Chapter 2

I froze, listening to the monsters’ guttural swallowing, my blood feeling like it had turned to ice in my veins. Julian still habitually gripped my wrist, his palm’s warmth once the only light in these three years of endless darkness.

But now, that light felt poisoned, burning me with searing pain.

“Get away from me! Don’t touch me!”

I violently yanked my hand free from his grasp, shoved Seraphina aside, and rushed to my mother’s mangled remains.

I hadn’t used much force, but Seraphina still stumbled back a good distance, falling into a reeking ditch full of rotting corpses.

“Cassidy, what gives you the right to hurt her?!”

Julian kicked me hard in the stomach.

A gush of blood instantly spilled from my mouth.

He’d forgotten. After my seventy-seventh revival, when I’d saved him, my ribs had been completely shattered. I’d spent ages recovering, and it still hurt with the slightest touch.

He’d promised me that as long as he was there, he’d never let me get hurt again. Yet this time, he was the one who personally broke them.

I watched him—a man who prided himself on being a clean freak—unhesitatingly rush into that stinking ditch and carry the other woman out in a princess carry.

“Julian, it’s all my fault. If I weren’t so scared, Cassidy wouldn’t have lost her mom. She can hit me, she can yell at me, but why did she have to stain my favorite dress? You bought this for me…”

She cried, tears streaming down her face, looking utterly heartbroken. Every tear was a heavy hammer striking Julian’s heart, making him ache with sympathy.

So, in front of everyone in the organization, he coldly ordered me:

“Take off your clothes and give them to Seraphina. Now, immediately!”

My eyes blazed red as I looked up at him in disbelief.

My mother had been indirectly killed because of them, and not a single apology.

Now he was ordering me to strip in front of dozens of people in the organization, for another woman?!

Seeing my refusal, Julian actually ordered his guys to hold me down and told his underlings to start tearing off my clothes.

“Julian, are you insane?! I’m your girlfriend!”

My voice was a raw, trembling mess with fear, my gaze sweeping past the crowd.

I saw him reach up and gently ruffle Seraphina’s hair, his movements so tender they could melt steel.

Yet these same hands, just three months ago, had trembled as they wiped away my tears.

“Cassidy, when the blood ants gnawed at your skin, it must have hurt terribly, right?”

For my seventy-seventh revival, he’d been ensnared by monstrous vines. I’d desperately cut open my own artery, bleeding as I rushed to sever the vines. I’d ended up with my own ribs crushed by them.

On the day of my ninety-ninth revival, he’d knelt before me, kissing the back of my hand for the first time, his voice hoarse as he said:

“Cassidy, from now on, I’ll protect you.”

I believed him.

But I never would have imagined that his idea of protecting me was to stand by and watch my mom get torn apart by monsters, just to comfort a woman afraid of fire!

I crawled forward, grabbing his arm fiercely.

“Julian, open your eyes and look! Seraphina’s clothes are only slightly dirty! What’s most important right now is to gather my mother’s remains and let her rest in peace, not for you to flirt with another woman here! How could you do this to me?! How could you do this to my mother?!”