The Great North Review Novels & Stories

Three days before the wedding, I was cleaning out some old boxes when I remembered the time capsule Natasha Rowe and I buried ten years ago. When I mentioned it, her face stiffened for a moment. She quickly tried to talk me out of going. "It's been so long," she said. "Someone probably dug it up already." I didn't think much of it and went back to our old high school alone. At the spot where we buried it, I started digging. Instead of one box, I pulled out five metal containers of different sizes. Two of them were the ones Natasha and I buried ten years ago, their surfaces rusted and worn. But there were three others. One of them was just as rusted as ours. The other two looked almost brand new. The old extra box had a name scratched into the lid. Vince Houle. On it were the words, [My secret crush was a war I fought alone. Natasha, I hope you're happy.] I remembered him then. He had been a quiet guy who sat behind us in class. The kind of student no one really noticed. The two newer boxes had names carved into them, too. Natasha and Vince. The date etched into both of them was today. On Natasha's box were the words, [The greatest regret of my life is that I couldn't marry you.] On Vince's box were the words, [The greatest regret of my life is that I can't openly congratulate you on getting married.]

Fate has offered a second chance, but there’s always a price. Years ago, Claire’s sister loved Bodie’s brother enough to elope with him. Humans and wolf-shifters aren’t allowed to mate, but they would have defied convention if a terrible car accident hadn’t killed the young lovers and left Claire scarred and broken. She never confessed her crush to Bodie, but he knew and didn’t act on it then. She was too young and too human back then. Now, she copes by hiding from the world. When future Alpha Bodie comes back into her life, it forces her to truly live again. The attraction sparks anew, and he sees her beauty inside and out. There might finally be a chance for happiness, but old prejudices remain on both sides. The mysterious Human Purity Movement starts harassing the shifter sanctuary town of Northstar, and the pack responds. With intolerance on both sides trying to pull them apart, Claire and Bodie cling desperately to each other. She’s determined not to lose him, and he swears he’ll walk away from everything for her. They’re committed, but the final test facing them is the worst, and it could be enough to pull them apart and destroy the entire shifter community.

In my last life, Kyle Ravenwood and I were the mate pair every wolf in Ravenwood Pack envied. He was the Alpha of our pack. I was Alia Blackthorn, his fated mate and the Luna he had chosen in front of the Moon Council. Under the full-moon bonfire, he went down on one knee, took my hand, and swore he would never recognize anyone but me as his Luna. After that, we led Ravenwood together until our hair turned silver. So when I opened my eyes and found myself back at the beginning, before his public Luna announcement, I thought he would come for me again. Instead, I heard him in the healer's back room, speaking in a low voice to his most trusted guard. "In my last life, Lila was sent to the Frostfang Pack as an alliance bride. She didn't survive a year there. I can't watch that happen again." "I’ll complete the mate contract with Lila first. Two days from now, once she gets past that death trap, I’ll break the contract and go back for Alia." His guard sounded uneasy. "And Miss Alia? She’s your fated mate." Kyle fell silent for a moment. When he answered, his voice was so low it seemed pressed down by the dark. "The witch’s forgetting potion will make her forget me for a while. When this is over, I’ll bring her the antidote and make her remember. She loves me. She’ll understand." He didn’t know I was standing right outside the door. He didn’t know the witch’s forgetting potion had never had a true antidote. Two days from now, I’ll forget him completely.

I was with Don Massimo for five years. The whole time, he never hid his favorite: Cara. His driver’s daughter. The man who took a bullet for him. He called it paying a debt. Like a fool, I bought it. He gave her jewels. Fast cars. He even bought her an island. Three days before the wedding, I found out he'd moved the venue. Not to my family's estate in Sicily. But to the island. Her island. His excuse? Cara was claustrophobic. Couldn't handle a big indoor wedding. I was done. Three days later, the wedding happened on that island. But the bride was a no-show. Massimo was publicly humiliated. He tore the city apart looking for me. That’s when he found out. He thought he was marrying me. Instead, I married his greatest enemy. Nikolai Volkov. The Godfather of the Russian Bratva. He ditched Cara. He ran to my family's estate and waited. Seven days and nights. With flowers, a ring, and a whole lot of begging.

They say that the most powerful weapon in the world is the human soul that is on fire. Filled with pion and sacred possession. Life would be more fearless with a flaming soul that is ready to do anything for their greatest love. Louen a 21-year-old college is a revel child that makes a lot of wrong decisions in her life that leads her to a ing club and that place became her roller coaster ride and named as ‘The Greatest er’ and meet this rich guy named Leusam Timothy Jimenez 29 years old, rich CEO that accidently got her pregnant. That turns her life up-side down.

