True Begining Novels & Stories

My family sold one of their properties to put me through school abroad. Nathan Kingsley and I had been together three years. Two of those were long-distance. Through those two years of me alone overseas, he never broke contact — airport pickups, long phone calls, every anniversary remembered. I'd never once doubted him. I thought distance hadn't beaten us. The day I flew home, he was waiting at Arrivals with a bouquet of flowers. He smiled and said, "Finally." We set the engagement date. We picked out the dress. We booked the reception. The day the wedding march began and I stood at the top of the aisle looking at him, I thought — these three years were worth every minute. Then the doors behind me opened. My sister walked into the chapel, in a white dress, and slid her arm through his. She smiled at me. "Sorry, sis. Those airport pickups? I'm the one who sent him. For the last three years, he's been mine the whole time."

Six years after the Jennings family threw me out for being their fake daughter, I was surviving by selling my blood. I had just been handed a few bills and was about to call my doctor for more medication when a bodyguard kicked the back of my knee. My knees hit the floor, and I heard a scream. "You ungrateful brat! What are you doing here?! Are you still trying to kill Tina?!" Then, there was a slap on my face. Only then did I realize that the woman in front of me was my mother, Florence. She had come looking for blood for her precious daughter, Tina. My older brother, James, stood beside her and watched her break down. Then, he ordered the bodyguards to throw me out. He looked down at me, saw the cash in my hand, and sneered. "Looks like the past few years aren't enough to wipe that temper out of you. To think that you're willing to sell your blood just for some money to satisfy your vanity. Tina graduates in two weeks, and she'll go abroad to further her education. "Once she leaves, the family won't have to spoil her alone anymore, and you won't be able to bully her again. When that happens, I'll explain everything to Mom and Dad and bring you home. You'll still be the family's princess." "Home... Princess...?" I muttered under my breath. Then, I shook my head and laughed. My amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) had progressed too quickly. I would not last for another month. From the moment James accused me of being a fake heiress for Tina, I no longer had a home.

On the day I return to my home to reunite with my actual family, Melanie Stewart, the fake heiress, shows up in front of me. Her neck is completely riddled with hickeys. Instantly, countless live comments appear in the air around me. "Poor Yvonne! She thought she could start living a comfortable and lavish life now that she had been accepted by her actual family. Little does she know that Melanie has already formed a pact with the transfer system!" "Melanie is a loose woman by nature, and she loves sleeping with countless men. After getting bound to the system, the children she gets pregnant with will be transferred into Yvonne's womb instead." "Yvonne will proceed to give birth to dozens of bastard children, thus humiliating her family to no end. She ends up getting cast out of her family by her own parents!" "The truth is, there's a solution to this situation. Yvonne can just remove her uterus so that the system won't work at all. Alas, she doesn't know about that." I stop in my tracks at that moment. In my previous life, I had believed the live comments. As such, I traveled to a hospital to get my uterus removed overnight. But the next day, Melanie blew the whistle on me to my parents. She claimed that I wanted to get rid of my uterus in order to cut down the risks completely for the sake of having as much fun as I wanted with other men. My parents were completely disappointed in me. My fiance refused to enter a marriage alliance with me, a woman who could no longer give birth, as well. In the end, I died from a post-surgical infection. However, Melanie obtained everything that was supposed to be mine, to begin with. That was how she became successful in life. When I open my eyes again, I realize I've returned to the day I'm bound to reunite with my family.

I've just finished collecting rent from a building when Mom calls me on the phone. She tells me that the Jensens' estranged real heiress, Sienna Jensen, has finally reunited with them. I pack up my account ledgers immediately before heading over to attend Sienna's welcome home party. But as soon as I reach the gate, my car is stopped right outside. Apparently, I'm not allowed entry into the Jensen residence. Hatred crosses Sienna's eyes when she spots my car. "You're nothing but a thieving impostor! How dare you make a flashy appearance while driving a car that belongs to my family!" I take a deep breath and explain coolly, "This is my car. I don't know what you're talking about." The next thing I know, Sienna grabs a ledger and hurls it at my face. She screams at me, "You used my family's money to buy this car, and yet you have the gall to claim that it's yours? "I'm my mother's actual child, and yet you've leeched all the good things from my family, you filthy bitch! I'll have you know that the hardships that Mom went through for nine months of pregnancy will be converted into a maternity fee of a million dollars! Now hurry up and transfer the payment to Mom's bank account!" I merely sneer at Sienna before pulling out my phone and calling her mother, Molly Dawson, "Your daughter demands that I give you a million dollars' worth of maternity fees. Do you even have the guts to accept the payment?"

The rogue wolf Beck had kidnapped me and stabbed me ten times with a silver dagger. Now he was forcing me to call my brother, the Alpha of Sterling Pack, and trade the entire northern border for my life. I knew Cain wouldn't care. But I dialed anyway. The line rang for a long time before he picked up. His voice came through, raw with irritation. "What stunt are you pulling now?" "Cain, help me. I've been taken—" I didn't get to finish before he cut me off, cold and clipped. "You'd really stoop to faking a kidnapping to ruin Selene's Chief Healer ceremony tonight? Iris, I swear to god, if you don't show up, you're out of this pack for good." Click. The line went dead. Beck let out a low laugh. Then he drew the silver blade across my throat. Pain swallowed everything. My heart stopped. But my soul drifted up, light as smoke, out of my body. You don't have to throw me out anymore, Cain. I'm never coming back.

