Left 4 Dead Art Novels & Stories

On one mid-autumn day, my national classified mission finally came to an end. I dug out the phone I hadn't touched for four years, planning to call my wife, Nora Christie, and tell her that I'd be coming home. But the moment my phone screen lit up, I saw a public court notice declaring me… dead. I froze. Then, I looked closer. The person who had filed the petition to have me legally declared dead was Nora. Frowning with confusion, I dialed her number. With a soft chuckle, she brushed it off, saying that it must have been a clerical error by some court intern. Then, she asked when I would be coming home. Just when I was about to answer, I heard a soft, restrained moan from Nora. "Ah, don't touch me there…" Realizing something wasn't right, I told her that I would be back in a few more years before hanging up. Then, I grabbed the medal I had earned from four years of service to my country, and took the next train home. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw when I arrived. Right outside my front door, Nora was holding a wedding ceremony. The groom was Henry Crowley, the poor student I had sponsored!

04:00 AM. JFK International Airport. I switched off airplane mode, and my phone lit up. The first notification was an Instagram story from my husband, Donovan Valentino, Don of the Valentino family, posted at 3:30 AM: a photo of Seraphina Moretti’s back, captioned, “Run 50 completed. Package delivered safe.” An hour before that, my flight had hit catastrophic clear-air turbulence, dropping two thousand feet in seconds. I’d clung to my seatbelt until my knuckles turned white, the crumpled threat letter from a rival crew pressed like a blade against my ribs. In those blind, falling seconds, one thought burned through the panic: If I live through this—if Donovan is waiting at arrivals—I’ll tear up my transfer papers to Dubai and stay. But there were no missed calls. No messages. He’d been too busy collecting Seraphina. He knew my flight details. He just didn’t care. Four years of marriage. 50 fully armed security details for Seraphina. For my 112 long-haul flights over those same four years? The most I ever got was a driver in an unmarked sedan. Even the night Gambino’s crew tailed me from Manhattan, and I spent six hours locked in a diner bathroom. He didn’t pick up until dawn, after the twelfth try. My transfer to Dubai was confirmed. The signed divorce settlement was in my bag. This was the last time I’d ever come back for him.

Juliana da Vinci, went all out in rage to avenge the death of her family after her return from Malaysia in the year 2023. In the course of seeking vengeance, she learns she is the daughter of a prime angelic king and a werewolf's luna. An unraveled origin turned out to be a twist of faith which brought her into a contract relationship with an alpha werewolve. When the bond between them grew stronger, she had a one-night stand with him and became pregnant with his child. As she grew stronger, she became a threat to the vampires and an enemy to a league of angels sent to bring her home, because she now has the power of an angel and a werewolf combined. When the vampires who murdered her parents found out about her pregnancy, they came up with a plan to kill Juliana. Their plan causes them to make a deal with the angels, to help them capture the alpha, which will in turn devastate Juliana. When the alpha was captured, Juliana turned into their worst nightmare, assassinating them one after the other with accumulated wrath of vengeance for murdering her family and for taking into captivity her only lover. Her rage brought her enemies to her knees, putting to flight the angels, who soon left the vampires to face what they had unleashed alone. She again freed her mate and together they both went out with the pack to raid the camp of the vampires and to bring victory and peace to their domain: a battle that turned into a blood bath. Questions are, who is going to survive when all hell lets loose. Will there ever be room for a happy ending?

The first experiment in the world of retrieving memories after death succeeds, and my memories are going to be broadcast live all over the Internet. My dad has just learned about my death, but he only says in a disgusted tone, "Who would want to see the memories of someone who is selfish, mean, and has nothing commendable at all about them? Today is the wedding day of Zoe and Cameron. Pause the live broadcast and stop being so sickening!" Zoe is my stepsister, and Cameron is supposed to be my fiance. After that, my father finds out the truth from the live broadcast of my memories. He begs for my forgiveness tearfully but… I'm already dead.

