Short Stories & Novels

To cash in on a massive life insurance policy, my wife Vanessa Rowe pushed me into the Demon Pit. She had been seeing someone behind my back for a long time, and killing me had been her way to buy her lover a gold sports car. I stood at the edge of the abyss and looked at her one last time. “You are sure about this? Killing me for him. No regrets?” Vanessa laughed and held on to Troy Merritt’s arm. “Regrets? Why would I have regrets? Troy is one of the Demon King’s most trusted men. He only has to put in a word for me, and I get to stay young forever. “You are only a mortal. You age, you get sick, you die. What made you think you ever deserved me?” She shoved me over the edge without a second thought. She did not know that I had been the Demon King. The Demon Pit had been my domain. As for this so‑called trusted man of mine, I had never heard of him.

At forty-eight, lifelong spinster Eleanor Pembroke finally married. On their wedding night, her husband, the country's most celebrated seer, lifted her veil and spoke without warning. "Eleanor, the three fortunes I gave you thirty years ago were deliberately false." Her body went rigid. "First, I said you were born under a ruinous star and would destroy your family. In truth, your chart was exceptionally fortunate and perfectly matched mine. "Second, I said only years of hardship and self-denial could save your dying mother. I gave the medicine to your stepmother instead, and Harriet died within the first year. "Third, I said we would reunite after thirty years. You remained unmarried, while I had already married your older half-sister." Seeing her disbelief, Silas Wycliffe tried to comfort her. "Your sister once saved my life and asked three favors. A couple should repay debts together. "I have always valued honesty, so I didn't want to hide it from you. "Eleanor, don't feel wronged. I calculated that we have another life. I will make everything up to you then."

My mother was a control freak of the highest order. To keep a tighter grip on me, she created a burner account, posed as a sympathetic older-sister type, and became the person I confided in online. She even started a thread about it, practically glowing with pride. [He sends me his bank passwords and private photos of his crush all on his own! Once he gets into a top school, I'm applying as his dorm supervisor. When he gets married, I'm hiding under their bed!] I scrolled through the comments. Tons of people were ripping her to shreds. I laughed. She thought she had total control. She had no idea I was feeding her exactly what I wanted her to see. The bank password I sent two days ago was fake. The 'private photos of my crush' were stock images I pulled off the internet. I took my time typing out a message: [Hey, my dad brought a woman home last night. They were making out on the couch. I secretly recorded it. Want to see?] A scream ripped through the wall from the next room. I put my headphones on and leaned back. The show was just getting started.

The police officer turned the tablet screen around and held it in front of me. I stared at it for several seconds and read the information again and again. The household registration system showed my family status: divorced, one child. Child’s name: Luke Zane. Date of birth: June 1, 2019. My name was Maya Delaney. I was female, unmarried. "Miss Delaney." The officer frowned. "The child got separated from his family at the mall. As his only legal guardian, how can you deny that you ever gave birth to him?" On June 1, 2019, I worked as an exhibition planner and flew all over the country. I spent nearly 300 nights a year in budget hotels or curled up in plastic airport chairs. On Children’s Day, my ride‑hailing records showed my exhausted trip at 3 o’clock in the morning from the international expo center to the airport. I was so busy I barely had time to find a boyfriend. I could not have had a child. So then, whose child was the five‑year‑old boy who sat on the police station bench and cried his eyes out?

On the first day I returned to the Schmidt family, my parents told me, "Christina, you may be our biological daughter, but Jenny has been part of this family for fifteen years. She's a daughter of the Schmidt family too. "A biological daughter and an adopted daughter are both our daughters. We love you both equally." To make sure no one could accuse them of favoring either of us, they said every important decision from then on would be made by drawing lots. A red stick meant the better outcome, and a white stick meant the worse one. It was fair and impartial. Over the past three years, we drew lots 47 times for matters big and small, but not once did I draw a red stick. I truly believed I was just unlucky. It wasn't until the 48th drawing. This time, the Schmidt family had to send one person to the countryside. Whoever drew the white stick would be sent to the countryside, and whoever drew the red stick would stay in the city and start working there. As I passed the study, I overheard Mom speaking to Dad. "Don't forget to replace tomorrow's sticks with two white ones. Jenny's body is too weak. She can't endure the hardship of being sent to the countryside. "Christina spent fifteen years in the countryside. She's used to it." I stood outside the door while still holding the glass of warm milk I had just prepared for myself. The glass felt hot in my palm, yet no warmth could reach the chill that had settled deep inside my heart. It turned out nothing had been fair over the last three years.

