When Flanders Failed Novels & Stories

My colleague, Nora Lewis, suddenly leaned over at the company annual dinner. “You managed to land such a tough project with Sanscape Group. Tell me, how many people did you sleep with to pull that off? “I’ve heard for ages that you’ve got a great body and that you’re quite the player. You really live up to the rumors!” Right after, she pretended to have misspoken and quickly covered her mouth. The dinner table, which had been bustling just moments ago, fell silent. Everyone exchanged meaningful glances before pricking up their ears in perfect unison. Then, they lowered their heads to play with their phones. I looked at her calmly and asked in return, “Does closing a business deal require sleeping with someone? I’ve been working for so long, and I never knew that. You must be quite the expert, Ms. Lewis?” Also, how come I’ve never heard that my dad’s company requires sleeping with someone to secure a project?

I'm the strongest warrior of the Silvermoon Pack. For ten years, I've been secretly in love with my Alpha, Aiden. The only wolfless Alpha. We grew up with nothing but each other. I bled for him. I cut down his enemies and searched for a cure to awaken his wolf. He promised me a place at the top—always by his side. The fated mate bond never snapped into place for us. It didn't matter. I loved him anyway. Then I found out the truth. His heart belonged to someone else. A she-wolf named Gianna. When a rival pack kidnapped her, Aiden sent me to get her back. I did, but I died. And so did my wolf. He welcomed Gianna home with open arms, ready for their Mating Ceremony, but he refused to believe I was dead. He thought I was just jealous, hiding in a fit of rage. He even ordered my banishment. But on the night of the full moon, as the entire pack gathered for their Alpha’s ceremony, my second-in-command crashed the altar in his war truck. He walked toward Aiden, carrying my blood-soaked body. Aiden’s body trembled. He collapsed to his knees, clutching his chest in agony. "I can feel it. The mate bond…it’s breaking. Rhea was my fated mate... How can she be dead?!"

During a battle between packs, both my adopted sister Chloe and I were injured. A Rogue tore me apart, leaving me a mangled heap of flesh and blood. My wolf was already fading from my spirit. But my Alpha mate, Damon, ran straight to Chloe. She had nothing more than a scratch on her face. He refused to use his Alpha power to save me, blaming me for the entire disaster. "Elena, if you hadn't slowed us down, none of this would have happened! How could Chloe have gotten hurt?" "You're not worth wasting the pack's resources on." In the end, I was left for dead in the forest, unclaimed and forgotten. And when the truth came out that I had died to save him? That cold-blooded Alpha who rejected me so viciously went insane.

From hatred to love, a bond was created between Rani and Sidd. Not without drastic challenges that are meant to separate them forever. Will their newly developed love withstand the challenges? Or will they allow their hatred to overpower their love and get separated forever?

When I got into a car accident, Carter was busy throwing a birthday party for his assistant. I was scrolling through my phone and somehow ended up tapping on the Love Pawnshop. Without really thinking, I hit the button to pawn my love. Five days later, the pawnshop took back every bit of love I had left to give, and there he was, Carter, on his knees, crying his heart out, begging me for another shot. But the thing is, once love is pawned, it’s almost impossible to get back.

My wedding starts at 12:00 pm on the dot. There are 58 tables, each table costing 8888 dollars. 120 bottles of premium liquor have been opened. 300 packs of top-tier cigarettes are unsealed. At 2:30 pm, all the guests have left the scene, leaving nothing but a huge mess behind. That's when a server hands me the bill. "It'll be 510 thousand dollars, miss." I'm left gobsmacked. "I'm a wedding guest, not the organizer." The groom is Charlie Humboldt, my ex-boyfriend. At the moment, he takes his pregnant bride, Sasha Fitch, by the hand while sneering at me. "Since you're here, you might as well foot the bill. Think of it as your way of compensating for my youth." Charlie's mother, Melissa Carlton, moves to block the door. "If you're not paying the bill, then you can forget about leaving. No one wants you anyway, so you might as well stay here and pay off your debt by working as a dishwasher!" As I stare at the shameless family, I dig out my phone quietly. What they don't know is that this five-star hotel is a gift from my dad to me.

Flynn Watson, the actual heir of the Watson family, reported me for cheating during the exams. As I stared at both copies of the test papers with perfect grades and the same answers, I found it difficult to explain what happened. Everyone took Flynn's side. Because of that, I was painted as a cheater, which resulted in my exile from the Watson family. The Watsons went as far as to get me blacklisted from all industries just so they could appease Flynn. I ended up on the streets as a homeless person, where I got tormented incessantly. In a daze, I got hit by a car. I still failed to understand why my test papers would show the same answers as Flynn's even when I was on death's door. When I open my eyes again, I've gotten reborn on the day of the exams. This time, I choose to not write anything on the exam papers at all. I'd like to see just how I can be branded as a cheater now that I'm not given any marks at all.

In a pack, your mate comes before everything else. But my boyfriend Kyle always put Lina first. When my fever hit 104°F and I needed him most, he was out patrolling with Lina. He said, "You're still able to call me, aren't you? How sick can you be?" Later, when my back injury flared up again, he was helping Lina move. On my birthday, he was buying Lina a moonstone pendant. But back when I asked him for a gift, he said, "I love you. You know that. I just don't like giving gifts. It feels too formal." That was the moment I finally understood. He never hated giving gifts. He just never wanted to give me one. On the day I left, he chose Lina again, as always. I just quietly packed my things. He didn't know that today was the day I would leave him for good.

When I was eight months pregnant, my Beta mate Derek's mistress offended the Alpha and was sentenced to three months in silver prison. Derek wanted me to serve her time. I stared at him in disbelief. "I'm carrying our child. How can I go to prison? What if something happens to the baby—" He roughly cut me off. "It's just three months, isn't it? Your wolf is so strong, but Sophia is just an Omega. Could you really bear to watch her die?" He forcibly threw me into prison to take punishment for his precious Sophia, where I was whipped with silver chains. Through this ordeal, my wolf nearly died. That day, I had a lot of bleeding during childbirth and almost went into shock. Meanwhile, the photos of him in bed with his mistress spread all over the pack. When Derek’s brother Ethan, who had a crush on me for many years, rushed to the hospital, my voice was eerily calm. "You are right. Derek is not worthy of being my mate. You promised me that once I gave birth to the child, you would help me leave. I want to break my mate bond with Derek."

I went to try on my wedding gown with Lorenzo—my fiancé, the Don of the Morretti family. My younger sister, Serafina, begged to come along. I stepped out from behind the velvet curtain. There she was, pinning a brooch to his lapel. I opened my mouth to say, “Let me do that,” but the photographer had already turned to her with a grin. “Newlyweds, look this way.” They both turned. The camera clicked twice, and the photographer brushed past me. Ninety-nine shots. Every single one of Serafina and Lorenzo. Not one of me—the actual bride. I stood there, hollow. When we were children, they always played bride and groom. I clapped on cue. When we grew up, they sat at the head of family councils; I made their coffee and kept the kitchen running. “Vittoria, hand me the veil.” Lorenzo saw I hadn’t moved, walked over, and gently pulled the tulle from my stiff fingers. “Why are you standing there like that? Go check the seating chart with the butler. I’ll join you after we finish Serafina’s shots.” The photographer lifted one eye from behind his camera. “Miss Vittoria, would you step back a little? You’re blocking the light.” I stepped all the way back to the heavy drapes by the window. And right there, it hit me—how absurd this all was. If this political marriage didn’t actually need me, then I didn’t need to show up for it either.