Chapter 1

Julian's ex, Cassandra, drove a knife into me when I was eight months pregnant. That ended everything.

Reborn, I vowed to stay a world away from him.

What I never expected was that Cassandra had been reborn too.

She was beyond unhinged. She hired men to kidnap me.

"Who said you could love Julian?! I'll kill you!"

It was the perfect chance to stage my own death and claim my birthright as the lost heiress to a fortune.

But then Julian stood over my "corpse." He lost his mind completely.

Audrey POV

Three years into my marriage to Julian Thorne, and I remained the collateral damage in his endless, brutal war with Cassandra Vance, his ex.

Cassandra had turned our wedding into a funeral pyre, setting my gown ablaze. Julian retaliated by crashing her father's funeral and dissolving the casket with acid.

Cassandra had once tied me to her sports car and dragged me for two miles. Julian had responded by digging up her father's remains that very night, chopping them to pieces, and feeding them to strays.

They knew each other's breaking points intimately, and each blow was precise, devastating, aimed straight for the jugular.

But every blade they meant for each other somehow found its way, twisting, into me.

After Cassandra tossed me into a dog cage, leaving my body a mangled mess with not an inch of skin untouched, I finally couldn't take it anymore.

I clung desperately to Julian, who was about to seek revenge, tears streaming down my face. "Julian... please, stop this... I'm begging you..."

Julian's body stiffened, but his voice was as cold and hard as steel. "Audrey, after what she did to you, how can I just let it go?!"

"But I'm terrified...Julian, I'm so terrified..." I pleaded, my voice raw with despair.

I knew the true depth of their generational hatred.

Five years ago, the night before Julian's wedding to Cassandra, he'd walked in on his mother, disoriented, being violated by Cassandra's father.

The trauma had been too much. Julian's mother, shattered by the violation, had thrown herself from their penthouse balcony, dying instantly.

Julian himself had ensured Cassandra's father would never walk again.

From that moment, lovers became sworn enemies, consumed by their mutual loathing.

But the thought of Cassandra's twisted schemes, her venomous cruelty, sent a tidal wave of fear crashing over me.

"We can't beat a psychopath... She's going to kill me... She'll tear me apart, piece by bloody piece..."

Julian fell silent for a moment, then slowly, painstakingly, peeled my fingers from his arm. His voice was filled with bitter resolve.

"I'll never forgive her! I'll fight her to the death!"

Watching his determined back walk away, my hands dropped, powerless.

That night, he didn't return, but his actions had an effect.

Cassandra didn't appear before me again.

I thought my suffering was finally over, until a year later.

Cassandra, wielding a sharpened knife, plunged it into my eight-month pregnant belly, not once, but seven brutal times!

It happened so suddenly. Julian instantly tackled the assailant, his face contorted with rage. "Cassandra! What the hell are you doing?!"

I lay in a pool of blood, the searing pain in my abdomen tearing me apart.

My hand trembled as I reached out. "Julian! Save... the baby... she's trying to kill us..."

Julian rushed to my side, but the next second, Cassandra let out a chilling, maniacal laugh and plunged the bloodied knife savagely into her own chest!

Blood welled at the corners of her mouth, but her eyes gleamed with a terrifying light. "Julian, take one more step, and I'll gut myself! Let's see who drains faster, you or me!"

Julian actually froze.

I was stunned. I couldn't believe my eyes!

"Julian! What are you hesitating for?! Isn't she your mortal enemy?!" Blood rushed to my head, and I screamed with all my might. "You said you'd never let her go when she trapped me in that burning car wreck for hours! You vowed to make her pay a hundredfold when she left me for dead at the bottom of that ravine! Now, she's trying to kill me!"

Julian's gaze flickered wildly between me, bleeding out on the floor, and the deranged Cassandra.

More and more blood gushed from beneath me. I could feel our baby's life fading away, and I could only beg.

"Julian... you promised to protect me for a lifetime..."

At my words, he turned towards me.

A flicker of hope ignited in my eyes, only to be extinguished by Cassandra's piercing shriek-

"Julian! I'm pregnant!"

"It's your baby!"

What?!!

My pupils dilated.

They... they actually...

Then, I watched in horror as Julian turned, scooped Cassandra into his arms, and rushed out the door without a backward glance!

In that instant, shock, fury, despair... all emotions crashed over me.

A metallic taste filled my mouth, and I let out a wretched laugh. "Hahahahaha..."

How ironic!

Two people who, at every encounter, seemed hell-bent on tearing each other apart, had secretly been entwined in the shadows, sharing the same bed.

And even conceived a child!

So, the burning hatred, the endless struggle to the death, had all been a lie.

Beneath the towering animosity and the tormenting entanglement lay Julian's deepest, most unspeakable love for Cassandra!

My laughter turned to tears.

Years ago, I'd rescued an amnesiac Julian. For a year, we'd lived on a secluded island, growing close, falling in love.

Later, when his memory returned, and he wanted to take me away from the island, his eyes were still full of tender affection. "Audrey, come with me. From now on, I will protect you with my life, forever."

But because of that promise, I was dragged into a vortex of hatred again and again, repeatedly enduring and compromising for him. Even when injured, I only dared to lick my wounds in secret, terrified that my pain would further fuel their conflict.

But now, the truth was brutally clear, his promises shattered with his own hands. Our baby and I were nothing but pawns in their twisted game!

Despair and bone-deep regret swallowed me whole. My consciousness completely faded into darkness.

The next second, my eyes snapped open!

The searing pain in my body was back, but not in my abdomen.

My trembling hand fumbled for my phone. The date on the screen made my entire body jolt.

I had been reborn, back to ten days before my wedding!

I was in the hospital now because Cassandra, upon hearing of the wedding, had suddenly gone berserk and deliberately rammed her car into me, sending me flying thirty feet.

The thought jolted me awake.

Cassandra's retaliation... always seemed to follow Julian's declarations of love for me.

One masked their unrequited longing with hatred, the other vented their love-hate entanglement with violence. Every one of their battles was, in truth, an unspoken declaration of love hidden beneath a blood-soaked feud.

Two psychopaths!

A shiver ran down my spine. Without hesitation, I typed a message to the number etched into my very soul.

"I've made up my mind. I'm coming home."

His reply was instantaneous. "Good. The Gateway will open in half a month. I'll come for you myself."

Looking at the short message on the screen, my eyes immediately welled up.

I was Annelise Sterling, the long-lost heiress of the powerful Sterling family from Aethelred.

In my previous life, my family had frantically searched for me before the Aethelred Gateway closed. But I had chosen Julian, sacrificing my chance to return home, and died tragically without seeing my family again.

The connection to Aethelred, the Gateway, only opened once every ten years.

This life, I'd seize this chance to escape these two psychopaths, once and for all!

"Audrey! You're awake?"

Julian burst into the hospital room, grasping my hand. "It's all my fault... I didn't protect you! I swear I won't let Cassandra get away with this!"