Clara Beaumont POV:

I was awakened by a syrupy, tender voice. Sweet as honey, sharp as a knife.

"Clara... you've been on a hunger strike for three days now. If you don't eat something, how will your body hold up?"

I slowly opened my eyes. Through the blur, a young man's face gradually sharpened into focus — Dudley Nixon. The man I had poured all my heart into loving in my previous life. He had once been every girlish fantasy I possessed, the destination I starved myself for, defied my grandfather for, willing to abandon everything to reach.

Now he stood before me holding a porcelain bowl, dark brown broth steaming, his expression of concern rehearsed to perfection, the curve of his lips calibrated just right. He must have climbed in through the balcony — it was the only way he could have reached my room unnoticed, scaling the trellis like the snake he was.

I knew this bowl of soup.

Awareness crashed over me like ice water, drenching me in an instant — this was not a dream. I had been reborn. I was back at the very beginning of the nightmare. The memories of my past life exploded through my skull, shrieking into every pore: drinking this soup, being pinned beneath him, my grandfather dying of a sudden brain hemorrhage — he simply could not withstand the shock and fury of seeing his cherished granddaughter defiled before his eyes — my legs shattered, thirty years living in the filth of the rogue encampments. Thirty years of hell. And now, this gentle, smiling face before me was the ground zero of everything that broke.

Before I could fully come to my senses, voices drifted up from somewhere below, unconcerned with being overheard — distant, and growing fainter with each word.

"That child won't listen to reason, insisting on marrying Dudley Nixon come hell or high water. I don't think much of that young man — not one bit!"

It was Grandfather. Alistair's voice.

My heart clenched violently. I knew this voice too well. In my last life, it had been my final refuge. In my last life, it had been cut off before me, never to sound again.

The steward Jenson chimed in, his voice just as old but steadier. "I agree. That young man is far too eager. His wolfish ambition is plain as day. Master, you and I have lived long enough — we can see through a man's true colors at a glance."

The sound of Alistair's cane striking the stone path echoed up — a heavy, muffled thud — and then the voices faded further, moving away toward the far side of the garden. "And Candis, my daughter-in-law, has the nerve to tell me 'the young people are in love' — bah! I may be old, but I'm not senile yet!" The words came more faintly now, already half-consumed by distance.

Listening, my nose prickled sharply.

In my last life, Grandfather had been the same, pacing restlessly outside, afraid to barge in and push me further, yet refusing to leave. He had seen through everything. He had seen through Dudley's ambition, through Candis's gentle mask. But back then I was possessed, blinded, deaf to every word. And before he could protect me, they had conspired to push him into his grave. The sound of his dragon-headed cane hitting the floor, that dull thud, had become the death knell echoing through every nightmare of the thirty years that followed.

The voices from below came through the window with perfect clarity. Into my ears. And, of course, into Dudley's.

I lifted my eyes to look at him.

Dudley's hand, holding the bowl, paused for only a beat. Just one beat. Then his smile returned, untouched, as though my grandfather and butler's words were nothing but wind drifting past a window. He even tilted his head slightly, and in a volume perfectly calibrated to carry, said gently, "Clara, pay them no mind. I only care about you."

He said it so naturally. So earnestly.

I stared at his smiling face, stunned.

In my last life, hearing those words, I would have been moved to tears. The Clara of that life would have taken his indifference to others' judgment as true devotion, his "I only care about you" as a sacred vow. I would have believed I had found a man willing to endure any humiliation for my sake. Back then, hearing Grandfather cut him down like that from outside, I would have already been nursing grievances for him a thousand times over, aching to rush out and fight the world to protect this "devoted" man.

But now, looking at that smiling face again —

His lips curved gently, the corners of his eyes crinkling into pleasant arcs, concern oozing from every pore. But beneath that smile, I saw another face: the greedy, twisted sneer after the drug took hold; the leering grin as he shoved me onto the bed; the look in his eyes when he passed me in the rogue encampment later, his arm around his white moonlight, the way one glances at a crippled stray dog.

The two faces flickered before my eyes, overlapping, separating, overlapping again.

The tender smile. The twisted sneer. The doting gaze. The greedy leer.

A violent wave of nausea churned in my stomach, and I crushed it down with all my strength.

Three days of starvation had left my body alarmingly weak, my limbs heavy as lead. But my mind had never been sharper. I swept the room with my peripheral vision — the heavy oak door shut tight. The house was silent. Grandfather and Jenson were far away now, their voices long since swallowed by the garden walls. Candis would be making her move soon. She always waited for the perfect moment.

I remembered tonight's script perfectly, every scene, every line.

