Icarus Laughed Novels & Stories

I worked in bottle service at a nightclub for four years just to support my boyfriend. His startup business failed. He told me he owed a fortune to loan sharks, saying that they would cut off his fingers if he failed to pay up. I gave him every dollar I had saved just to help him clear off his debt. I even gave him the emerald bracelet my mother had left me before she passed away. That night, I unintentionally overheard a conversation from one of the private rooms while I was working. "Preston, your girlfriend never would have given you that bracelet she had been hiding if Mia hadn't suggested we pretend to be debt collectors and assist you with this little show." Preston Hale laughed smugly before draining the drink in his glass. "It's just an old bracelet. Mia liked it, so I gave it to her." Then, he leaned back and added, "Now, help me think of another way to test Nora." So that was the truth. The love I dedicated for four years was just a test to him. The loan sharks, debt, fear, and desperation—he had orchestrated it all. I turned, walking out on him and out of the nightclub. Then, I reached out to my older brother, Adrian Whitmore, with whom I had been fighting for years. "Adrian," I told him, "I lost. I'll marry the man you arranged for me to meet."

The day I land a hundred-million-dollar deal for the company, my girlfriend—Paisley Needham, the CEO—finally agrees to marry me. The next day, I wait at the city hall until it closes. She never shows up. Instead, what I get is her official announcement with her assistant, Jude Grayford. In the photo, she nestles in his arms. A crisp marriage license sits in her hand, impossible to miss. The caption reads, "My CEO, Ms. Paisley Needham, couldn't bear to see me going on blind dates, so she just went ahead and got the marriage license with me today. I'm so happy!" My colleagues gossip, assuming I'll be jealous and furious. I don't. I just like the post and comment, "So, when's the ceremony? Don't forget to invite me!" Paisley calls immediately, cursing me out. "I just didn't want to see him being pressured into blind dates by his parents, so I agreed to get married on paper to keep them off his back. It's not like we're actually married. Do you really have to be so petty? "Delete your comment right now and get on your knees to apologize to Jude. If you don't, I'll never marry you." I laughed bitterly. "Even better," I say. "I hope you two have a long, happy life together… and have lots of kids."

On her birthday, Jasmine instead received destruction. Her face was ruined by an accident, and the love she believed would last forever collapsed in an instant. “I’m disgusted by the way you look now,” Christopher said coldly, canceling their wedding without guilt. “Didn’t you promise you would stay with me?” Jasmine’s voice trembled. “That promise applied when you were still perfect,” the man replied cruelly. The betrayal did not stop there. Christopher chose Valentina—Jasmine’s stepsister, who had long been jealous and full of ambition. Even more painful, Jasmine’s biological father took Valentina’s side. The house turned into hell; insults and mockery became daily fare. Leaving with wounds and shattered pride, Jasmine nearly lost everything—until fate brought her together with a mysterious old man. Jasmine’s courage in saving the old man led her to Jaden King, the heir to a respected business empire. “You don’t need to be perfect to be worthy,” Jaden said gently, looking at Jasmine without disgust, without pity. From a discarded woman, Jasmine rose to become the wife of a business ruler. When she returned, Christopher and Valentina laughed at her. “Jaden King’s wife? Don’t joke,” they mocked. But the laughter turned into fear when Jaden appeared and said firmly, “She is my wife. And starting today, your lives are over.” Love, betrayal, rebirth, and revenge—will Jasmine forgive, or will she settle every wound that once destroyed her? Is this conversation helpful so far?

On our wedding night, my wife led my younger brother onto our marital bed. He was wearing nothing but his underwear. She expected him to consummate our marriage in my place. "Sweetheart, I feel awful about your legs and what the doctors said about your infertility," she said softly. "Elliot will just have to help us for one night." My face hardened as I stepped forward. I was ready to throw Elliot Charlton out of the bedroom. However, my parents immediately sided against me. "You're the one who can't fulfill your role as a husband," they said sharply. "Elliot is willing to sacrifice himself so that you can have a child. What's wrong with that?" Even my brother laughed at me. He said I was not a real man and told me to accept things while I still could. According to him, I should be thankful to gain a son without doing anything. They even suggested that I stay and watch, claiming it would prove the two were only trying to conceive a child and nothing else. I clenched my teeth until my jaw ached, then turned and called my wife's greatest rival. "You win," I said quietly. "The Wallace family's investment will be transferred to your account tomorrow." After ending the call, I raised my eyes and looked at Janet Wallace. "You share his bed tonight," I said. "Tomorrow, we get divorced."

First day back in the office. I was face down at my desk during lunch when the desk next to mine started rattling under a series of hard knocks. I looked up. It was the firm's new architect, Flora Reeves. "Lunch time ended five minutes ago. You're still asleep at your desk? Don't bother coming in tomorrow. You're fired!" I told her I had just come back from a client meeting. I had been pulling all-nighters on the project for a week. She looked at me like I was something on her shoe. "All you do is take clients out, drink with them, and scribble a few sketches. "You don't even punch in. You're barely in the office. What gives you the right to nap at your desk during work hours?" I almost laughed in her face! I was the firm's chief architect. The bulk of the projects on Walsh & Co.'s books had my name on them. The firm's success was, frankly, carried by me. She saw me out of the office most days. She did not see me in another city, on another job site, talking down another client. And in our industry, most of those clients had hired Walsh & Co. because of my name and reputation. I kept my composure. "You're not in HR. On what authority are you firing me?" She said, "On the authority that my husband is the president of this company." I went still. When did my boyfriend get married?

