His Broken Angel's Dying Secret

I was a ghost haunting the halls of Port Sterling High, pretending to be alive. My only goal was to live like a normal teenager, even as the cancer eating me from the inside was a secret I guarded with my life. Then the school's resident psycho, Bishop Dalton, decided I was his to protect. He mistook my chemo-induced weakness for fragility and my nausea for nerves. He fought my battles, took detention for me, and glared at anyone who looked at me wrong, ready to tear the world apart for me. He was trying to save me from the monsters he understood, never guessing the real monster was in my own blood. Then one day, he saw it: the horrific, black-and-purple bruise on my arm from a blown IV. The fury in his eyes was terrifying. He was ready to kill whoever had dared to touch me. He grabbed my wrist, his voice shaking as he demanded a name. "Who did this to you?" I couldn't tell him the truth. The pity would have been a sentence worse than death. So I looked that beautiful, broken boy in the eye and gave him a lie far more cruel. "I did it to myself," I whispered, letting the tears fall. I watched the fire in his soul die out, replaced by a devastating pity. I had saved my secret, but in doing so, I had just become the tragedy he would try to fix.

Chapters

Chapter 6

A harsh beam of white light sliced through the dusk, hitting Bishop's bloodied face.

"Nobody move!" a furious voice shouted.

Vice Principal Alistair Prynne marched around the corner of the shed, holding a heavy black flashlight. He was breathing heavily, his face red with anger.

Bishop reacted instantly.

He stepped sideways, using his broad shoulders to completely block Claire from Prynne's line of sight.

"Get out of here," Bishop whispered harshly over his shoulder. "Run."

Claire didn't move. She knew Prynne had been looking for an excuse to expel Bishop all year. If she ran, Bishop was finished.

Prynne stopped a few feet away. He shined the light directly into Bishop's eyes and smiled a nasty, triumphant smile.

"Fighting again, Dalton?" Prynne sneered. "I caught you red-handed. The school board is going to love this."

Bishop's jaw tightened. He stood up straighter, preparing to take the full blame. "I was just-"

A small, freezing cold hand grabbed the back of Bishop's leather jacket and pulled hard.

Claire stepped out from behind him.

She widened her eyes and let her bottom lip tremble, perfectly faking absolute terror.

Prynne's mouth dropped open. He lowered the flashlight. "Miss Hansen? What are you doing out here?"

"It was an accident, Mr. Prynne," Claire said. She forced a tear to well up in her eye. "Bishop wasn't fighting."

Bishop slowly turned his head. He stared at her, completely stunned.

Claire pointed a shaking finger at the rusted metal pipe lying in the dirt.

"I was trying to take a shortcut," Claire lied smoothly. "I tripped over that pipe. I almost fell into that pile of rusted metal."

She took a deep breath. "Bishop was walking by. He grabbed me to stop me from falling, but he lost his balance and hit his face on the brick wall."

To sell the lie, Claire carefully pulled up the left sleeve of her oversized sweater just enough to expose the inside of her wrist, deliberately keeping the fabric gathered over the telltale needle mark in the center of her vein. She exposed the edge of the massive, dark purple bruise that covered her pale skin. It was the fresh hematoma from the chemotherapy IV she had received hours ago. She silently prayed that Prynne, a privileged administrator who rarely looked closely at anything, wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a medical hematoma and a blunt-force injury.

"He saved me from getting hurt worse," Claire whispered.

Prynne stared at the ugly, dark bruise on the honor student's wrist. He looked at her pale, sickly face. He believed every word.

Prynne frowned and looked at Bishop. "Is this true, Dalton?"

Bishop's eyes were glued to the purple bruise on Claire's wrist.

His chest stopped moving. His eyes darkened with a sudden, intense emotion. He swallowed hard.

"Yeah," Bishop grunted.

Prynne sighed, clearly disappointed he couldn't expel Bishop today. "Fine. But stay out of this area, both of you."