The fake daughter only sneezed. My three brothers reacted as if she were on her deathbed, crowding around her anxiously and refusing to let her out of their sight. So when she pointed her finger at me again, insisting I had shoved her into the pool, they accepted her story without a second thought. They hauled me to a deserted walk-in freezer, sealed the door behind me at -58°F, and made sure the only escape was out of reach. I screamed for my oldest brother, the CEO, to let me out. He called me a cruel attention seeker. I begged my second brother, the doctor. He told me I finally got what I deserved. I begged my third brother, the big-shot attorney. He just sneered. "You've always been jealous of Chloe. Now you pushed her into the pool when you knew she was fragile? You really are rotten. Someone like you needs to stay in there and cool off." Then, they bundled Chloe into their arms and rushed her to the hospital over a sneeze. Bit by bit, warmth seeped from my body, until it seemed like ice was flowing through my veins instead of blood. After thirty-six hours, I slipped away, lost to the cold. Three days later, Chloe returned from the hospital, and only then did my brothers remember I existed. But by then, the freezer had already claimed me.

The moment the acid hit my skin, I heard my own flesh sizzle. In the last moments before my consciousness faded, my trembling fingers managed to dial my brother, the new Don of the Steele family. To my relief, Farrow finally answered. The sounds of expensive jazz and clinking glasses bled through the receiver. His voice was cold as ice. "What is it this time, Grace?" "Farrow... help me..." He cut me off before I could finish. "Listen, Betty's book launch is tomorrow night. If you dare cause a scene or embarrass the Family, I'll disown you. I'll ship you off to a convent in Sicily." The line went dead. A moment later, a second splash of acid hit my face, and the searing agony consumed me. My eyes were gone, leaving nothing but hollow, bloody sockets. You don't need to exile me, Farrow. I'm already gone. Forever.

When I was three years old, my twin brothers, Silas and Julian, nearly died in an explosion while trying to save me. The Vampire King happened to pass by and turned them into high-ranking vampires. He had wanted to turn me too, so our family could stay together forever, but they refused. The King's power was too overwhelming, they said-the transformation would be agonizing. So they promised to turn me themselves when I turned eighteen. They spent every last penny they had on an impossibly rare serum-a blood-calming agent that would ensure I survived the transformation safely. But six months ago, they brought home a fifteen-year-old human orphan named Elena. Silas snatched my serum and handed it to Elena, his voice cold as ice. "You're strong enough to endure the transformation on your own. Elena is far more fragile than you-she needs this more." Julian's face twisted with undisguised contempt. He pointed at the door and snarled, "Get out! Don't come back until you learn to share!" I didn't say a word. I picked up the suitcase I'd already packed and disappeared into the rainy night. They assumed I was just throwing a tantrum. They figured I'd come crawling back in a few days. To celebrate ridding themselves of their "burden," they took the orphan on a vacation to the Caribbean coast-the trip I'd been dreaming about for years. But when they returned to the castle two weeks later, they were stunned to discover that I had undergone the Vampire King's transformation personally. Not only that-I had voluntarily signed a hundred-year agreement to join a classified isolation research project studying resistance to holy silver and crucifixes. A century of solitary confinement. I was never coming back. That day, they completely fell apart.

The most powerful Godfather in the mafia underworld—Dante Costello—had an expensive diamond signet ring custom-made to fit my finger perfectly and sent straight to our home. He said that whoever could wear the ring would become the lady of his family. The Monroe family had long since fallen from grace. All that remained were four women. On ordinary days, we fought endlessly, tearing each other apart. Every single one of us wanted to marry Dante because marrying him meant preserving a life of dignity and comfort. In the first life, the fake heiress, Blair, secretly had the ring resized smaller and married into the family. Dante took one look at her, then had her thrown into the river to drown. “Not her.” In the second life, my cousin, Chloe, underwent plastic surgery to alter her fingers and force the ring on. Dante gifted her a staged car accident. “Still not her.” In the third life, my stepmother, Catherine, clenched her teeth and forced the ring onto her finger. Her blood hadn’t even dried when she married Dante. He coldly slashed her face, then locked her in the basement, where she slowly wasted away until death. By the fourth life, all three of them were terrified. None of them dared to marry him anymore, so they hurriedly pushed me forward instead. I put on the ring. This time, the size was perfect. Just when I thought my good days had finally begun, Dante stabbed me to death on our wedding night, his eyes burning red with madness. After my rebirth, the consigliere of the Dante family delivered the ring once again. This time, all four of us avoided it like the plague.

After writing an essay about the future I wanted, I made a desperate appeal to my parents, just as Aaron Wade was likely doing in the hall of a business his family owned. The appeal lasted two days. Our demand was simple: annul the engagement between us. Others might have found this confusing, but I knew exactly why it mattered. In my previous life, I married Aaron and gave him everything. I devoted my career to him and stood at the peak of his business empire. He repaid me by forcing me to take the fall for Rebecca, a so-called heiress. I was arrested and sent to prison. "Had you not forced us into an engagement the moment you got into Iale University, I would have ended up with her instead," he sneered. "You owe her this, Bernadette. It's time you paid up." Even my own parents joined in. "You robbed Becky of what she deserves. Think of this as your divine retribution!" They had supported the engagement back then. Rage overwhelmed me and triggered a cardiac arrest. I died on the spot. While my body lay cold in the morgue, Aaron and Rebecca held a lavish wedding at a five-star hotel to celebrate their union. When I opened my eyes again, I found myself back on the day I had written about the future I wanted. Now I knew what that future looked like. It had none of these people in it. This time, I would live for myself.