Sloppy Seconds Novels & Stories

On the first work day after the holidays, Samuel Cooper, the department director, suddenly corners me at my workplace with an HR executive and two security guards. "Levi Young, you are fired! Now, hand over your work badge!" I frown instantly at Samuel. As I look at the growing crowd, I reply calmly, "Mr. Cooper, are you burning bridges now?" The Christmas holidays have lasted for nine days. But I'm the only one who has been working throughout the holidays. As soon as work starts after the holidays, Samuel wants to fire me right away. Samuel huffs coldly at me. "You leaked the company's core secrets! The fact that I'm not demanding compensation from you shows how kind-hearted I am! How dare you proclaim your so-called grievances before me!" "I… leaked the company's secrets?" I've been working at this company for five years. Sure, I've managed countless projects, but I have never made any mistakes as well. The sight of my stunned expression makes Samuel scoff in return. "That's enough. Cut it with the act! The security camera in the office has recorded everything clearly! On the night of Christmas Eve, you recited a long string of numbers and alphabets into your phone! What else could it be other than an encrypted message?" I'm left feeling flabbergasted for a few more seconds before realization dawns on me. The thing is… I was sharing the Wi-Fi password to a stray at the company that night!

“What did I promise would happen if you threw another punch, Artemis?” Professor Lucian's silky tone hardened into a dark fascinating baritone. “Let me see…” Artemis licked his lips with a menacing smile, his cold dark eyes piercing through the professor's oceanic ones. “You said you'll bring me to my knees but something tells me I'll do more than just begging.” The air in the room shifted as the older man took a step closer. “Hit me, Artemis,” Lucian took another step closer. “Every second you hesitate, your punishment doubles.” Artemis lips curled in a smirk as he stepped closer. He raised his hand slowly to the professor's lips but the older man caught it before it could make contact. An amused chuckle rumbled in his chest. “Twenty seconds gone, Professor. You better punish me hard,” he smirked. ******* Artemis McAlester was feared for two reasons. His ability to break anything and his power to own everything. Kingston College was his playground until a red-haired professor with oceanic blue eyes and a dangerous intolerance for spoiled bullies. Not only did Lucian defy every rule he set, but he was also the one thing Artemis couldn’t own. And that defiance? It was the sexiest thing of all. Except Lucian wasn't someone he could break. To own the blue-eyed professor, Artemis would have to do the unthinkable. Submit. Break. Let himself be owned. As long as the only thing between them was desire and pure unadulterated hate.

Eight months pregnant. Three hundred witnesses. Ninety seconds to destroy everything. Alisha Davis-Williams stands before her pack as Luna, carrying twin heirs and wearing her Alpha mate's mark. Then Joshua Black-Gold presents photographs of her with another man, and her world detonates. The rejection is brutal and public. Her mate's bond severed. Her Luna title stripped. Her unborn children's paternity questioned. Banished from the only home she's known, Alisha collapses on a roadside as premature labor tears through her body. She wakes in rival territory with a screaming mate bond, two fragile newborns, and fury where love used to live. When Beta Nathan proves the photographs were fabricated, the damage is already done. The affair never happened. The witnesses were coerced. Everything was orchestrated by someone with intimate access to pack secrets and Joshua's deepest trauma. But by then, Alisha is already suppressing their mate bond despite the agony, filing for formal rejection despite the impossibility, and rebuilding her shattered life under Alpha Val's protection. Val offers everything Joshua didn't and asks for nothing but her happiness in return. Meanwhile, Joshua confronts the childhood wounds his mother weaponized against him. His transformation is genuine, sustained, and too late. His twins screamed at his presence. And Alisha won't take his calls. The conspiracy targets her children, and Alisha faces an impossible choice: the mate fate gave her, or the future she's building from ashes.