“You’re a liar. And a coward. And you broke me twice.” I laughed—hollow, bitter. Then bent to pick up the torn pieces of the file. I couldn’t believe I’d fallen for the same man twice in one lifetime. If this was a dream, it was a cruel one. When I walked past him, I didn’t look back. “I know I hurt you,” he said behind me, his voice low and raw. “But I never stopped loving you… not even for a single day.” --- They were never supposed to end up together...again, but fate had other plans. Alina has always been the unwanted twin—the quiet, overlooked sister living in the shadow of her perfect twin. So when her father faces financial ruin, he makes a chilling decision: marry one of his daughters off to save the family name. The groom? A powerful, mysterious heir hidden from the public eye. The chosen bride? Alina’s stunning sister. But at the last moment, her father switches them. Now, Alina finds herself married to a man she doesn’t know—yet strangely feels drawn to. A man who might just remember her from a forgotten moment in their past. As sparks begin to fly, she finds herself falling in love with a familiar stranger again. But dark secrets begin to unfold—and a family desperate to reclaim their “true” daughter fights dirty. She was never supposed to be the bride. But she just might be the woman he’s waited for all along.

"I ask you one more time, Ally Shale, who sent you?" He moved closer to me and fired his interrogatory knives through me. Despite the fury in his eyes, I only felt one thing: his iciness. His words were as cold as he is. He terrorised me just with a stare. Was this the same man who had put his hot lips on me back at the club? Ice and fire don't mix very well. Every breath of the man on me sends fear rushing through my veins. I know he is capable of murder, as every mafia member is. He seized my chin and looked at me all over as if trying to find the answer on my body. "I can't name my employers," my teeth chattered as I spoke. I addressed him just as Kevin's man had. "Sir Tyler, I just... I didn't mean to intrude into your personal conversation… I was trying to just get close to you…." All of a sudden, I felt incapable of lying. It dawned upon me what I had just been injected with. But despite being unable to lie, I was still able to resist naming who I worked for. Lies and secrets were, after all, two different matters. Could I have been injected with the infamous truth serum? I questioned myself in fear. "Your resistance to the serum is strong, my little prisoner." He laughed coldly at me, but the next moment, his lips curled into an indescribable and yet amorous smile.

"I'm sorry, but this flight is overbooked. We're going to compensate you twenty dollars. Please deplane immediately." The head flight attendant had my suitcase in a death grip. Her tone wasn't a request—it was an order. I gave her a cold look, then turned my gaze to the man beside us, who had just been escorted onto the plane, draped in designer labels. "Why does he get to board after showing up late, while I—who paid full price—am being forced off?" She let out a mocking laugh and lowered her voice to taunt me. "Because he's the son of a top-tier medical conglomerate in Scallow City. He's rushing there to beg an elusive miracle doctor—the famous Phantom Surgeon—to save his life. "No matter how urgent your business is, can it really compare to a human life? If you delay Mr. Stafford, ten lives couldn't pay for it. Now get off." Several security guards dragged me off the plane by force as I watched the cabin doors close. I laughed in sheer disbelief. The "Mr. Stafford" she was talking about was William Stafford, and he was terminally ill. What she didn't know was that I was the very "Phantom Surgeon" his entire family had been on their knees begging for three months—pleading with me to fly to Scallow City and perform his surgery today. Since they threw me off the plane, I won't be doing that operation. As for William, he can go ahead and wait for death.

After seven years together, Ruby Longley ghosted me the day before we were supposed to get our marriage license. I freaked. While tearing through the city looking for her, I got into a nightmare crash. That night, she finally texted: [Steven cut his wrist. He's really fragile right now. He can't deal with any drama. He needs me at the hospital.] [Let's push the wedding back three years. Don't contact me until then. Let him heal.] [Handle our parents. And don't upset Steven. Just tell them you're the one who got cold feet.] The ER nurse's eyes were red as she pressed my bloody finger to my phone and typed back for me. [The PATIENT is in critical condition. Please come to the HOSPITAL immediately.] A second later, my phone lit up again. Steven Buffrey. Ruby's childhood friend. The social feed showed a photo of two hands locked together, fingers making a heart. In the middle sat a bandage over one tiny scratch. Caption: [She said my life matters more than anything. Bro, quit faking sick and sulking.] Ruby's friends smashed the like button. They called it true love. Not one person said my name. Like tomorrow's marriage license appointment had nothing to do with me. I laughed, bitter and weightless, floating above the ER as my heart monitor flatlined.

No wolf. No mate. No place in the world. On the night of her eighteenth birthday, Ava Cole waited for her wolf — and nothing came. In a kingdom built on strength, that made her nothing. Laughed at, cast out, and abused by everyone who should have loved her — including her own family — Ava learned to survive in the shadows of a world that had no use for her. Then she met her fated mate. Alpha Jackson Edgar, the powerful Alpha of Night Howl, took one look at the wolfless girl fate had chosen for him and said the words that shattered what little was left of her: I reject you. Heartbroken and alone, Ava stopped believing in the moon goddess, in fate, and in the idea that anyone could ever truly want her. She was done with second chances. She was done with hope. Until the Lycan King came. Sebastian Reynolds didn't come to Night Howl looking for a mate. But the moment his eyes found Ava, the bond was undeniable — fierce, consuming, and impossible to ignore. He wasn't asking her to trust a bond she had already watched destroy her. He was asking her to trust him. But Ava has been broken before. And just as she begins to lower her walls, Jackson resurfaces — realising too late what he threw away, and refusing to let another man claim what he now believes is his. Two powerful men. One wounded woman. And a choice that will change the fate of the entire kingdom. Will Ava risk her heart again — or will she let fear decide her future?