The Stardust Thief の小説・ストーリー

My roommate, Sylvia Colman, is the ultimate overachiever at Southend High School. She sleeps only three hours a day and takes first place in every exam throughout all three years of high school. As for me, I'm known as the "sleepy slacker" in our school. I sleep in class, constantly fail exams, and can even fall asleep while walking. My parents are completely disappointed in me. They say I'm a hopeless mess. My childhood friend, Jeffrey Rivers, also turns his back on me. He claims I've fallen too far and becomes Sylvia's die-hard fan instead. But when the dean of studies summons me for a talk to tell me that I face the possibility of being expelled, I accidentally discover the secret behind Sylvia's inexhaustible energy. It turns out she has been transferring all of her exhaustion and drowsiness onto me. She's the one stealing my energy, my grades, and my life! On the night before the SAT, Sylvia confidently stays up all night doing practice papers for one final push before the real deal. I smile slightly as a plan forms in my mind. Inwardly, I sneer, "You despicable thief who stole my life… I have a wonderful surprise in store for you. Stay tuned and accept my gift to you!"

The day before the race, I burned my car and announced my withdrawal. Overnight, my fanbase collapsed. Supporters unfollowed in droves, and casual fans turned on me just as viciously. Jasper, the man who had always treated me as his only real rival, put on a show of false concern. “Without him, the race feels too lonely. No matter what, I still hope he’ll return to the track and face me properly.” I sneered. In my previous life, the racecar I had painstakingly modified ended up identical to his. No matter how many videos I released of full recordings of every step I personally took, all Jasper had to do was tearfully tell his fans, “Then let Finn use it. He needs it more than I do. I’ll win on my own strength.” And just like that, I became the shameless thief in everyone’s eyes. Later, the moment I started my car, the components inside exploded, and I was left in a vegetative state. His fans called it karma. Even on the day my fiancée pulled out my oxygen tube and watched me die, I still couldn’t understand. Why had everything that belonged to me—my career, my girlfriend—all become Jasper’s? When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day the race schedule was first announced.

My wife, Piper Carlson, yanked out my ventilator tube with her own hands. All because she believed the man who donated a kidney to save her was the guy she'd never gotten over. And me? The husband she'd hated for ten years? Just a liar who stole his credit. "Don't be scared, Elliot. The thief who stole your life finally got what he deserved." The second she pulled the tube, my body locked up. I couldn't breathe. Piper barely looked at me. She just held her "savior" close, relieved I was finally gone. Then, while I was dying, she hit me with one last secret. "Marco, wanna know why you could never get me pregnant again? I slipped something into every bottle of vitamins I gave you. You don't deserve my child." I was so furious I almost lost it. But Piper was already posting her marriage certificate with Elliot Lacy. [After everything we've been through, I finally got my happy ending with the man who saved me.] With the last bit of strength I had, I left one final comment. [Piper, how's my kidney treating you?] Then I opened my eyes. I was back ten years earlier, on the rainy night Elliot stole credit for saving her with my kidney.

"When the cursed blood awakens, only the blood of his Moon-chosen mate can cleanse it. The life that purifies the darkness shall return to the stars." —THE ANCIENT PROPHECY. They have spent my entire life searching for the woman destined to save me. I have spent every second praying to my dead father they never find her. I never wanted her. I do not need a mate, and I certainly do not need saving. I am the heir to Shadow Pack and Nightfall Pack. The last of my bloodline. The monster my father died trying to erase. Then the mate bond snaps. Not with a princess. Not with the powerful Starborn Omega from the prophecy. But with a fat little thief caught stealing from my land. I reject her before anyone discovers she is mine. Keeping her close as my prisoner is the perfect way to prove fate made a mistake. Only fate never makes mistakes. As the darkness in my blood begins to awaken, kingdoms prepare for war, old enemies crawl out of the shadows, and the monster inside me hungers for blood. Now the only woman who can save my life is the mate I swore I would never claim. And if the prophecy is true— Saving me… …will kill her. She thought stealing from me was the greatest mistake of her life. She has no idea that becoming my mate will be far worse. [THE CURSED BLOODLINE SERIES BOOK II]

After I come back to decades ago, the first thing I do is feed a million-dollar production patent to the pigs. In my previous life, I handed that patent over to the government. My husband turned me in, accusing me of faking the data and scamming a fortune in patent royalties. Overnight, I went from being a celebrated genius researcher to a lying thief that everyone despised. As I prepared to pull out my manuscript to prove my innocence, my husband's childhood sweetheart beat me to it. She waved it in front of everyone and accused me of misconduct and plagiarism. My husband took her side, reprimanding me, "I know you've always been jealous of Juni for being well-educated, but I can't believe you were bold enough to steal her hard work. What are you going to do next? Embezzle state funds?" I couldn't defend myself. No matter what I said, no one chose to believe me. The other researchers assaulted me so badly that I bled out and died. After my death, my husband and his childhood sweetheart took my patent without a second thought. The never-ending stream of patent royalties made them rich and powerful. When I open my eyes again, I'm back on the very day she accuses me of stealing.

