Familial Bond Novels & Stories

I was the long-lost daughter of the wealthiest family. On my first day back, I was handed a two-hundred-million-dollar trust fund. But that very night, I found out our entire family was doomed to end badly. We were mere cannon fodder in someone else’s story. My father was the overbearing tycoon who would be publicly humiliated and driven into bankruptcy by the male lead. My mother was the harsh, spiteful mother-in-law who made the female lead’s life miserable. My brother was the devoted second male lead who willingly played the fool and got cheated on. My adoptive sister was the tragic “first love” supporting character, destined for a miserable end. Me: “Wow. Just great.”

After my mom, Margaret Hale, dies of a heart attack, she starts appearing in my sister Claire Dawson's dreams. In a dream, Mom tells Claire to climb Mount Mistwood before sunrise and burn the entrance ticket for her, or the other ghosts will bully her. Claire doesn't tell me anything. She packs a bag in the middle of the night and forces herself to the summit. While she's gasping her way up that mountain, I'm asleep at home when I suddenly go into cardiac arrest. I wake up in the emergency room with doctors shouting over me. I barely survive before Mom appears in Claire's dreams again. This time, she says skydiving is her last wish. If Claire doesn't do it for her, she won't rest in peace. Claire signs up right away, ignoring everything I say. But then, her parachute refuses to open, and she plummets toward the ground. Luckily, she gets snagged in a tree and walks away without a scratch. Meanwhile, I miss a step going downstairs, tumble to the bottom, end up covered in bruises, and break five ribs. While I'm recovering in the hospital, Mom shows up in Claire's dreams again. Now, she wants Claire to go to the South Pole for her, saying she can finally move on and be reincarnated once Claire completes the trip. Claire doesn't hesitate and books a tour on the spot. While she's taking pictures with penguins, I freeze to death back home during a 104-degree heatwave. Only after I die does it finally hit me that Mom's missions for Claire always end with me on death's doorstep. What I don't understand is how Mom keeps shifting the danger meant for Claire onto me instead. The next time I open my eyes, I'm back on the morning after Mom first appeared in Claire's dream.

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.

After I turned sixteen, I inherited the huge fortune my parents had left behind. As soon as the money was in my account, I hired a fake family online. A dad, a mom, and an older brother. Then, I gave them their instructions. "My dad doesn't say much, but he always lets me have my way." "My mom is gentle and a wonderful cook, especially when she makes barbecue ribs." "My older brother has poor health, and he doesn't like me. Just act like I don't exist." The three of them froze, and their expressions darkened. A long time passed before the woman playing my mother took my hand and asked softly, "Why did you hire a family? Do you miss them that much?" I avoided the guilt in her eyes, buried my face in her arms, and smiled. "Being alone is too boring." They were obviously relieved, but when no one was looking, I quietly wiped away my tears. What I did not tell them was that… I was dying. So, please. Don't hypnotize me into forgetting your faces again this time.

I never meant to fall for Nicholas Cross. He's my best friend's father. A billionaire hotel mogul. He was eighteen years older than me and completely off limits. But when Riley begs me to spend Christmas at their Aspen estate, I can't say no. She needs backup dealing with her nightmare mother and the boy toy fiancé. I tell myself I can handle two weeks of pretending Nick doesn't make my heart race every time he walks into a room. Then a snowstorm traps us together. His ex-wife shows up determined to destroy him. And late one night in his study, Nick looks at me like I'm not just his daughter's friend anymore. Riley gives us her blessing. His mother thinks I'm a gold digger. His ex-wife will use our relationship to take everything from him. The world will judge us. But when Nick looks at me like I'm his whole world, none of that matters. Until Amanda plays her final card. And I have to choose between protecting the man I love or losing him forever. This Christmas, some rules are made to be broken.

When my sister, Cindy Saddler, and I perform our gymnastics routine, we both slip up. My spine snaps as I hit the ground. The pain makes my face go completely pale, and my life is hanging by a thread. But my mother and spotter, Cordelia Saddler, pushes me away in annoyance. "This isn't the time for you to fight with your sister for my attention. She's twisted her ankle! Go die if you want to die. Don't bother me!" Later, I die due to complications in the hospital, as she wishes. But after she finds out I'm dead, she goes crazy.

