Hypocrisy

I've been secretly married to him for five years, but he's never treated me as his wife. Our six-year-old daughter has never called him Dad in public.

One drunken night, I got pregnant. He gave me a marriage contract that came with one condition: secrecy.

I thought time would change everything. I stood by him through the company's darkest days. When I was hospitalized with a bleeding ulcer, he d...

My mother had no medical license, yet wealthy socialites lined up to hand her fat checks.
I often saw her lead those women into the treatment room, where agonizing screams would pierce through the locked door.
But strangely, those same women emerged radiant, as if they'd shed twenty or thirty years overnight, pressing stacks of cash into her hands with tearful gratitude.
What baffled me more was h...

In the languid twilight of existence, where the air hangs heavy with the scent of forgotten dreams, a figure lurks within the confines of the Vampire Zoo, a private prison adorned with the grotesque glamour of human fascination. Bohdan the Vampire Ripper, a creature of legend and lore, finds himself ensnared in a gilded cage, revered by a chorus of prison groupies whose adoration masks their own m...

Reunited, I became the “perfect wife” Julian had always dreamed of.
I didn’t ask where he was when he didn’t come home.
When his “one that got away” came to our door to provoke me, I greeted her with a polite smile.
I even caught them in the act, and instead of screaming, I thoughtfully closed the door for them.
The Elara who used to break down in hysterics over his infidelity was dead.

The woman...

I've got a reputation on campus as a doormat with zero dignity. I bring Wyatt Langley food, do his homework, act as his emotional dumping ground. Been at it for a year.

His rich friends mock my cheap clothes and say I'm reaching way out of my league. He never stops them. Sometimes he even laughs along.

Finally, he announces in front of everyone that he's breaking up with me. His first love is co...

At my boyfriend Liam's startup funding celebration, his best friend Mia showed up with a homemade cake.

I'm severely allergic to peanuts. The second I caught that smell, I said no.

Mia's face fell. Liam shot me a dark look and told me to eat it.

So I did.

The reaction hit within minutes—throat swelling shut, hives breaking out everywhere, couldn't breathe.

I reached for my EpiPen.

Mia got th...

I loved Lia Rockefeller for ten years, and it cost me everything.
When she said the cheerleaders were ganging up on her, I charged in and took the punches for her.
When she cried that her stepsister would ruin her at Yale, I tore up my acceptance letter right then and there.
When she held me tight in the middle of the night and whispered, "I'm so lucky to have you"—I thought it meant forever.
Thre...

I was taking six-year-old Arabella to fit her dress for the theater's grand opening.
As we crossed the intersection, a truck suddenly lost control and T-boned our car.
When I opened my eyes again, an agonizing pain ripped through me. I opened my mouth to call out Everett's name, only to hear his hushed voice seeping through the crack in the door—
"Staging an unavoidable accident was the only way t...

Zombies surrounded the city. I charged alone through the quarantine zone and retrieved the vaccine.
All of humanity hailed me as their savior.
But Amy, my superior and fiancée, pushed me aside at the medal ceremony.
"Your hands are covered in blood. Stand back. Why can’t you be more like David?"
"A truly civilized person ought not to even bear the sight of bloodshed."
Just to live up to her defini...

I was dying, but honestly? Death felt like mercy.

As a vampire, I should have been immortal. But at six years old, I'd made a deal with a demon, gambling my fate on "true love"—if three times I failed to win the heart of the one I loved, the demon would claim my soul.

Just when I thought death was certain, I got pregnant. Morag, the demon, showed rare mercy, promising to wait until I gave birth....

In my past life, when I eagerly handed my ultrasound to my gentle doctor husband, I didn't get a warm embrace. I got a scalpel. Without anesthesia.

The man I loved dragged me into a pitch-black basement to butcher me alive. My once-doting mother called me a filthy whore, treating me like a sickening stain on the family. My fiercely protective brother pinned me to a metal workbench, offering me u...

Two years ago, my best friend Maddie knelt in front of me, crying as she borrowed $50,000.
The very next day, she vanished off the face of the earth. No explanation, no apology, not even a single text message.
I was left carrying her toxic debt. I lost my fiancé, and I lost my ability to trust anyone.
Until one late night, a call came in from an unknown number originating in an abandoned mining di...

After being lost for ten years, I was finally brought home by my biological parents.
They stood in the cramped basement and asked me, "The family went bankrupt a month ago. You won't hold it against us for being poor, will you?"
Overcome with emotion, I hugged them tightly and shook my head fervently.
Later, my father was diagnosed with uremia and needed a large sum of money for surgery. To earn m...

There are no unmated males in our pack.
Every she-wolf in Hollowfen is promised to someone when she turns eighteen. We just don't get to know who until we walk into the Choosing Hall.
Girls go in wearing white. They come out flushed, shaking, barely able to stand. Some laugh. Some cry. None of them talk about what happens inside.
My sister Thessaly turned eighteen this spring. Gran told her she co...

I’d worked at my husband’s company for three years, only to be fired by him right when a promotion was within my reach.
It was all because I’d been swamped with overtime work one day and neglected the cat he’d given me.
When I came home that night and found the cat food hadn’t been refilled like usual, my husband, who had always treated me with tenderness, flew into a rage for the first time.
“If ...

That was supposed to be one of the most anticipated days of my life—the wedding of my best friend, Sarah.
But when I put on my bridesmaid dress, she called me a bitch.
"Get out." Sarah looked at me like I was trash.
"I don't want to see you at my wedding."
I stood frozen in place, staring down at the broken Cartier bracelet she had given me, now lying scattered on the floor.

My chosen mate used his Beta authority to give the entire moonbloom compound to his fated mate's daughter.
The healer had said to split it—half for each child. Both would live. He overrode her. Gave the full dose to Rosalie Blackwell.
He wanted a full recovery. Just not for ours.
Three days later, my daughter Wren's organs shut down. She died on her birthday, still asking why Daddy wasn't there....

I gave Arthur a thousand years. A thousand years to secure his throne as God-King.

And on the day of our engagement ceremony, he announced he was marrying someone else.

In my past life, I bled myself dry for him.

He told me Lilith needed Seraphim blood to live. I believed him. He bound me to the Divine Punishment Pillar and carved open my chest, one cut at a time.

He massacred my entire clan, ...

When the apocalypse arrived, my girlfriend, driven by vanity, exposed my unlimited resource space and incited starving people to kill me and feed me to the zombies, while she herself stepped on my flesh and blood to become the "savior goddess".
But she didn't know that I mutated amidst the pile of corpses and awakened into the only zombie tyrant.
I corrupted the space, cut off food supplies, led a...

I used to believe my husband was my hero. When Julian Miller’s empire was falling apart, I made a desperate choice to save him. I spent a night in the suite of his fiercest competitor, Arthur Vance. Julian called me his hero and said he trusted me.

But he was lying to me for five long years.

Everything changed in an instant. Watching our daughter hang from a broken roller coaster, Julian didn’t ...