The Shadow He Left Ao3 Novels & Stories

My mother and sister never liked me. The only son they ever truly cared about was my older brother, Lucian Vieri. Before she married me, Serafina Valcieri, the only daughter of one of the most feared syndicates in the country, was always the one who stepped in when I was cornered, mocked, or blamed for things that were never mine to carry. She never said much. She just made people back off. Then she married me. Then, not long ago, Lucian shoved me off a ski slope. I said he meant to kill me. My mother called it an accident. My sister said he had only been trying to save me. Only Serafina believed me. When I woke up in the hospital, I heard voices outside the door. “Who told you to do it like that?” Serafina said, her voice low and cold. My mother answered in a panic. “Lucian’s leukemia can’t wait. If Cassian learns the baby isn’t his, everything falls apart.” Then Serafina said the words I still can’t forget. “I chose him, and I married him for my own reasons. But Lucian still needs this child. If anything had happened to Cassian, none of you would have walked away from it.” I stood there in silence, listening to every word. The child my wife was carrying was never mine. It had been conceived through IVF to save my brother. And the marriage I had trusted from the beginning had never belonged to me alone. I had spent my whole life coming second to Lucian. I just never thought Serafina would be the one to prove it. If no one truly wanted me, then I would leave.

My world fell apart on the day of my Luna ceremony. My mother and older brother approached me with bad news. My younger sister, Lilith, was cursed and did not have long to live. They wanted me to fulfill her only wish before death. She wanted to replace me as my Alpha, Fenris', mate. That included giving her my Luna ceremony. I was shocked and angry. I looked at Fenris as I expected him to reject this ridiculous suggestion as well. However, he nodded. "Don't worry, Selene," he said to me. He sounded so sincere. "This is only temporary. Once we've fulfilled Lilith's last wish, you'll be my mate forever." I was adamant about rejecting that suggestion. It was too crazy! However, my 'beloved' brother, Damian, forcefully dragged me off into the Dark Forest, where it was rampant with wild beasts. That was also when I realized I was pregnant with Fenris' child. My pregnancy weakened my strength tremendously, and I was mauled by the wild beasts while still alive. By the time everyone remembered me, all that was left of me was a rotting corpse lying in the forest.

"I wasn't done talking," he said. "In return for this favor, you're going to do something for me."Jia's face paled. "What's that, sir?" she asked, simply because she could feel him ordering her to, silently, with the cold look in his eyes..."You're going to work for me," he told her, his voice dripping venom. "Until you drop dead."---------Jia Moon is riddled with debt and the head of her household after her parents' death. After a disaster, she finds herself serving at the spoiled whim of Atlas Grayson, CEO - but things aren't quite as unequal as they seem.Oh, he has a lot more to contend with than he thinks!

Everyone in the upper circles knew I was the Xander family’s delicate little porcelain doll, someone who could not tolerate even the slightest grievance. I always had to sit in the seat of honor at gatherings. My drinks had to be served ice-cold. If anything annoyed me even a little, I would have my childhood friends clear the room. That was, until the fallen heiress returned. She did not rely on men. She had built her own business from scratch and was ruthless in the boardroom, radiating a wild, untamed beauty. Slowly, my dear brothers began to find me insufferable and too high-maintenance. When they pulled their investments from my gallery to back her projects instead, only my fiancé stayed by my side, comforting me. “Forget them. They’re all opportunists. I’ll always keep you safe in the palm of my hand!” That was until one day, I saw that same proud fiancé bent low like a servant, humbly wiping wine stains off the heiress's shoes in a corner of a club. His eyes were filled with a devotion I had never seen before. “All I need is one look from you, and I’ll drop the whole wedding.” I took off my engagement ring and tossed it into the drain. Then, I went home and told my grandfather, “Grandpa, I’m going to Africa for that development aid project. “I’ll agree to the arranged marriage. Just don’t make me see them again."