Dudley feeds me the soup. I drink. Candis bursts in with Grandfather, catching us in a compromising position. My reputation destroyed. Grandfather dead of rage. The family fortune seized.

That was how they had won last time.

Slowly, I let my head sink back into the pillow, my breathing growing shallow and weak. My blue eyes brimmed with tears — not feigned, but the real tears that had risen at the sound of Grandfather's voice, serving their purpose perfectly now.

"I can't," I whispered, my voice so hoarse it was barely audible. "I don't even have the strength to hold the spoon."

Dudley's smile stretched wider.

The light that flared in his eyes was the signal of greed being fed. He thought it was the prey surrendering. He didn't know it was the hunter drawing the snare.

"Don't worry, Clara." He set the bowl on the nightstand, turned, and sat on the edge of my bed. The mattress dipped under his weight. He dipped the spoon into the murky liquid and lifted it to my lips, his voice as soft as one coaxing a child. "Let me help you."

The bitter, herbal scent of the drug filled the air.

In my last life, that had been the smell of my destruction.

This time, it was his.

I met his gaze, my blue eyes brimming with deliberately summoned tears. I was a lamb awaiting slaughter. A fragile doll, ready to be shattered at any moment.

And he, the predator, was completely hooked.

The vow I made was silent, but it echoed through every cell of my being, a promise sealed with the agony of a life stolen from me.

In my last life, I poured all my heart into loving a man, and received hell in return.

In this life, I will deliver that hell back to them with my own hands.

You will all pay.

Every last one of you.

Clara Beaumont POV:

"Dudley," I whispered, my voice cracking perfectly. "I'm dizzy. Can you... can you help me sit up?"

His eyes, full of impatience and a poorly concealed greed, flickered. He wanted this over with. He wanted his prize.

"Of course, Clara." He set the bowl down on the nightstand with a soft clink, the sound echoing in the silent room like a countdown timer.

He reached for me, his hands rough against the delicate skin of my arms. I flinched, a genuine reaction this time. The memory of his touch, of what he did to me, sent a tremor of revulsion through my body.

I used it.

I let my body go limp, leaning heavily against him as he pulled me into a sitting position. My head lolled to the side, my hair falling across my face, hiding the cold, hard focus in my eyes.

My weight shifted, guiding my torso toward the edge of the bed, closer to the ornate mahogany nightstand.

My arm, seemingly too weak to support itself, slid from his grasp. It dangled for a moment, then my fingers brushed against the cool, polished wood.

"Hurry up and drink it," Dudley urged, his voice losing its gentle facade. "It will get cold, and the effect will be gone."

The effect. The irony was so thick I could have choked on it.

My fingers, hidden from his view, fumbled along the underside of the nightstand's top drawer. My nails scraped against the wood until they found it.

A small, almost invisible latch.

A cold smile touched my heart, but my face remained a mask of pathetic weakness. My grandfather had this secret compartment installed for me years ago. "A lady must always have a place for her secrets," he'd said with a wink.

In my past life, I'd kept love letters and silly trinkets in it.

In this life, it held my salvation.

My fingertip pressed the latch. A faint click, softer than a breath, and a small panel sprang open on the lower side of the nightstand, hidden in the decorative scrollwork.

Inside, nestled on a bed of velvet, was a cold, metallic weight.

A small, silver-plated pistol. My twenty-first birthday present from Grandfather Alistair. A beautiful, deadly thing I had never once fired.

What a fool I had been. Believing in the goodness of the world, in the loyalty of those around me. This pack, this family, was a pit of vipers, and I had been dancing among them, utterly defenseless.

"I... I have no strength," I murmured, leaning my full weight against Dudley, forcing him to adjust his position. "You'll have to feed me."

A flicker of triumph crossed his face. He thought my final resistance had crumbled. He was so sure he had won.

He reached for the bowl again, his back partially turned to me as he scooped up the dark liquid.

It was all the time I needed.

My fingers closed around the cool, heavy grip of the pistol. The weight of it was grounding, a solid piece of reality in a world that had fractured and reformed. I drew it from the compartment, concealing it in the folds of my silk nightgown.

My gaze flicked to the door. I could imagine it already — my stepmother Candis's footsteps hurrying up the stairs, then her voice calling Grandfather and Jenson. Soon she would bring them bursting in to witness my "shame."

I had to act before then.

Dudley turned back, the spoon held aloft like a victor's trophy. The bitter, earthy smell of the drug assaulted my senses, a phantom taste of despair on my tongue.

He brought the spoon to my lips.

I jerked my head to the side.

The spoon clattered against my teeth. A drop of the vile liquid splashed onto my chin, burning cold.

