Mallory has a mission, a purpose, an end in sight. She doesn't need fun or distractions. She's driven and focused to the point of inattention to any and all things going on around her. And that's how it happens. One moment she's checking her mail before heading to her last class of the day, and the next she's staring at the remains of her emotional support coffee all over her shirt, the floor, and the handsome neighbor she's never even noticed until today. His presence in her life is a nuisance and the absolute last thing she would have wanted, but maybe, just maybe, he might be something she needed. __________ Open Novella Contest (ONC2026), prompt 19: when you accidentally spill coffee on someone, the moment that should've ruined your day becomes the beginning of a surprising and life changing friendship. I told myself I wasn't going to do it, I wasn't going to attempt two novellas at once when I have so many other things started. But clearly the muse is strong and the will is weak.

~Based on prompt 119 for ONC 2026~ "You wake after a mafia raid with a vampire bite marking you as »claimed«, but the vampire heir accused of biting you insists they are innocent."

She agreed to marry her enemy to end a war. Now she's trapped in a tower with him... and the only way out requires a kiss. The problem? They hate each other. And they might mean it. (Note: This novella is based on the prompt no. 40 of the Open Novella Contest) ROUND 1 AND 2 QUALIFIER 😭 dear god the SUSPENSE almost killed me ngl BUT heeeeeeere we go again!!!!!

A forgotten amulet. A whisper of fate. A princess it commands, but at what cost? Maela, princess of the Seelie Court, can't sit through court affairs to save her life. To avoid another royal meeting, she takes a new path through the forest, stumbling upon ancient ruins. The secret within their shattered walls sets her on a path she must find the answer to--before it's too late. Main prompt: ~ 93. Buried beneath the ruins lies an artifact that whispers memories of an ancient being. The first memory it reveals is a warning and it's meant for you. Sub prompts: ~ 16. =And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul= Quote by John Muir ~ 11. The daughter of the most powerful witch(changed to Fae) is nothing like her mother. ~ 104. While wandering in the woods, you dismiss the rustling behind you as nothing more that wind through the trees until you turn around and realize it isn't the wind at all.

If you got anyone to describe Jessie Reynolds-Somber in one word, it would be 'lucky.' She survived childhood leukemia (twice), has the best friend-slash-roommate in the world, and she's studying something she loves at the university she's forever adored. But not even November can describe why she feels so incomplete, as though she's forgotten to do something she'll never get a chance to do. Why she feels like she's failed---no, worse, like she's a failure.

AMBASSADORS' PICK FOR ROUND ONE, ONC 2026 ⭐ Before France burned and crowns fell, it once starved to live. Before he was a king, he was a boy who once feared the silence. Before she was a revolutionary, she was a girl who once believed in love. Years before his marriage to Marie Antoinette, before alliances forged him into the King the world will remember, Louis was only a quiet prince who found comfort in the laughter of a printer's daughter from the Third Estate. Camille was never meant to stand beside a monarch. She never asked to love a prince. She asked for bread. For justice. For a France that did not bleed its poorest dry. But when a prophecy, whispered in the still halls of Versailles, follows Louis into manhood, "He will love two women. One will save his life. The other will destroy it." The trouble is, love does not wear a name. As France trembles beneath famine, debt, and rising fury, the prince becomes king. The king becomes a symbol. And the girl he once loved becomes something far more dangerous than memory. Revolution has many faces. Sometimes, it looks like the woman you once promised forever. Kings have honour. Soldiers are brave. Poets have hearts. And all Camille has left... is rage. As history sharpens its blade and the guillotine waits for its final applause, Louis must decide which love was his salvation, and which was his ruin. Because in a country built on hierarchy and hunger, loving the wrong person does not merely break a heart. It breaks a crown.

September 1806. The janissaries are advancing towards Istanbul, with an army raised by Rumelia ayans, and are threatening everything Nurcan, a witch serving as the defterdar of the Sihirsizler (non-magical) Irad-i Cedid, has worked for during the past twelve years. Fearing for her life, as the Sultan Selim III is about to sacrifice the Irad-i Cedid for internal peace, she flees to the forests of her native Trabzon Eyalet and leaves behind the Sublime Porte's instabiity. Note: This story is written for the 2026 Open Novella Contest, using the following prompts: 16: "And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul." (quote by John Muir) 78: You begin to realize that nothing is quite what it seems. #1 in administration and taxation (February 8, 2026) #1 in Napoleonic Wars (February 27, 2026) ONC Round 1 qualifier (March 8, 2026) February 2026 30DC Gold

(Nocturnal Law Series) One fatal night changes everything. Vampire detective Percy Ashmidia hunts down the worst supernatural criminals in all of Sanguine City, but he's chasing ghosts trying to figure out the identity of their latest killer. A fresh lead has him eager to uncover their identity, only to find himself fallen for a sinister trap that nearly costs his own sorry fangs. Injured, he stumbles into a witch-run clinic just before the sun rises and encounters a very exhausted, handsome witch doctor who doesn't have the heart to turn him away.

🧜⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ Where old spells sleep, a crimson sorrow grows. When a lone fisherman is washed ashore a vanishing island, he witnesses a ritual not meant for mortal eyes: a siren singing a blood-red flower into bloom. He returns with a gift that saves his life but carries a haunting price. Now, the "Bloom of the Deep" sits in the Royal Garden, fading as fast as the King's dying daughter. It heals with a touch, but it thirsts for blood. As the Blue Moon approaches, the sea demands back what was stolen. In a world of forgotten wars, hidden mermaids, and whispers of ancient witches, one question remains: Is the flower a miracle of life, or the final curse of a dying race?

A covert government operative sent to surveil a famous footballer accidentally becomes the nanny to his six-year-old son, forcing her to choose between completing the mission that could destroy him or protecting the unexpected family she has begun to love. ◈ ◈ ◈ Grace Anna Sumer has always craved freedom. That hunger is what led her into the shadows, working as a covert field operative for a little-known government agency. Officially, she gathers intelligence. Unofficially, she removes problems. Pulled from a coveted assignment in the Congo, Grace is reassigned to Paris to surveil the family of Hermes Mansi, an international football (soccer) star whose career is tightly controlled by a powerful and corrupt league that profits from obedience. Grace is told to watch him. To observe. To wait. What she does not expect is a twist of fate that places her inside his home, hired accidentally as the nanny to his six-year-old son, Drax. Under the safest cover imaginable, Grace enters Hermes' life with one objective, gather evidence and prepare for a quiet takedown. But the longer she stays, the harder it becomes to remember where the mission ends and her feelings begin. As secrets unravel and loyalties fracture, Grace must choose between completing her assignment or protecting the fragile and unexpected family she has found. ◈ ◈ ◈ This novella was written for the Open Novella Contest 2026, based on Prompt #33: "It doesn't take long before everything in your life spins out of control. One moment you're a secret assassin, and the next you've somehow been hired as a nanny and you're not entirely sure how it happened."