I was in the middle of a shift when my coworker, Denise Sutton, popped up out of nowhere and slapped me on the shoulder. "Next week is Gerald's birthday, and your family happens to run a seafood restaurant. So here's the plan — I'll chip in ninety-nine dollars, and we'll all go over to your place for a feast to celebrate." Denise counted off the menu on her fingers. "We need lobster and king crab, the fish has to be live-caught grouper, don't skimp on the appetizers, and stock up on beer and soda. Gerald's got gout, so go easy on the shellfish for him. Make sure everything's perfect — don't embarrass our department." She gave me a playful nudge, waggling her eyebrows. "Once Gerald's happy, he'll cut you a bonus worth a few thousand. Won't that make you happy?" "You get paid, you get noticed, and the boss ends up in a good mood. Amy, you'd better be properly grateful to me." I just stared at her, baffled. My family ran a breakfast counter that sold meat pies. Where exactly was the seafood supposed to come from? I turned Denise down flat. Denise just rolled her eyes and walked off. That night, a sign-up thread went out in the work group chat. "Gerald's birthday party is Saturday. I'm treating everyone to a seafood feast, all you can eat, and you can bring family. Reply if you're coming!" The chat erupted in cheers. In under ten minutes, more than fifty people had signed up. [My dad's never even had lobster. Guess he's finally getting cultured, thanks to Denise!] [My kid's obsessed with tuna. Get extra servings for her.] Denise agreed to everything without hesitation, dropped a location pin in the chat, and sent me ninety-nine dollars. Denise: [Amy, hold onto the money. The ingredients better be fresh — don't you dare shortchange your own coworkers.] I looked at the pinned location and smiled. It was the upscale seafood restaurant next door to my family's shop — owned by a man who'd gone straight a few years back after a rougher life, with tattoos running all the way up to his chin. The last person who'd tried to dine and dash there still hadn't gotten out of bed.

To save my mother who's been bitten by a zombie, I exchange my own kidney for the only vial of serum that's available. I'm not given any anesthetic during the surgery. I bite down on a wooden rod until it snaps, but I still don't make a single sound. But when I rush back to the shelter to look for Mom, I catch her talking to someone on the phone. "You should drop the act soon, Mrs. Sawyer. Mr. Sawyer is going to collapse if this continues!" I recognize the voice. It belongs to Mom's assistant, Richard Peterson. "What's the rush?" Mom replies flippantly. "Although Terence is my son, he's never faced any hardship since he was a child. He doesn't know how hard it is to earn money. "I had to overcome many challenges before I became the richest person in the city. What if Terence is only treating me well for my money? He must pass this test to prove that his love for me is genuine." I clench my fists. The life-saving serum drops to the floor. It turns out that the apocalypse and the man-eating zombies aren't real. I have carried Mom on my back while darting through ruins for the last month. I eat rotten meat and even sacrifice my kidney without any hesitation for her, but everything is just part of a test that she designed. I look down at the bloody hole that wasn't stitched up properly on the side of my waist. Mom thinks that everything is just part of an act, but she has no idea that the doctor who wandered onto the set and performed the surgery on me is real.

After working as a dishwasher abroad for five years, I've finally paid off all the debts my wife, Nora Palmer, owes. I'm thinking of going back home to give Nora a surprise. But when I get home with our son, Rick Moore, I realize that our rented apartment is worn-down and locked. A neighbor who's passing by asks in shock, "Didn't you break up with Nora? What are you doing here?" I immediately head to Nora's office, but the receptionist stops me. "Are you looking for Ms. Palmer? It's her child's sip-and-see party today, so she's not at work." A notification rings on my phone, and the contents show up on the screen. "CEO of Palmer Group, Nora Palmer, drops millions of dollars on her child's extravagant sip-and-see party, and the couple looks completely in love!" Just then, I receive a voice message from Nora. "Honey, I bought some clothes on discount for Rick online, and they're getting delivered to your place today. Remember to pick up the package, okay?" In the background, I can hear the grin in a man's voice as he says in a teasing tone, "The bet is already over. How much longer are you going to fool Adam with that fake marriage certificate? You've been pretending to be poor for years. Haven't you had enough?" I have had my doubts before, but this confirms it. All this while, I'm the only one who's actually penniless. Turns out, after all that hassle, I have turned into the homewrecker instead.

