Hidden Gems
4 stories
The Dark Between Dreams | NEW DRAFT | ✔️ by kgraves
kgraves
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    Parts 3
Skye is dead. How she perished is a mystery. All she knows is that she is trapped in After, a makeshift city of souls surrounded by infinite darkness and terrifying monsters that tear ghosts apart. But while all other ghosts accept the eternity of darkness ahead of them, Skye refuses to spend her afterlife in a world without light. She knows there must be some way to escape the monsters that keep them all imprisoned and return to the realm of the living, and she's going to find it...even if she has to face the prince of monsters, himself. Skye risks her existence and escapes the walled city of After in search of the truth. Venturing into the black reveals untold perils, but that's not all. The Dark...and the dark prince, are hiding a terrible secret... 🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻 WATTYS SHORTLIST | 2021 WATTYS BEST COVER SHORTLIST | 2021 AMBYS FAVORITE - HORROR | 2024 Cover art drawn by me.
The Cost of Conjuring: A Bargain Beyond Blood by Easterhead
Easterhead
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    Parts 23
Levi is a nineteen-year-old asexual wizard with too many problems and not enough friends to help him with them. The magic and the price for using it is taking its toll but he refuses to give up before he has fixed what he broke eight years ago. But when magical beings start disappearing around him he is forced to acknowledge he is in way over his head. He needs help. But the price for that help may be even greater than that of the magic. Placed third in the Triple moon awards (2025) Longlister ONC 2024 Winner Round 2 ONC 2024 ONC 2024 Prompt 48. The curse of magic is that for every reward, there is a great loss. For every spell that goes right, there is something else-in the real, natural world-that goes terribly wrong. Nature loves its balance. Mature rating is due to on-page description of (magical) substance abuse in chapter 13. Cover by Supreme Rat Queen Rai who just said nope to my feeble attempt (as I knew she would :P)
Call of the Wild by Maeve-Ashford
Maeve-Ashford
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    Parts 13
When Aren is chased from his wolf pack after an accident in a hunting festival known as the Call of the Wild, his escape quickly gets upended. Quite literally. He's hit by a car, stolen from his retreat, and threatened with veterinary care by a clueless but well-meaning human. Not the best of starts to his journey, but Aren finds this accidental meeting might be just the thing he needs. With time running out and shadows chasing him down, Aren must choose between saving himself and saving his captor. ───── • ⋆⋅⸙⋅⋆ • ───── Status: Complete Story length: 25,000+ words
The Taste of Home by sandydragon1
sandydragon1
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    Parts 45
Goat sucker. Overgrown lizard. Monster. Miguel is all too familiar with the many names humans have for chupacabras. As a member of a struggling pack, he knows how unfair the world can be to his kind. With their scaly bodies, sharp claws, and flesh-melting venom, it's no wonder humans fear them. After Miguel protects a human from his pack leader at the only restaurant that caters to chupacabras, his life takes a turn for the strange when he is offered a job as a chef. Adapting to the culinary chaos soon becomes the least of Miguel's worries as he finds himself falling for Alejandro, an outspoken chef who treats him with more compassion than even his own kind. But what human would ever love a chupacabra? With the restaurant struggling to stay afloat, inter-species tensions flaring, and Alejandro's ex serving as a constant reminder of what he can never be, will Miguel be able to take the heat, or will he be forced out of the kitchen? Cover by @ShyGuySamurai