Prynne turned and walked away, his flashlight beam bouncing off the grass.

The second Prynne was out of sight, Bishop moved.

He reached out and grabbed Claire's left wrist. His grip was tight, almost painful.

Claire gasped.

Bishop pulled her arm up, forcing her to look at the dark purple bruise.

"What the hell is this?" Bishop demanded. His voice was a low, dangerous growl. "You didn't get this from falling."

Claire's heart hammered against her ribs. She tried to yank her arm back, but his grip was like iron.

"I bruise easily," Claire said, her voice shaking slightly. "Let me go."

Bishop stepped closer. He backed her up until her shoulders hit the chain-link fence. He towered over her.

"Why did you lie for me?" he asked, his eyes searching her face for the truth.

Claire looked up into his dark, angry eyes.

"Because you're a good person," she said softly.

Bishop flinched. He looked at her like she had just slapped him.

A bitter, self-mocking laugh escaped his lips. The anger in his eyes turned into something cold and broken.

He dropped her wrist. He took a large step back, putting distance between them.

"Stay away from me, Claire," Bishop said coldly. "Don't play these games with me."

He turned and walked away into the dark, his shoulders tense and rigid.

Claire watched him go. Her legs finally gave out.

She slid down the chain-link fence and sat in the dirt, gasping for air.

She looked at the needle mark hidden in the center of the bruise. Her secret was safe for another day.

Continue to next part

Two years after my death, I was a ghost trapped beside my grandmother, who suffered from Alzheimer's. She still thought I was alive, still trying to contact my ex-boyfriend, Liam. "Do you regret it, Chloe?" Liam's voice was biting and cold. "It's useless. Even if you got down on your knees and begged me, I would never give you another chance." He thought I was still alive. He thought I was manipulating my grandmother to get to him. But I was a ghost, and nothing more. I had left this world a long time ago. Liam was supposed to hate me forever, right up until someone told him the truth. "She's dead! She's been dead for two years. And you killed her." Liam's world shattered. He came looking for me in the most extreme way possible.

Billionaire Horror Modern

8.3

After My Husband Chose His Mistress Over Our Baby

8.3

Betrayed by the man she loved, a grieving mother faces the ultimate cruelty when her husband chooses his mistress over the life of their own child. This heart-wrenching tragedy transforms into a chilling tale of supernatural vengeance. Driven by unyielding maternal fury and dark forces, she rises from the ashes of her broken marriage. In a world where romance turns to horror, she seeks a cold retribution against those who discarded her family.

Fantasy Horror Romance

8.3

Burned by Poison, Saved by the Devil

8.3

My cousin Hailey paid a dock worker to assault me just to ruin my engagement. To survive the military-grade aphrodisiac she poisoned me with, I stumbled into a walk-in freezer and threw myself onto the only source of cold I could find-a man paralyzed by unnatural hypothermia. It was a desperate, primal exchange of my heat for his ice just to keep my heart from stopping. But when Hailey threw open the heavy iron door, leading my fiancé and the entire Bolton family to witness my "shame," her triumphant grin instantly vanished. She hadn't caught me with a low-life thug. She had caught me straddling Demetrius Maddox, the ruthless Iron King of Chicago. The air in the room dropped to absolute zero. My grandmother screamed in horror, and my father turned the color of ash. Hailey, blinded by jealousy, tried to double down. She pointed a manicured finger at the deadliest man in the city and called him a "nameless muscle" I picked up to defile the family name. She didn't realize she had just signed her own death warrant. I didn't cower. I realized this was the only chance to survive the family that wanted me dead. I walked up to the Devil himself, my body still humming with the poison, and looked him in the eye. "Kill me, and the cold inside you wins," I whispered, knowing he was dying from the inverse of my own poison. "I am the only doctor who knows how to cure you." Demetrius tightened his hand around my throat, his dark eyes assessing my worth. "Prove it," he growled. I turned back to my trembling cousin and signaled the enforcer to hand me the whip.