For three years, I worked for my coworkers for free—designing, covering for their mistakes, cleaning up their messes. They used my work to get promoted, to win awards, even to run side jobs on the sly, and I never took a cent for any of it. Then I single-handedly landed the hardest client project the company had ever taken on and walked away with a hundred-thousand-dollar bonus. That was the day everyone lost their minds. The same people who'd leeched off me the hardest led the charge, cornering me at my desk and tearing into me in front of the whole office. "The whole concept for that project was a team effort. What gives you the right to keep the bonus for yourself?" "Your work has always been garbage. That free labor of yours was never worth anything anyway!" Worse, they spent the whole night digging up old grievances, stitching together every minor slip-up they could find, and spreading rumors through the entire company—that I'd stalled projects, that my work was worthless, that I'd tanked the department's numbers. Finally, they gave me an ultimatum. "Either split the entire bonus with the department, or pay us two hundred thousand dollars for our trouble. Take your pick." Even the department manager tried to smooth things over, telling me, "We're all colleagues here. You've already got a big bonus—taking a small loss won't kill you. Don't be so difficult about it." Wonderful. So three years of quietly covering for everyone had just produced a pack of lazy, credit-stealing backstabbers. Since they wanted to gang up on the one person who'd always played fair, fine. I was going to lay out three years of original files, timestamps, and proof of exactly who'd done the work—all of it, all at once. And what none of them knew was that the special project behind my bonus was an AI system built to replace every single one of them.

A hurricane leaves me trapped in an underground parking garage. As the floodwaters pour in and almost rise past my windshield, I finally manage to get ahold of my fiance, William Quentin, the captain of a local rescue team. But Sierra Langley, his childhood sweetheart, is the one who answers the call. "Will is fixing a leak on my balcony, Jennifer. Can you stop being so possessive?" Before I can say anything, Sierra hangs up. Once my car is fully submerged, I grit my teeth and smash the window. Then, I fight my way out of the vehicle and swim to safety. After making it to safety, I pull out my phone. There's only 1% battery left, but I find a message from William. "She lives on a high floor and is terrified of thunder. Whatever it is, it can wait until the hurricane passes." I wipe the blood and rainwater off of my forehead before I remove my engagement ring and toss it into the muddy water. Then, I calmly send him a one-word reply. "Okay."

The day my SAT score comes in, I automatically call out to the living room. "Mom, Dad, I got 1570! I can go to college in Brookmere with Paige and Julia now!" But only silence answers me. Four rag dolls sit on the couch—Mom, Dad, my sister, Paige Hunt, and my childhood best friend, Julia Andrews. They stare back at me with round eyes, keeping me company quietly just like they have for countless nights. Suddenly, it hits me. This isn't the Hunt residence. I was kidnapped when I was five. Mom couldn't handle the shock, so Dad adopted Reynold Hunt to comfort her. A year ago, I was finally found and brought back. But within a few months, Reynold threw a tantrum and threatened to end his life, all because my grades were better and I outshone him at every turn. So, I became the Hunt family's dirty little secret, banished to this rented apartment. The first night I moved in, a drunk neighbor pounded on the wrong door. Terrified under my blanket, I called Mom, Dad, Paige, and Julia, but every call went straight to a cold dial tone. Right before dawn, Mom finally texted. "Stop calling. Even seeing your number makes Reynold upset." After that, I made four dolls in their likeness. They ate with me and slept by my side. They listened to every milestone I achieved and every heartbreak I had no one else to tell. But this time, as tears stream down my face, I don't reach out to hug them. After walking in the dark for so long, I finally find the courage to never look back.

Lucas Harlow and I have been together for seven years, and we plan to get married next year. When I accompany him to his hometown to meet his parents, we happen to arrive just in time for his cousin Spencer Harlow's wedding. Following a local tradition, the older relatives cheerfully urge Lucas to sleep in the newlyweds' bed the night before the ceremony for good luck. Lucas' mother, Beatrice Collins, takes my hand and explains with a smile, "Katherine, I hope this doesn't make you uncomfortable. It's an old custom around here. "Before the wedding, a man who's still a virgin blesses the couple's bed by sleeping in it. It's supposed to bring the newlyweds good luck and a happy marriage." I lower my head in embarrassment, for Lucas and I are saving ourselves for our wedding night. No matter how difficult the wait has been for him over the past seven years, he's always respected that boundary and insisted on doing right by me. When I finally look up, my cheeks still burning, I see that Lucas has gone pale. Flustered and visibly uncomfortable, he frantically waves everyone off and adamantly refuses to go anywhere near the bed. "I can't do it. You're going to have to find someone else…" As I watch my boyfriend avoid everyone's gaze, my heart drops.

