wouldn’t get to ten years. I was already dying.

My adopted sister, Monica, was fooling around when she accidentally started a fire at the border. I tried to protect her and was struck by a falling beam, leaving me with severe internal injuries. Yet no one paid me any attention. Monica had suffered only a few minor scrapes, but Leo, my mate and the captain of the patrol team, held her protectively in his arms. My dad, the Alpha of our pack, even offered her the only ambulance available. Monica was a vulnerable Omega and the orphaned daughter of one of Dad's most capable former subordinates. If he rescued his biological daughter first, the pack members might accuse him of favoritism. Enduring the pain, I explained that I'd been injured by silver a few days ago and had temporarily lost my ability to heal. Dad merely glanced at me and immediately decided I was lying to win his affection. "Winnie, it's been ten days since your last mission. Even if you were injured, you would've healed by now." Leo looked at me coldly. "Stop making a scene. A minor injury like that is nothing for you. We'll come back for you in a bit." Monica grabbed Leo's hand and cried out, "Leo, why don't you save Winnie first? At the end of the day, I'm only an outsider." Hearing that only made Dad feel more sorry for her. He stopped listening to my explanations and glared at me sternly. "If only you were half as considerate as your sister! Stay here and reflect on your behavior. The ambulance will come back for you after dropping her off." I opened my mouth, but I immediately felt blood gushing up from my throat. Leaning against a charred, broken beam, I slowly slid to the ground. I was acutely aware of my life slipping away. I wouldn't live long enough for them to come back.

I have three dads who love and spoil me for fifteen years. Of the three, Maxim Ulfric is the high-ranking and authoritative Alpha of the Cinderhowl pack. The second is Ethan Skoll, the pack's most valiant Beta warrior. The third is Aidan Rafe, the most skilled healer of the whole pack. They're the reason I am the happiest princess of the Cinderhowl pack before turning 15. Everything changes after Raeya Wargan appears. Time and again, she accuses me of leading others to sideline and pick on her. Even my disappointed dads say I'm insensible and give everything I have to her as compensation. From then on, no one believes a word I say. Even the pups of the pack call me a pathological liar. Everything ends when Raeya throws me into a Rogue's den. As a ferocious Rogue hunts me down, I reach out through the mind-link to my dads for help. But none of them believes me. They call me devious and cunning. They say that I'm trying to frame Raeya on purpose. While a wolf pack tears my limbs apart, and my mangled corpse is left abandoned in the forest, my dads are wholeheartedly presiding over Raeya's grand coming-of-age ceremony. They once promised to give me the most unique coming-of-age ceremony, but it's a pity I'll never live to see that day.