We Never Know Artinya Novels & Stories

Restaurateur and self-exiled heir Lucien Lenault's first look at the breathtaking young chef trainee for his trendy Chicago restaurant is a shock. She’s Elise Martin, daughter of a wealthy French fashion designer. She’s also the holder of a secret that could explode his carefully laid plans. Notorious for her flagrant exhibitionism, and for flouting the respectable façade of her aristocratic background, the coquine’s wild streak shocked most people. Not Lucien. He was tempted by it. It was a deliriously punishable offense as far as Lucien was concerned. But taking on Elise is more than a game. She’s a catastrophe waiting to happen, an inferno that’s burned many a lover. Lucien isn’t most men, however, and he won’t allow her to manipulate him. In order to control the defiant beauty—in order to see her submit—he’s going to have to willingly walk in the flames…

When we get into a car accident, I use all my strength to push my mother, Sheila Carver, out of the way. But after Mom is saved, she completely ignores me as I lie trapped under the wreckage. Instead, she immediately leads the rescue team over to my younger brother, Lance Howell, who has only scraped his knee, and frantically makes sure it gets disinfected and bandaged. With the last bit of my strength, I beg Mom to save me. But she simply shouts at me with annoyance, "Can't you pick a better time to fight for attention? Do you have any idea that Lance could have been left with a scar?" Soon after, I die from lack of urgent care, and my body turns cold. Mom, however, loses her mind overnight.

‘So, this is the end.’ … In one life, Valerie, Luna of the Eclipse pack, had died for her a mate who didn't love her, a family who only saw faults in her and a pack who never respected her, all of them favouring Alyn, her adopted sister. She spent her last life in misery with regret, her sisters mocking sneer and the absence of family couldn't even be there in her last moments. But now, she was reborn. Waking up months before her death, ready to change her fate, this time, she knew what she had to do; renounce her Luna position, the mate bond, and leave behind the people who never cared for her. It was the best solution for her…and her unborn child. Yet when facing the mate who once hated her, his gaze had changed completely. The ties she'd believed were untangled long ago have now returned more complicated, especially when another Alpha vies for her affection. And when it comes to leaving the past behind and letting go, which path should she choose?

The day before my wedding, I went to our cathedral early to get familiar with the place. Instead, I found my fiancé and my stepsister, Isabella fucking on the altar. Our altar. I caught them. He didn't even apologize and just threw me out into the storm. I collapsed in the pouring rain. That’s when he found me. Alistair, the Vampire Prince. He moved like a god through the storm. He pulled me from the mud, and gave me a palace. He told the world I was his soulmate. The one he’d spent centuries searching for. His one and only. For five years, his devotion made me the envy of the supernatural world. I thought I was the one exception in his eternal life. Until I found his secret room. My fingers brushed against an ancient scroll. The script was written in blood. The first line was her name: Isabella. Beneath it, in Alistair's own hand: “Absolute priority. Above all else.” Underneath was a healer's log I’d never seen before. A vampire's healing log. The date was from the night I found out I was pregnant. The night I was attacked by werewolves. They brought me back to the castle, covered in blood. The healers never came for me. I woke up alone. The baby was gone. Our child. His blood, my blood—gone. And my clothes were soaked in what was left of it. I cleaned every trace of it. When he came home, I broke down in his arms. I never told him. I couldn’t bear for him to feel the pain I felt. Now I understood. That same night, Isabella was also being attacked by werewolves. And Alistair’s order to his council was: “Send every healer. Isabella is the priority.” My heart stopped. Despair was a poison in my veins. “If I was never the one... then you can keep your eternity. I want no part of it.”

He was supposed to heal quietly… not fall for his savior. After barely surviving a bullet to the chest and the betrayal of the only person he thought loved him, Jeremiah wanted nothing more than to disappear and mend in silence and forget. But then Everett Blackthorne shows up. Sharp-eyed, too intense… and too interested. Unsettling Jeremiah in all the wrong ways and making him feel things he doesn’t understand and is too afraid to admit. When dark secrets start surfacing, their connection becomes dangerous, not just for their hearts, but for their lives. Jeremiah has already survived hell once. But this time, it’s not just his past chasing him. It’s something older. Something darker. And it won’t stop until it drags him back.

My wife has a severe sex addiction. But in the seven years we've been married, she never lets me touch her. To suppress her urges, she spends all day submerged in ice-cold water, and her arms are covered in needle marks. Several times, I try to initiate intimacy out of concern for her, but her reaction is terrifying. She even threatens to kill herself. "I told you, I only want a Platonic relationship in this lifetime. Can you stop being so selfish? If you insist on making me do that, I'd rather die!" she exclaims. She maintains this unusual obsession for seven years. Even after ending up in the hospital multiple times from suppressing her desires, she refuses to cross that line. Then, on our wedding anniversary, a man comes in for a pre-check of his phalloplasty enlargement for the ninth time. After the anesthesia takes effect, he begins rambling incoherently. "Honey, I love you so much." Looking at the surgical scars, I shake my head, thinking this guy is really willing to go to extreme lengths for his wife. Then, I hear his final murmur. "Tasha, aren't I so much better compared to your useless husband?" My hand jerks, and I nearly drop the scalpel. It is because my wife's name is Tasha Snyder.