Jasmine is a policewoman who has the goal of catching the person behind her mother's death. She become an orphan at the age of thirteen when her mother suddenly died. She was almost adopted by the Olivares family, but she couldn't put up the rude attitude of their son, Colton Olivares who was fifteen-year-old at that time. She decided to run away and leave the Olivares mansion. Colton was fifteen-year-old when he was sick. He was rude and hated everybody, thinking they just want to make friends with him out of pity. He hates being weak, not being able to do the things he wants which lead him to push everyone away from him and Jasmine was not an exception. He told her every possible hurtful word he could say until she left and run away from the mansion. Jasmine's life has been peaceful for the past fifteen years until a mistake changed her life! She beat up Colton for mistaking him to be the thief she was chasing! Colton threatened to use his influence to get her dismissed from service, but Jasmine couldn't allow it! She couldn't get dismissed, not until she caught the person behind her mother's death! Jasmine tried to talk to Colton and asked him to take back his complaint. Colton agreed but on one condition. It is to marry him and be his wife! But why? What's his reason for marrying Jasmine?

Emily Harper’s life is defined by quiet struggle. Working long hours at the bank barely pays her bills, and her parents have long stopped believing she’ll ever make something of herself. Her only comfort is her kind, funny boss, Mr. Zelinsky—the one person who makes her feel seen. But everything changes one night when she returns to the bank to fetch her forgotten inhaler… and walks in on a robbery. The thief is none other than Caleb Monroe, her old high school bully and Mr. Zelinsky’s estranged son. Shock turns to chaos when Caleb forces her to help him escape, a moment that leaves her shaken and confused. The next day, Emily faces him again—this time in daylight, as her boss proudly introduces Caleb as his son. Then tragedy strikes. Mr. Zelinsky dies suddenly, and Emily’s life takes another unexpected turn when his will binds her and Caleb together by marriage to inherit his empire. Now, caught between grief, distrust, and a strange pull she can’t explain, Emily must decide if she can survive living and pretending with the man who once made her life hell. But as secrets unravel and feelings blur, one thing becomes painfully clear: Caleb isn’t the only one hiding something.

My father, Benjamin Ward, was bedridden, paralyzed, and unable to move. The AI model he spent his entire life developing—a model powerful enough to cure terminal diseases—had been stolen and published under someone else's name. Humiliated beyond endurance, he suffered a stroke and collapsed. He couldn't speak. He couldn't even write. I swore I'd find the thief who destroyed him. My girlfriend, Maris Dawn, wept and promised to help me uncover the truth. But at a dinner party, when her first love proudly announced that he'd been specially recruited by a national research lab thanks to that very model, she immediately grabbed my arm, whispering, "Don't make a scene. Grayson just wants a good future. Don't ruin his life." Grayson Vale smirked with disdain. "The old man was about to retire anyway. Think of it as recycling waste." My vision went red. I charged at him, ready to make him pay for what he'd done to my father. Maris tripped me before I could reach him. She threw a check for ten million in my face. "Here's for your dad's medical care. Don't be shameless, alright? Grayson is a rising star. You're just a broke grad student. You should learn your place." I tore the check apart, piece by piece. That check could never buy the Dawn family a future in the world of science.

They told me to get close to him. To make him trust me. To destroy him. The envelope landed like a stone dropped into still water. Inside: a photograph of a man who could buy my soul. A note that said, Seduce him. Destroy him. Or your mother dies. My mother is dying. The cancer is a thief in the night, stealing her breath one shallow gasp at a time. Twelve million dollars stands between her and a cure. I have twelve dollars in my pocket and a hunger that has nothing to do with food. So when Evelyn Cole – the spider in a gray suit offers me a deal, I say yes. Liam Cole is cold, untouchable, devastatingly beautiful. CEO of Crestwood Capital. Heir to a fortune built on bones and buried secrets. He does not smile. He does not explain. When he walks into a room, the air learns to hold its breath. He is my target, my enemy and my ruin. But when he closes his office door, he does not fire me. He slides a photograph across his glass desk – me, taking the job, caught in a camera's unblinking eye. And he whispers, "I have known since before you walked through my door." Now I am trapped between two hunters. Evelyn wants the file that could burn her empire to ash. She has my mother – a hostage wrapped in hospital sheets. Liam wants me to stay, to play the part, to feed Evelyn lies while he hunts the people who murdered his father.

My mother asked me to step aside and let my twin sister have Ronan, my mate-to-be. She held my hand gently, her eyes full of pleading. "Mara, your sister has given in to you for twenty years. Just this once, let her have him, all right?" She was not wrong. I had been fighting and grabbing since I was a child. Whatever my twin sister, Aurelia, had, I had to have too. Even when she took medicine, I would insist on stealing a sip. Mom always said I had been competitive before I was even born, that I had taken too much from Aurelia in the womb, and that was why she had come into the world so weak. So dad would wade through freezing river water and go deep into the forest to pick moonfruit for her. Mom learned to weave so she could make every dress Aurelia wore from childhood to adulthood with her own hands. And I had nothing. All I could do was charge forward like a little thief, snatching whatever scraps I could reach. Because I knew that if I did not fight for anything, nothing would ever be mine. This time, Aurelia fell in love with Ronan at first sight. And I, who had never given up so much as an inch, obeyed without a fight. "Fine." After all, I had been poisoned by wolfsbane while saving her and mom, and I was already living on borrowed time. After I died, regret drove them all mad.