Our Missing Hearts: A Novel Novels & Stories

She paused by the stone bench where she'd once sat with her journal and asked for a sign. Now she didn’t ask. She simply stood. Watching her breath rise. She hadn’t cried in weeks. Her days were full—classes with the postulants on childcare, service at the local soup kitchen, helping Mother Margaret manage the archives. People always said time healed. But Monet wasn’t sure healing was the right word. Time numbed. Time softened the sharp edges, blurred the vivid pain. But her heart? It still missed the shape of the Abbott house. The creaky stairs. The smell of pancakes on Sundays. The sound of Meredith humming off-key in the bathroom. Carter’s small hand reaching for hers.

The fourth Node was not a machine, nor was it a pool of lava; it was a localized, sentient storm trapped in a crystalline lattice that predated the birth of the moon. In the center of the highest, most ancient Isle, we found the Heart. It was a sphere of swirling white mist and jagged, sapphire lightning, suspended in a ring of floating, rune-carved pillars that seemed to hum at a frequency that resonated in the very marrow of my bones. The sound it made was a low, constant thrum—the heartbeat of the world's atmosphere.

My heart skipped a beat, my tears moist right then. I dropped to a crouch and held him, pressing my ear against his chest again. I could hear his heartbeat, thumping powerfully through his thin shirt. It was such a familiar sensation. It was Stan's heartbeat. As I closed my eyes, my tears flowed ever so quietly. We stayed like that for a while, and as I wiped my tears, I held Nathan firmly in my arms once more. "Please live a good life with Stan's heart." - Nathan walked with me to the gates of the orphanage, but I never once turned to look at him again.

"This is dead. It won't beat for you again. "We're finished. Your cousin was right. Chase is the one who matches your status. Let's just call it a bad dream. "The dream is over. I've paid my price. I accept it. "I wish you happiness." With that, I left the office. The moment I closed the door, I heard muffled sobbing from inside, restrained yet desperate. I felt nothing. I could not comfort her gently the way I once had when I saved her. I had underestimated how persistent Scarlett could be. To escape her, I requested a transfer out of the city with no set return date.

"That illegitimate child of yours isn't worthy of this blood." She ground her heel into the red puddle, speaking with venom in every word. "I'd rather pour it out to water the flowers than give it to you." At that moment, Danielle felt her heart shatter, and even breathing became painful. The VIP room door slammed shut with a heavy thud, sealing Meghan and Taylor away from the chaos outside. Danielle stumbled back to Olivia's hospital room and cradled her cold body, tears falling onto her pale face. As despair slowly overwhelmed her, her phone screen lit up.

The house felt empty, the maids’ eyes filled with endless pity whenever they looked at me. I tried calling Janet, but she didn’t pick up. A sinking feeling settled in my chest. Pressing my forehead lightly against the glass of my bedroom window, I missed his voice—the way it wrapped around me like a shield. Slowly, I walked back to the bed and sank into the pillows, clutching the sheets as though they could somehow hold his warmth. The mansion was too big, too cold without Nic, and every inch of me ached for his touch. I missed the way his arms wrapped around me—strong yet gentle—the way his fingertips traced my skin like I was precious. Even the silence pressed down heavier without the stea

staggered slightly, catching himself before falling. “It’s all of them,” he whispered. “Every message, every voice, every choice they tried to bury.” Lena stepped closer, eyes wide as she looked into the expanding grid. “This is what they were afraid of,” she said. “Not the Heart itself—the connection it creates.” Adrian nodded, feeling the truth of it pulse through his veins. The Heart wasn’t just a piece of technology. It was alive in a way no machine should be. It didn’t store data; it remembered. It carried echoes of intention, emotion, history. And now, it was showing them everything. The lights around them shifted, coalescing into shapes—faces, moments, fragments of the world outside.

he screamed. Hopelessness washed over me as I watched the tip of the blade get closer and closer. I squeezed my eyes shut, but the pain that I expected to feel never came. I opened my eyes, only to see James shielding me. The knife had pierced his heart through his back, and blood leaked endlessly from his lips. "I'm… filled with so much regret… Katherine. If I had… cherished you… perhaps we… could have grown old… together…" He reached out a hand, wanting to caress my cheek, but in the end, it fell bonelessly to his side before it reached me.

Aurora Wildheart stood in her third-floor guest room, her silver-blue eyes tracing the intricate patterns of the four-poster bed’s canopy, her thoughts a tempest of the missing women, and Vincent’s cryptic message: The shadows are restless. Stay safe. Her forbidden bond with the vampire liaison was a quiet anchor, yet the mystery of her past—lost before The Emerald Forest Pack took her in at seven—pressed heavier, whispering of secrets that could unravel her world.

ARWYN My body was pressed against another, radiating warmth that made me reluctant to wake, hoping to prolong the blissful sorcery enveloping me. My lashes fluttered open, revealing the familiar sight of books and towering shelves—I was still in the library. Surprisingly, I remembered the conversation I was having with Jagger about the dragons and Thrystan's brother, Nerys, whom I accidentally killed two years ago in the Spire. That mission haunted me for months, rendering me unable to function properly. I could only imagine how Thrystan must have felt, losing his older brother to such a horrible death.