My pack, an ancient tribe led by female Alphas, has an ironclad rule. All Alpha heirs must hide their identities and survive in the outside world alone. Only when we are carrying a pup and awaken the powerful healing Moon Goddess bloodline within us—a sacred power that can purge sickness and restore life itself—can we return to the pack and become the next Alpha. When I felt the life of the pup inside me and my bloodline awakening, I was so excited. I couldn't wait to tell my Alpha, Caleb. I could finally end this three-year disguise. I didn't have to play a homeless Omega anymore. His newly established small pack wouldn't have to worry about the mining rights for the crystal veins in the new territory. I could openly help him. But when I returned to the master bedroom of our Pack House, I saw another she-wolf sitting on his lap, intimately sharing a glass of moon-wine with him. Caleb didn't even bother to look up. His voice was cold. "Jasmine is my first love. The Southern Pack Alliance behind her can give me the power and status I want. Be smart and leave on your own. I never marked you anyway." I clenched my fists, suppressing my restless white wolf. Caleb, you will never know that the mate you see as a burden has the Crimson Moon pack behind her—a pack even the Lycan King respects. Fine. We're done. I'll take my pup and you'll never see us again.

I'm the ultimate soft touch. My dirt-poor roommate used to survive by digging through trash cans for food. Pity got the better of me, so I covered his tuition, his living expenses, and slipped him fifty dollars a day out of my own pocket. My only condition: he had to tag along whenever I went to my private tutoring sessions. I thought he was grateful for it. Then, junior year, he strutted into the classroom head to toe in designer labels and hurled fifty coins in my face in front of the whole class. "Fifty a day, and you treated me like your personal slave for three years—dragged me along to sit through lectures I couldn't even follow, humiliated me every step of the way! "Well, guess what? My real father just tracked me down. He's a billionaire, and he handed me a black card with no spending limit. Here's your fifty back. I'm done being your errand boy. "And I'll never turn into some arrogant jerk just because I've got a little money—unlike you!" Then he handed out luxury bags to everyone in the class except me. The whole room fell for it instantly, chanting, "Long live Elmer!" I stared at the forty-three purchase notifications that had just popped up on my phone and went quiet. I checked again. My black card—the one my father had given me—was gone. Everything clicked into place. The rich long-lost father? All fake. He'd simply stolen my black card, played dress-up as a billionaire's son, and stomped on me on his way up. Without a word, I made one phone call. And transferred the black card into his name. He'd clearly watched too many soap operas—he thought a black card was some kind of savings account. He had no idea it was just a credit card with a higher limit, and every cent he spent on it, he'd owe back.

An hour into our daughter Nora Cadwell's graduation party, my husband, Samuel Cadwell, still hasn't shown up. More than a hundred calls go unanswered, and every message I send him gets the same automated reply. "On my way." Nora stands to give her speech five different times, only to sit back down again. She keeps her head down and nervously twists the hem of her dress. She just can't bring herself to say the words, "I'd like to thank my parents." When I finally run out of patience and leave the hall, I find Samuel in the hall just next door. He's standing shoulder to shoulder with his widowed first love, Riley Jackson, while her son—whose grades pale in comparison to Nora's—finishes his speech. "I'd like to thank my mom and dad!" Raymond Cooper says with a wide grin on his face. Samuel slips an arm around Riley's shoulders and gives him an approving nod. The room erupts in applause. While I quietly watch them from the side, something inside me finally gives way. I turn and walk back to Nora's graduation party. "He's not coming, sweetheart. Go up there and say what you really want to say," I tell her. I smooth the sadness from her smile with my thumb and whisper, "Remember what we talked about before? You have my full support. Let's do it your way."

To punish me for losing my autistic younger brother, Ezra Clement, Mom locks me inside a custom-made steel box. The box is about 20 inches wide and is welded in place in the deepest corner in our basement. "There's a walkie-talkie inside. You'll stay in there until you admit that you deliberately left Ezra beside the human traffickers' van." She locks the lid, plunging me into darkness. For the first three days, I cry and beg through the walkie-talkie, trying to tell Mom that I only let go of Ezra's hand to lure the traffickers away from him. One of the traffickers has slashed me across the back, and the wound keeps bleeding and festering. But Mom refuses to listen to anything I have to say. All I hear are her furious accusations. "Evelyn, you're just jealous of Ezra. A vicious sister like you deserves to be locked in there until you die." On the fourth day, torrential rain floods the basement. Muddy water rises past my knees, soaking the knife wound on my back in filthy water. The pain is so unbearable that I claw at the metal walls until all ten of my fingernails tear and break. I desperately press the talk button. But all I hear from the other end is Mom's gentle voice coaxing Ezra to sleep. To prevent me from disturbing him, she powers it off. When the water that is mingled with the blood from my mangled fingers rises above my head and floods into my nose, I stop struggling. Mom has no idea that on the back of our family photo, I have written down my plan to work hard, earn money, and pay for Ezra's treatment. Helplessly, I think, "Mom, I confess. In my next life, I will never be your daughter again."