Three college girls Trish, Emma and Connie enjoy their friendship despite their different characters. Their life takes a twist one night when a handsome stranger Nick walks into their lives and steal the hearts of two of the girls. Nick wants Connie and this creates a war among friends. Schemes to destroy her life begins. Emma fakes her disappearance, seduces Connie's stepfather all this in an effort to destroy her. Trish create fake stories about Connie to destroy a relationship that she thought existed between her and Nick. Nick wants Connie but not for the reason her friends thinks, he wants her to pay for the colapse of Nick's brother Brian's business and his disappearance. Connie denies but Nick has evidence, photos of her and his brother. Connie's voice is ignored and she suffers blows from every direction driving her homeless. Brian resurfaces and every secret comes tumbling down like dominos. Connie has a twin and the mother she thought was hers is actually her aunt. Brian turns out to be her father and Nick apologies to Connie and they start their life on a new clean slate. Emma's affair comes out and her mother suffers a heart attack and Trish realizing that she might have judged her friend harshly leaves the country. Connie finally finds closure and peace.

Marcus's sixth patent had just gone through, and he said he was going to give me the grand proposal, the one that would close out four years of dating. The campus quad was covered in candles and roses. Marcus stood in the middle of it holding a bouquet, his eyes shining. He was halfway through his speech when his graduate student Claire threw herself into his arms. The plain silver band on her finger, identical to his, caught the candlelight. The crowd went still, then started murmuring. Every face turned toward them with the kind of look people get when they think they've stumbled onto a secret. And I was standing in the middle of that crowd. His girlfriend of four years, the one he had kept hidden the entire time, watching them hold each other. Watching him swallow the rest of his speech. Watching him hand my flowers to her. My phone buzzed in my hand. A message from S. "Sweetheart. Have you thought about it? We know we were wrong."

Life is hard, but for Delaney Waters, it’s especially harder. From the moment she was born, she was excluded due to the fact that she was born under a black moon, one of the worst moons in werewolf lore. Even Delaney’s mother treats her like everyone else; coldly. On her eighteenth birthday, everything changes unexpectedly for her because she finds her mate and he is none other than Alec Castell, the son of the Alpha. This discovery leads them both down a path from which there is no return, and Delaney, as always, gets the rough end of the stick. A terrible event ruins Delaney’s life indefinitely, turning her into someone callous and bitter, and with a thirst to get back at the world that treated her so cruelly and unfairly. Her quest for vengeance leads to discoveries that shatter her foundations and make her question her entire existence, turning everything she thought she knew about herself on its head. Will she succeed in overcoming her badly-written fate or will the past repeat itself once more?

My fiancé of eight years moved in with the junior he was mentoring. She was young, pretty, knew how to play helpless, and knew exactly what she was doing. He'd down every toast meant for her—the same nights he let me get talked into drinking until I nearly died. He sat with her through her depression, fetched her water, fed her by hand. And me? I was alone in a hospital bed, burning with a 104-degree fever. He set her up on a pedestal and never noticed I'd been ground into the dirt. The day they discharged me, I didn't scream. I didn't fall apart. I went home, quietly packed a suitcase, and burned every memory that had his name on it. Later I heard the famous CEO of Washington Group showed up at his fiancée's door with millions of dollars in gifts. He found an empty apartment. And he lost his mind.

Every person is unique. We might not have control over the things that distinguish us, DNA and all, but we are also formed by personal experience and the environment that grooms us. Lina, a girl who is extraordinary, meets Ashton who is astounding and they have a connection. Although there are some puzzles that have to be solved and obstacles they need to clear, they get together to fight all those and still come out on top. They manage to restore some things that were changed in the past, took down a stumbling block that proved to be a big obstacle in their interaction. Facing all these troubles brought them closer and formed a formidable bond that proved hard to break through difficult situations. A love that managed to withstand the differences between them.

I was twelve when Henry Shaw took me home from the orphanage, gave me a new name, put me through school, and gave me a good life. Ten years later, his first love returned from abroad. Her name sounded like mine, and her face looked like a mirror image. I quickly realized I had been a stand-in all along. Crushing the diagnosis in my pocket, I decided that I was going to live the rest of my life for myself, even if I did not have much time left.