My husband, Don Axel Thorne, died protecting me in a mob war. I was his widow for six years, until I turned thirty. The old guard of the Family told me it was time to move on. My friends told me to let him go. Even in my dreams, his bloody hands would cup my face, begging me to live again. So I agreed to an arranged marriage. But first, I went to his grave for one last goodbye. I’d just left the cemetery when a post appeared in my feed. [Thanks, hubby, for the six-year anniversary gift! A fifty-million-dollar penthouse in Miami!] My blood ran cold. My hands shook. The phone nearly slipped from my grip. In the photo, the man I buried six years ago was slipping a massive diamond onto another woman's finger. The background was a lavish penthouse. His style. I put my people on it. We had the location in minutes. Drove straight there. I knocked, the door opened, and I froze. The woman standing there was Seraphina. His adoptive sister. The one the Family exiled six years ago for her obsession with him.

When I was eighteen, Kael pulled my sister and me out of a rogue auction ring on the northern border. From that day on, I fought for him, bled for him, and helped him carve out his place among the northern packs. By the time his name carried weight across the borderlands, everyone knew I was the one who stood closest to his power. I thought that one day, he might finally look at me and see more than a weapon at his side. Then he brought home a soft-spoken Omega named Liora. “Mira, look at you. Covered in blood again.” “Wash up before you frighten Liora.” After that, everything changed. The pack began calling her future Luna. Kael took my blades away, tied an apron around my waist, and made me responsible for her every need. Whenever she slipped into places she should not have been, got hurt, and claimed I had frightened her out of jealousy, Kael believed her. Every punishment came with a reason. Neat enough to sound fair. Sharp enough to hurt. I accepted all of it. Because years ago, when I asked how I could repay him for saving my sister and me, Kael had said: “You want to repay me?” “Then do one hundred things for me.” I lowered my eyes to the yellowing notebook in my hands. Only three were left. When I finished them, I would owe him nothing. And then I would leave.

• My mom died saving me during a kidnapping. At least, that’s what everyone believed. My dad—once the man who spoiled me like his little princess—turned his grief into hatred. He adopted a girl who looked just like Mom and gave her all the love that used to be mine. For five years, I lived in that shadow, broken and unwanted. Until the day I was beaten and left for dead… and my mom came back. Alive. He used to call me his treasure. Now he calls me a curse. But the night my mom returned, everything shattered—his lies, his obsession, and the truth I was never meant to know.

For ten years, I spent by Damien Thorne's side, helping him transform from a servant's son into the powerful Alpha of Shadow Pack. I believed I would eventually see the day he'd claim me as his mate. Instead, he brought home Scarlett Rivers, his childhood sweetheart who had been living abroad, treating her like precious royalty while making her his Luna. To help his beloved Scarlett and free her parents from prison, Damien handed over my healing potion patents without hesitation. Even my own son was placed in Scarlett's care to secure her position as Shadow Pack's Luna. I became everything to Damien—his financial backer, his assistant, his healer, his bed partner—everything except what I truly wanted to be: his rightful mate. "Just wait a little longer," Damien always promised me. "Once I repay my debt to my childhood benefactor, you'll be my only mate." So, I kept waiting and waiting. But Damien seemed to forget his promises entirely. Even my own child began to despise me. Suddenly, exhaustion hit me like a tidal wave. Waiting felt pointless. I didn't want to do it anymore.

By the ninety-ninth day of Lux Vitale’s disappearance, all of Sicily had already accepted that she was dead. The Antara family held a funeral grand enough to shake the entire underworld. Standing before her grave, Lorenzo Antara, Don of the Antara family and her husband, mourned openly in front of police officials, family lawyers, and powerful business associates. Under the glare of reporters’ cameras, he even swore that for the next three years, no woman would ever take Lux’s place. However, when Lux finally returned to the seaside estate on Long Island, wounded, limping, and barely alive after months of captivity, she discovered that Lorenzo had not only broken his promise– He had already given another woman everything that once belonged to her. And that woman was none other than Bianca Vitale. The sister who had shared her name.

Just a few days before my wedding, I accidentally come across a post while scrolling online. The title reads, "To the guy getting married in this city, your fiancée's already cheated on you." Curious, I click in to see the gossip, only to realize I'm the one being talked about. A deep male voice plays in the video. "I heard you're getting married?" The woman in the frame, bare-backed and trembling, chokes back a sob. "After you left, I realized you're still the one I love most. I'm done with him. Take me away, please!" The moment I hear her voice, it feels like someone punches me straight in the chest. Then I notice something on her wrist—the luxury couple's bracelet I gave her just yesterday. And in that instant, I feel like the biggest joke of all. Turns out the fool was me.