I was reborn on the night of the mafia gathering, where a drugged Ronan pinned me down, his eyes hazy with lust. This time, however, I didn’t give in. Instead, I shoved him off and called my stepsister—the girl he actually loved. I loved Ronan. In Twin City, he ruled like a king, yet he was constantly hunted by rivals vying to drag him down. In my past life, when he was drugged and forced himself onto me, I didn't push him away. That single night resulted in my pregnancy. My father, the don of the Sorrento mafia family, forced Ronan into marriage for a strategic alliance between our families. On our wedding day, my stepsister, Susan, left Twin City in tears, only to be brutally tortured and killed by a street gang in the slums. Before breathing her last breath, she had dialed Ronan’s number ninety-nine times, begging for help. Yet, to prove his absolute loyalty to me, he ignored every single call. Even when her battered, lifeless body was delivered back to him, his face remained stone-cold. However, while I was dying from a hemorrhage during childbirth, Ronan stopped the doctors from saving me. As my consciousness faded, his hatred-filled voice echoed in my ears. “If you hadn’t climbed into my bed and forced me to marry you, Susan wouldn’t have died in that tragic accident! Her death is entirely your fault, and you shall pay for it with your life!” Then, I took my last breath, only to wake up on the exact night Ronan was drugged.

When I went to return my engagement ring, the jeweler asked me why. Right in front of her, I slid it onto my finger. It caught at the second knuckle and wouldn't go any farther. "You can see for yourself. This isn't my size." The jeweler went pale and offered to resize it on the spot. I shook my head, my voice eerily calm. "You can fix the ring size. You can't fix the shoe size. And you definitely can't fix the wedding dress." Everything about my wedding to Charles Garth was mine in name only — my name was on the invitation as the bride, and that was as far as it went. Every time I asked him to come try on the dress with me, he'd keep his eyes on his laptop and answer without looking up. "I'm busy. I already know your measurements. I gave them to the boutique myself. "Just show up and be the bride. Everything's already handled." But three days before the wedding, what I got was a ring that wouldn't fit and a dress I couldn't wear. The shoes, the gloves, the garter — every single piece was sized for my best friend. Something I'd been holding onto for a long time finally gave out, and it left a hole in my chest. Charles frowned, still trying to talk me into it. "It's just a ceremony. You two are so close — would it really be so bad if Maia stood in for you at the altar?" I didn't say anything. I didn't refuse, either. I just thought — maybe it wouldn't be so bad to swap out the groom instead.

I was the man Empress Seraphina once swore she would marry. But on the eve of our wedding, she believed my brother's slander and cast me down to the mortal realm with a wave of her hand, condemning me to suffer through ten lifetimes of reincarnation. After endless torment, I finally returned to the Celestial Realm. Yet the moment I met her cold eyes, terror seized me, and I apologized again and again. "Your Majesty, I am a sinner. I know my wrongs. "I should never have defied my brother. You and my brother belong together. I only love a pig demon from the mortal realm..." Later, I severed my immortal core and willingly entered the Underworld. But Empress Seraphina, who supposedly hated me to the bone, lowered herself and brought the immortals of all three realms to the Underworld, begging me to return to the Celestial Realm.

The day my fiancé returned from deployment, he invited me to the celebration gala held in his honor at the Prescott family estate. My younger half-sister begged to come because she hoped to meet an eligible man, and I brought her without hesitation. At dinner, my future mother-in-law laughed and said, "That stubborn son of mine is finally going to marry the woman he loves." I blushed and turned to find Major Adrian Prescott staring directly at me. The moment I caught him, he lowered his head too quickly, took a drink, and nearly choked. His fellow officers teased him while my half-sister leaned close and whispered that she envied me. I believed my future could not have been brighter. Then words made of golden light appeared before my eyes. [Within one hour, Delia Langford will be found half-dressed beside Adrian Prescott.] [The guests will believe they caught them together. Adrian will be pressured to marry Delia, accept a permanent overseas posting, and never return to Ravenmere.] Ice filled my veins. Delia was the innocent-looking half-sister sitting beside me with her arm linked through mine. ...