Hypocrisy

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...

I was dragged to the stand of the MRI Memory Court by my own flesh and blood.

Their demand? To forcibly extract my kidney to keep their uremic adopted daughter alive.

A guilty verdict meant losing not just my bodily autonomy, but my freedom for the rest of my life.

Bathed in the global spotlight, my parents performed as tragic heroes, while their adopted saint cried a river of deceit.

They t...

The Solarien family had two daughters.
Aurelia, the younger, was their pride and joy, soon to marry Duke Lysander beneath a reputation she had never earned: the so-called genius enchantress.
I, Vespera, was nothing more than the family's hidden workhorse, locked in a basement and valued only for what I could produce.
For years, I churned out enchanted gear to fund their lavish life while they used...

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...

The night before graduation, a confession post blew up the school forum:
“Daphne, I’m gonna rip up my Harvard offer onstage during commencement to confess to you—my whole college future as my love token.”
The OP bragged nonstop in the comments that he’d locked down the state’s only full-ride Harvard scholarship, his admission was a done deal, and graduation was nothing but a meaningless formality ...

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...

Not long ago, my pregnant daughter was murdered, and the killer remained at large.
Until that day, as I stood before her grave, her husband Oliver asked me,
"Mom, do you know who Robin is?"
"Stella came back from her prenatal checkup one day and said she bumped into Robin," he choked out. "She even said she wanted to take the baby to visit him."
My hand, reaching out to comfort him, froze in mid-...

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...

My name is Junie. I'm six years old, a half-werewolf. My mom Juliet is a human witch, the gentlest woman alive.

A month ago, Mom was eight months pregnant. We were walking by the river when Dad's childhood friend Melody shoved her straight into the rushing current. The cold water took my unborn brother. When they pulled Mom out, she was covered in blood, her magic all but gone.

Dad, Maxwell, is ...

All I wanted was a quiet place to live. I drained my savings and paid eighty thousand extra for the one unit on the row with a private backyard.
On my very first day, I found my neighbor's son beating my new hydrangeas with a stick while his mother stood there filming him and laughing.
Bianca says the yard belongs to everybody. Her husband is vice president of the HOA board, so around here, whatev...

I was going to donate a kidney to my fiancé.

Before telling him I was a match, I lied and said I was the one with kidney failure. Dean froze for only a few seconds before canceling the wedding. He said sick people should leave on their own instead of burdening everyone else.

I was about to ask whether he had wanted to call off the wedding all along when his biological sister walked out of his be...

"Sign the Brooklyn house over to Isla. I'll cover your tuition next semester."

Gabriel didn't look up. Just sat there in his leather chair like he was doing me a favor.

My mother grabbed my sleeve. "She has depression, Rachel. She just needs a studio. Why are you making this so hard?"

I looked at her, then at him. That house was the only thing my father left me when he died. The only thing. And...

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...

My husband, Victor Falcone, was a mafia godfather whose very name makes the entire underworld tremble.
A year ago, he barely survived an assassination attempt. The trauma gave him severe amnesia, completely wiping out the three months we spent keeping each other alive in the slums.
When he woke up, he was a different man—cold and ruthless. He treated my stepsister like his untouchable first love, ...

My mother-in-law, Dorothy, sneered that I dressed like a janitor. My husband, Adrian, called my design sketches "a waste of fabric." Even the son I carried for nine months called me an embarrassment, saying he wished his dad’s secretary, Madison, was his mother.
For eight long years, I was nothing but an unpaid maid in this house.
Until today, when the doctor told me severe exhaustion was causing ...

Returned to my biological family, I didn’t find a home. I became a living blood bag for my adopted sister.

On the night of our shared eighteenth birthday gala, I weakly tugged at my mother's dress. "Mom, please... no needles just for tonight. I only want to stand in the corner and watch the cake being cut."

"Elena is suffocating in agony, and all you care about is a slice of cake?"

Disgusted,...

Translation

Zombies besieged the city. I fought through the infected zone alone and brought back the vaccine.

All of humanity hailed me as their savior.

But at the medal ceremony, my superior and fiancée Amy shoved me aside. "You're covered in blood. Stand over there. Would it kill you to be more like David?"

"A man who can't even bear to look at violence—that's what a civilized person loo...

My husband suffered a massive heart attack mid-thrust inside my best friend.

Now, the ER doctors are clutching his surgical consent forms, waiting for me—the legal wife—to sign.

Over the phone, my mother-in-law shrieked in absolute despair while my best friend sobbed in terror.

I turned a deaf ear to them, taking my time to admire my makeup in the mirror.

There was absolutely no ru...

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....