When my wife, Rebecca Walsh, misses my chemotherapy session for the 99th time, I come across a post on social media. "I won my lover's heart with a kidney. She will surely love me to death, right?" The attached photo shows a couple kissing on a street in Targon. The woman has a small heart-shaped scar on her neck. What a coincidence—it is exactly the same as Rebecca's. The woman who nearly dies for me falls in love with someone else so easily. The comments below are full of encouragement from strangers. "Man, you're so brave. Wishing you everlasting love." "If I were the woman, I would love you to death." I leave a comment too. "I hope you are together until you are in the depths of hell, you cheating pair. As for me, the husband, I will step aside to make way for you." One minute later, the post disappears. It doesn't matter. I post on my own account. I write, "After I spent three years battling cancer, my wife fell in love with the man who's supposed to be the kidney donor." The attached images are our marriage certificate and the same photo of them kissing from earlier.

Three years after my death, Naomi Dudley—the woman I've driven away—finally returns to Avenport. She is still with Bryson Lloyd. She leans into him, looking sweet and submissive. At the story's end, the main couple's sweet romance continues. The only one who meets a miserable end is me, the villain who dares to steal the female lead. They are here to visit her mother's grave, and I happen to be buried just a short distance away. I float beside Naomi, looking at her and Bryson. They really do look like the perfect couple. Once the candle burns down, Naomi finds an excuse to send Bryson away. She walks over to my headstone and stands there in silence for a long time. So long that I assume she is just trying to find the right words to curse me. Instead, tears well up as she smiles and touches my photograph on the stone. "Kenneth, why haven't you visited my dreams?" I suppose it's because I'm not Bryson. My lingering regrets will never reach her dreams.

The Mad Donna He Never Really Married For three years, I was Donna of the rising Valenti family. One day, Enzo was holding a meeting at a private cigar club. I worried about his stomach issues, so I went to bring him his usual antacids. Standing outside the private room, I heard his men laughing. “Don Enzo, are you really going to keep Clara hidden away at the Silver Lake villa forever?” “That mad Moretti heiress in the main house is still parading around as Donna of the Valenti family.” Enzo rubbed the bridge of his nose and scoffed. “If she hadn’t taken a bullet to the head for me and gone insane, and if I hadn’t desperately needed her family’s capital, I never would have married a woman with no blood ties to the life.” “But Clara is my legal wife. The family trust, the marriage certificate at City Hall, it’s all in her name.” “Stella’s just a plaything I keep at the main house. Once Clara gives birth to an heir, I’ll bring her home for good.” My knuckles turned white as I squeezed the small box of medicine, the cardboard crumpling in my hand. He had exchanged blood oaths and rings with me in the church, yet it was Clara who had signed the papers at City Hall. He played me for a fool, all to keep Clara’s reputation clean. Clutching the box, I turned and melted back into the shadows. He had no idea my sanity had returned three days ago. He would never guess I had already sent an encrypted message to my brother, who runs a business empire from our home in Solaria, far across the sea. I was done with this goddamn Valenti title.

On the seventh day after my dad's passing, I head over to the funeral home to wrap up the aftermath of the funeral as well as pack up my dad's personal effects. That's when an employee stops me and demands that I cough up an additional 100 thousand dollars for the storage and preservation of my dad's corpse. I'm stunned, to say the least. Dad has already gotten cremated and buried a long time ago. His ashes are already deposited inside the graveyard, as we speak. So, how is his body getting stored and preserved throughout the week? I use facts and logic to argue with the employee. But he has the gall to threaten me with an impatient scowl on his face. "Stop yapping already! The system shows that your father's body is still inside the cold storage! It's been seven days, so you must pay 100 thousand dollars, no matter what! If you refuse to settle the payment, you can forget about taking your father's personal effects with you! "When the time comes, you have to cough up the additional charges as well! If not, I shall see you at court!" As I stare at the hostile employee, I can feel rage simmering in my blood. Still, I call every family member and relative I have to borrow 100 thousand dollars from them just so I can make the payment. With the receipt in hand, I walk into the police station right away. "Officer, my dad was cremated and buried seven days ago. But the funeral home decided to charge me 100 thousand dollars' worth of storage and preservation fees for no reason! I suspect that they didn't send my father off the proper way!" When the police show up at the funeral home, the same employee who threatened me looks alarmed. He quickly gets his manager, Mr. Lawson, to deal with the situation. Impatience is etched all over Mr. Lawson's face as he snaps at me, "Your father has already gone through the cremation process seven days ago. The procedure and all the receipts are intact. Don't you dare kick up a fuss irrationally now!" I let out a cold chuckle in return before showing Mr. Lawson the receipt. "I'm being irrational, you say? I've just paid for the storage fees of my father's corpse, and here's the receipt to prove the validity of the transaction! You must return my father to me today!" I thought the funeral home insisted on charging me earlier. Now, they'd better fulfill their side of the bargain by returning my dad's corpse to me without a single hair out of place!