To the world, Felix and I were fated by the Moon Goddess, an Omega and her destined Alpha. Only I knew how much he despised me. At his Alpha ceremony, he humiliated me before the entire pack by choosing my half-sister, Bianca, over me. “An Omega who plays with herbs? You’ll never be worthy of me.” In my past life, I begged him not to reject me. He didn’t, but he made me suffer instead. My stepmother and Bianca framed me for poisoning the pack. He never defended me. He locked me in heat, then turned around and marked Bianca, like I was nothing. She wore his mark. I wore his shame. I was framed, cast out, and discarded. When he publicly crowned Bianca as his Luna, our bond shattered and so did my wolf. It was then I realized, he had never loved me. But now, I’m back. Back on the day of his Alpha ceremony. In this life, I’d rather suffer than be his mate again. “I, Reiley, rejected you, Felix, as my mate.”

Alice Watson knew the rules of her marriage the day she walked into it: don't expect love, don't ask for respect, and never, ever remind the Alpha that the child he refuses to acknowledge exists. She obeyed those rules for four years — invisible, silent, slowly disappearing inside a pack that treated her like furniture. Then her son Lucian was given one month to live. "I agree to divorce you. But you will be a father to him until his birthday. Thirty days. That's all I'm asking." Benjamin agreed. He thought he was buying his freedom. Instead, he bought a front-row seat to the destruction of everything he believed about the woman he married. As he's forced to spend time with Lucian and really see him — the ice around his contempt begins to crack. And the woman he dismissed as scheming and dull turns out to be someone he's been deliberately refusing to see: powerful, fierce, and carrying a secret identity that could bring his world to its knees. But the thirty days shatter before they end. On a dark road, with Lucian dying in her arms, Benjamin abandons them both — driving away to save another woman's child while his own son slips away. Three years pass. Alice rebuilds herself from nothing — becoming a doctor, a researcher, the woman Benjamin never allowed her to be. When she returns to Blue Moon territory as the head of a medical program, she's not the wife who signed divorce papers with a trembling hand. She's Dr. Alice Watson. And Benjamin Kane, still clutching the unsigned divorce papers he could never bring himself to file, realizes he's been staring at the wrong woman for his entire life.

Alessia returned from the hospital with a truth that shattered everything she had believed for four years. A truth that meant… she had never been the problem. But before she could even process it— “Prepare the guestroom.” “For who?” “Vanessa. She’s moving in tomorrow.” Vanessa. Her ex-colleague now her husband’s mistress. The woman now carrying his child. The same woman who had taken her place at work… in her home… in her marriage. Or so they all believed. Because what none of them knew, was that Alessia had been living a carefully constructed lie. And now that she knew the truth, everything began to change. Especially after the day her husband stood by and watched her collapse… and chose another woman over her life. That was the day something in Alessia went silent. She made that decision. They had no idea who she really was. And when the truth finally comes out… It won’t just break them, it will ruin them.

“Grandfather, please don't marry me off to this waste of space. He is just a lowlife that is sick, carrying diseases around, and being gross!” Ava said, getting more and more enraged with each word coming from her mouth. “That's enough! Ava, stop that right now!” Mrs. Taylor said. “Don’t order your grandfather!” “If you insist on giving Ava to me, I would walk out of here now and never look back. A woman like her is not something that interests me.” Zane said, his voice steady as he met the old man's eyes, his words pissing Ava and her parents off.

“The final judgment has been made,” Alpha Derrick said. “Liam will be burned alive…” He paused, his eyes turning to me. “And Oprah will be buried alive for committing such an atrocious crime!” ********* She was his Luna. His mate. His everything. Until he chose to believe the lie. Accused of betrayal, rejected by her own mate, and sentenced to be buried alive while carrying his child, Oprah watched her world burn at the hands of the man she loved. But death didn’t take her. It remade her. Four years later, she returns, not as the broken woman he destroyed, but as a powerful and untouchable queen, hiding behind wealth, beauty, and a name the world fears. And she didn’t come back alone. When Alpha Derrick comes face to face with the woman he buried… and the child who looks exactly like him, his world begins to crumble. Because some mistakes don’t fade. They come back, with vengeance. Tour with me, for more in THE ALPHA'S GREATEST MISTAKE.