"Julia, the money's gone." "What money?" In a sheepish tone, Mom explains, "We used the 68 grand you left with us to help your brother buy a house for his upcoming wedding." At that moment, dread swallows me whole. Just last week, I left my hard-earned savings with my parents to keep it from being discovered by my abusive husband. But now... I choke up, and my voice trembles as I speak. "Mom, that is the only money I have for myself after the divorce!" My father scolds me from the side. "Why are you getting a divorce in the first place?" I shoot back, "You know he has been hitting me. If I don't leave him, he will beat me to death!" Dad slams the table angrily. "All women put up with stuff like that just fine! If your brother can't get married, it will be the end of our lineage. That's the more pressing problem!" I look at them, my blood running cold. "Take that 68 grand as my final payment to you for raising me. We'll cut ties right here and now. In the future, don't ever come to me and ask me to support you when you grow old."

I've booked a hot air balloon trip for my in-laws in commemoration of their wedding anniversary. Little do I know that as soon as the hot air balloon lifts off the ground, 1,000 drones appear out of nowhere and form a sentence in the sky. "Natalie, my ethereal beloved, you're the only one I ever want in this world." I feel as though my blood has turned into ice. It turns out that my husband, Theodore Shaw, is in the middle of launching a grand confession to his first love, Natalie Quinn. As soon as the line goes through, I exclaim in a quivering tone, "Theodore, hurry up and command the drones to avoid the hot air balloon's route! Mom and Dad are—" Before I can finish speaking, Theodore cuts me off with a sneer. "Back then, you exaggerated Natalie's parents' crimes at the court. When they died from despair in jail, you were busy celebrating your win streak as an ace lawyer. "Now, I want you to have a taste of what it feels like to lose your own parents too!" Then, Theodore commands his subordinates loudly, "Lock on the target! I want you to use the drones to crash the hot air balloon out of the way! I want to hear how loudly it'll explode when it plummets!" Natalie keeps egging him on at the side in a sickly sweet voice. "Precisely! I want it to explode as beautifully as the fireworks!" The hot air balloon keeps getting attacked by the drones that keep flying in their direction at high speed. I can hear my in-laws' cries of despair, sending shivers down my spine. That's when I roar at my phone hysterically. "Theodore Shaw, you absolute bastard! Open your damn eyes and look at the sky! Your own parents are the one riding the hot air balloon, dammit!"

My daughter, Elise Dolton, got sick, so I rushed over to take care of her. The moment I stepped inside, a rotten stench hit me right in the face, so I offered to help clean the place up. Her roommates' faces dropped right away. "What smell, Mrs. Dolton? The place is fine." "If you think it's such a dump, then have Elise move out. Don't come in here acting like you're better than all of us. We're not putting up with that!" Even Elise shoved me impatiently. "If you’re here to visit, then just act like it. Stop making a scene and embarrassing me, okay?” They were all college roommates, splitting rent on a run-down unit in an old complex. When I went in, I noticed them gathered around a pot of spicy stew. The room was thick with steam and smoke, but it still couldn't cover that awful stench. Strangely, none of them seemed to notice it. Had something gone wrong with my sense of smell? That night, the smell was so overwhelming that I couldn't fall asleep. In the end, I realized the odor was coming from Elise herself. I hurried her into the bathroom and scrubbed her down over and over, but the smell didn't fade at all. It stayed just as strong. With no other option, I called a cleaner, planning to disinfect the entire place inside and out. But Elise's roommates felt offended and started arguing with me. In the chaos, someone shoved me. My temple slammed into the sharp corner of the coffee table, and I died on the spot. When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the moment I first walked through the door. The stench rushed at me all over again...

In my previous life, after my parents divorced, my younger sister Fiona went with my father, Michael, who had a yearly salary of a hundred thousand dollars. Meanwhile, I left with my mother, Jessica, with nothing but the clothes on our backs. However, my father was fired by his company after that. He went bankrupt in an instant and lived in poverty. Meanwhile, my mother started her own business from nothing and ended up being one of the richest in Arman City with a net worth of over a hundred million dollars. Fiona was jealous of me and stabbed me to death the day I was to inherit Jessica's company. When I opened my eyes, I had returned to the day my parents divorced. When I saw Fiona wanting to live with Jessica no matter what, I knew that she had regressed as well. That was fine, though. I never wanted to experience that kind of lowly existence a second time.