Him: I'll do anything to be with her. Since the day I saw her those are my thoughts. Every fucking seconds she's on my mind. I tell you she's a witch. My witch! I grunt at my own thoughts. I don't know what spell she has casted on me but I'm whipped and I love the effect she have on me. I don't know what's this feeling but I know one thing that I want her. I don't believe in love. I guess it's attraction that's pulling me towards her. I'm definitely not a manwhore or womenizer but this girl is attracting me in a way that no one has ever dared too. I won't say she's the most beautiful girl in the entire world but yeah she's so damn perfect and beautiful to me. The first few times I tried to ignore it but the more I tried to ignore it the more she's pulling me towards her. But what say she's not even glancing at me. I guess I have to do something that would make her look at me. Her thoughts should be surrounded by me and for that I have to do something. If only she knows the things that I wanna do with her. She will run away from me but like hell I would allow that to happen. Wait and watch baby girl soon tomorrow you will be mine. You're mine to fuck, mine to hold and mine to do every single thing!! Only mine!! I will lock you in my cage forever' See you soon baby girl.

It all started when my fiancée's adoptive brother, Afton Jackson, claimed I had used a dirty scalpel in his private parts enlargement surgery, and that had given him Syphilis. My fiancée, Mia Jackson, flew into a rage. She stomped on the hand I had used to perform surgery. Then, she stripped me naked, forced me into humiliating poses, and put me up for auction on the black market for free. [Second-hand. Free.] Her best friend tried to talk her out of it. "You and Ryan Hathaway are about to get married. Are you really going to destroy him like this?" Mia's voice was calm. "He operated on Afton so recklessly and made Afton break down after catching that disease. Afton almost jumped off a building, yet he still refuses to admit what he did. He doesn't deserve to be a doctor. I'm only trying to scare him. It's not like I'm really going to give him away and let him catch some filthy disease too." I stood in the doorway, my face pale. When our eyes met, she spoke as if every word were justified. "You made a mistake, so you deserve to suffer for just a little while. As long as you cure Afton and then apologize to him, you'll still be the fiancé I love most." I silently held back my tears and reposted the auction link to my feed. It was claimed in seconds with a single comment. [I'll take him.] But Mia's face darkened as she threw the wine glass to the floor.

Mine, my wolf said. Who's yours? I asked. The answer was Alpha Damir. I told my wolf to shut the hell up. --- Some vows are made in grief. Some are made in blood. I made mine on my knees in the rain, pushing dirt over the only two people who ever loved me, with smoke still in my lungs and fury so hot it had nowhere left to go. I came back from the UK and something felt wrong before I even reached the gate. The mansion was on fire. My father was already gone. My mother had seconds left and she used every single one of them to give me a name. Alpha Drakan. I carved that name into the inside of my chest and made a vow. Find him. Look him in the eye. Carve his heart out while it's still beating. Except Alpha Drakan was already dead. Two months in the ground. My parents died last night. Dead men don't order killings. Which meant I had the wrong name and the wrong man. My mother hadn't known. She was dying, she couldn't have known. But the name was Drakan and the blood was Drakan and the throne belonged to Drakan. His son. Damir, Alpha of Vordheim. Next of kin to a dead man and sitting on everything that name owned. My mother had pointed me here and here was where the answers lived. He was the one I suspected. The one I was watching. The one I had every intention of killing when the time was right. And then the moon goddess, who clearly has a vicious, twisted, absolutely unhinged sense of humour, went ahead and made him my mate.

My billionaire dad chooses a husband for me. People claim that Sebastian Lambert is a fine gentleman who's absolutely in awe of me. He seems easy enough to deal with, so I agree to the marriage. The wedding is held at the biggest hotel my family owns. On the big day, as I push open the doors in my wedding dress, a bucket of foul-smelling blood comes crashing down on me. The scene inside is even more horrifying. What was supposed to be a pure and romantic ceremony is now decorated with giant spiders and cockroaches. Grotesque clown faces grin at me from the walls. At the altar, there's a black coffin. Sebastian's adoptive sister, Ruth Lambert, strolls over with a group of people. She covers her mouth in fake surprise as she remarks, "Oh my, Claudia, you look like a pathetic mutt right now!" Laughter erupts around me. Holding my anger back, I coldly reply, "All of you, get out." She crosses her arms, arrogantly looking down at me as if she's on some pedestal. "Come on, Claudia. Seb personally asked me to surprise you. I put in a lot of effort to decorate your little wedding. You're telling me to get out? I don't even get a 'thank you'? Do you need me to teach you some manners?" She signals to the people next to her, and two of them step forward, trying to force me to my knees. Stunned for a few seconds, I pull out my phone and call Sebastian. "Is this the so-called surprise you had your sister prepare for me? Forcing me to kneel before her?"