Dudley's patience finally snapped. His face, once a mask of fake sympathy, twisted into an ugly snarl. "Clara, don't be a bitch!"

He dropped the spoon into the bowl and reached for me, his fingers crooking into a claw, aiming to pry my jaw open. "You'll drink this one way or another!"

His hand shot toward my face.

But he never reached it.

In that split second, a strength I didn't know I possessed surged through me. It was the strength of a lifetime of agony, of a soul screaming for retribution.

I shoved him, hard.

He stumbled backward, surprised by my sudden force.

I used the momentum to roll across the wide bed, away from him, my body a blur of white silk. The pistol, now free from the folds of my gown, felt like an extension of my own arm.

I landed on my knees on the far side of the bed, the mattress dipping under my weight.

And I raised the gun.

The silver weapon gleamed in the dim lamplight, its dark, hollow eye staring directly at Dudley Nixon.

He froze, his hand still outstretched, his face a comical picture of shock and disbelief.

The hunter had just become the hunted.

Clara Beaumont POV:

Dudley stumbled, slamming the bowl of soup onto the nightstand. The force was violent, but clumsy. The bowl tilted dangerously, dark liquid surging up one side, threatening to spill completely. It teetered on the edge of disaster, spinning in wobbly, frantic circles on the polished wood.

For one suspended heartbeat, I watched it dance. Watched the dark broth slosh against porcelain walls, climbing higher, higher—

Then gravity won. The bowl settled. It spun once more, slower, and came to rest.

Most of the soup was still inside. Only a few black droplets had escaped, arcing across the pristine white carpet in a violent spray. A stain. Just like him.

Rage contorted his features. He was about to lunge, to finish what he started.

"Don't move."

The words were ice. They weren't loud, but they sliced through the air and stopped him dead.

He froze, his body tensed. His gaze dropped from my face to my hand, and his eyes widened in sheer, unadulterated shock. He was staring at the silver pistol, at the black, unblinking barrel aimed squarely between his eyes.

My expression was placid. My blue eyes, which he had so often called as gentle as the summer sky, now held the frozen emptiness of a winter lake. There was no fear. No hesitation. Only a chilling, absolute calm.

He couldn't reconcile the image. The weak, pliable Clara Beaumont he thought he knew was gone. In her place sat a creature of cold fury, a goddess of vengeance returned from the grave.

I spoke again, my voice steady, each word a carefully placed stone on his tomb.

"Drink the soup."

He stared at the gun, then at me, a bead of sweat tracing a path down his temple. He tried to laugh, a choked, nervous sound. "Clara, what are you doing? Put that down. It's just a normal calming soup."

A humorless smile touched my lips. I gestured with the barrel of the gun toward the bowl on the nightstand. "Is it? Then prove it. Drink it for me."

I remembered what this "calming soup" did. I remembered the fire that had consumed me, the uncontrollable, primal urge that had stripped away my humanity and left me at his mercy. It was a potion designed to trigger a she-wolf's heat, violently and uncontrollably. It was designed to ruin me.

Dudley's face drained of all color. He knew. Of course, he knew. He wouldn't dare drink it.

The silence stretched, thick with his mounting terror.

With a deliberate, slow movement, I pulled back the hammer of the pistol.

Click.

The sound was deafening in the quiet room. It was the sound of his options running out.

"I'm going to count to three," I said, my voice as flat and final as a judge's sentence.

"One."

His whole body was trembling now. The false bravado, the predatory confidence—it all melted away, revealing the sniveling coward beneath. He was a rogue, a bottom-feeder. His life was the only thing he truly valued.

"Clara, please," he stammered, his eyes darting between the gun and the bowl. "Don't do this. We can talk about this."

"Two."

I didn't waver. My hand was as steady as stone. The memory of my grandfather's coffin, of the cold earth on my own unmarked grave, was all the strength I needed. There was nothing to talk about. There was only payment.

His gaze fell on the bowl of dark liquid. He saw his reflection in its murky surface. He saw his death.

The instinct for survival, raw and desperate, finally won.

He lunged for the nightstand, his hands shaking so violently he almost knocked the bowl over. He snatched it up, his knuckles white.

I didn't say "three."

I didn't have to.

He closed his eyes, tilted his head back, and poured the entire contents of the bowl down his throat. He gulped it down in desperate, choking swallows, the thick liquid dribbling down his chin.

He finished. The bowl was empty.

He stood there, panting, his chest heaving, the stench of the potion and his own fear filling the room.

I watched him, my finger still on the trigger. I watched the man who had destroyed my life swallow his own damnation.

And I felt nothing but the cold, satisfying certainty of a debt being paid.

The first of many.