Adventure Horror Modern

9.2

Claimed By The Cursed Black Snake Alpha

9.2

At the absolute summit of her pop-star career, the stage collapsed beneath Catherine's feet, plunging her into a mechanical black hole. When she opened her eyes, she wasn't in a hospital, but a savage, primitive forest. Before a fire-breathing beast could tear her apart, a massive black snake crushed it with a single strike. The terrifying serpent then transformed into Amon, a towering, heavily scarred man with golden slitted eyes, who swore his life to protect her. He brought her to his tribe, but instead of safety, they were met with ravenous hunger and disgust. The tribe's males stared at Catherine's fragile human body like a rare breeding prize, while treating Amon like garbage. "He's a cursed, cold-blooded freak! His rut will tear you to pieces!" The Chief sneered, pointing a thick, accusing finger at Amon. "By tribal law, you must mate with our strongest tiger and bear shifters to give us powerful cubs!" Humiliated, Amon's broad shoulders slumped, his fists trembling in suffocating shame as he prepared to back away. Catherine's heart pounded with fierce, burning anger. When she was about to be eaten, Amon was the only one who bled for her. Where were these arrogant bullies then? Why should she let them treat her savior like a monster? As the tribe's strongest warriors swarmed forward to claim her, Catherine stepped directly in front of Amon's lethal claws. "I don't need any of you," she declared, her voice cutting through the chaos. "I will mate with Amon and take his beast mark today!"

Fantasy Horror Werewolf

9.6

He Signed Away His Own Wife

9.6

#Chapter1 Chapter I watched my husband sign the papers that would end our marriage while he was busy texting the woman he actually loved. He didn't even glance at the header. He just scribbled the sharp, jagged signature that had signed death warrants for half of New York, tossed the file onto the passenger seat, and tapped his screen again. "Done," he said, his voice devoid of emotion. That was Dante Moretti. The Underboss. A man who could smell a lie from a mile away but couldn't see that his wife had just handed him an annulment decree disguised beneath a stack of mundane logistics reports. For three years, I scrubbed his blood out of his shirts. I saved his family's alliance when his ex, Sofia, ran off with a civilian. In return, he treated me like furniture. He left me in the rain to save Sofia from a broken nail. He left me alone on my birthday to drink champagne on a yacht with her. He even handed me a glass of whiskey—her favorite drink—forgetting that I despised the taste. I was merely a placeholder. A ghost in my own home. So, I stopped waiting. I burned our wedding portrait in the fireplace, left my platinum ring in the ashes, and boarded a one-way flight to San Francisco. I thought I was finally free. I thought I had escaped the cage. But I underestimated Dante. When he finally opened that file weeks later and realized he had signed away his wife without looking, the Reaper didn't accept defeat. He burned down the world to find me, obsessed with reclaiming the woman he had already thrown away.

Horror Modern Romance

8.6

Husband's Lies, Mistress's Son

8.6

My world crumbled when I saw my husband, Arthur, across the street with his mistress, Karin, and a son who was his spitting image. For years, he' d told me he wasn' t ready for a family. It was all a lie. But the true horror began at my own awards ceremony. Karin' s son, coached to hate me, rushed the stage and attacked me. The assault caused me to miscarry the baby Arthur swore he never wanted. As I lay bleeding on the stage, my husband didn't help. He shoved me aside, his eyes blazing with fury. "You monster!" he roared, scooping up his son and leaving me shattered in front of everyone. Later, Karin cornered me, her voice a triumphant whisper. "I made sure you'd lose the baby." Then, she pushed me off a cliff into the churning ocean below. But I didn't die. A fisherman pulled me from the water, broken but alive. As the world mourned the "accidental drowning" of Elenora Dawson, I made a call to the Vienna Conservatory. "I accept."

Horror Modern Romance

His Broken Angel's Dying Secret

Chapter 6

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