The last thing Valentina Serra sees before she dies is the crack in the ceiling above her bed. She is 45 years old. She is not unhappy. That, she realizes in the last seconds of her first life, is the most devastating thing she could say about it. She opens her eyes in a university lecture hall in Barcelona. She is 20 years old. Her notebook is open, her pen is in her hand, and she can feel — with the precision of someone who has lived an entire life — exactly how much she is about to waste if she does nothing. She does something. Armed with 25 years of memory, Valentina sets out to close every loop she left open: the military commission she dismissed, the marketing career she let others architect for her, the relationship she stayed in long past its expiry date, and the mother she visited but never truly knew. One by one, she reaches for the life she talked herself out of the first time around. But the two people closest to her — the friends who have always been there, always supportive, always first to suggest the safer, smaller option — are watching. And when Valentina begins exceeding the quiet ceiling that they built for her, Isabel and David begin to coordinate. Then there is Ethan Cole. Washington D.C. Investment sector. Five years younger, which bothered her the first time. He will walk into her life again in Barcelona, and this time Valentina already knows what the long dinner and the careful conversation and the late-night walk along the Passeig de Gràcia will mean — if she doesn't talk herself out of it. She is not going to talk herself out of it.

I've just returned from the world's biggest tech summit when my mentor, who's like a father to me, calls. He tells me he's arranged for me to marry his close friend's son, Jonathan Ford. Jonathan is one of Javron's rising stars. A few of my patents are licensed to his company, and they form the core technology of his new product. I work late to wrap up everything in the lab. Then, I dress up and head to the engagement ceremony. Unexpectedly, I'm stopped at the door by Jonathan's secretary, Linda Jones. She wears a lavish gown and looks more like the bride than I do. "Turn around and scram if you know what's good for you," she says with a sneer. "You're just an orphan from the countryside—think twice about whether you're worthy of our CEO." I ask, "Does Jonathan know you're making decisions for him like this?" She lets out a contemptuous laugh. "You're nothing but a pretty face who needs to ride on her mentor's reputation to get married. How can you possibly understand the weight I carry in Mr. Ford's heart?" A blush spreads across her face as she speaks. I study her for a few seconds, then call Jonathan. "If your idea of courtesy is leaving your fiancee standing outside the venue, then here's how I'll repay the favor. I'll let you read the contract and watch as I sell my patents to your competitor. How does that sound?"

Dave Sun has just turned eighteen and arrives in Kings City with nothing but a backpack and a dream. Ever since he was a child, he imagined the city as a place where fortunes were built and dreams came alive. But the moment he steps into its glittering streets, he realizes the truth—Kings City is beautiful on the outside and brutally cold on the inside. After days of job hunting and constant rejection, Dave loses the little money he has when he is robbed late one night. Exhausted and hopeless, he sits in front of a towering company building just to rest before trying again the next morning. That is when everything changes. Three sleek black cars emerge from the company gates. Within seconds, two men drag Dave into one of the vehicles. Terrified, Dave struggles—until he meets the man sitting inside. Ryan Blood. The man is breathtakingly handsome, calm, and terrifying. A man who looks like a god… and rules Kings City’s most powerful mafia empire. Before Dave can escape, he is injected with something that pulls him into darkness. When Dave wakes up the next morning, he finds himself lying on a luxurious bed in a room that looks like it belongs in a palace. His wounds have been treated, his clothes changed, and the man responsible is sitting beside him. Ryan calmly introduces himself as Dave’s lover and future partner. Dave refuses. But Ryan is not a man used to hearing the word no. Chained to a bed and trapped in Ryan’s world of danger, power, and obsession, Dave is forced to live inside the mansion of the most feared mafia boss in Kings City. Ryan insists Dave belongs to him—and he will keep him in chains until he accepts it.