Celeste POV
The poison tastes like bitter almonds and broken vows.
I can't breathe. My throat is closing, burning from the inside out. I scratch at my neck, desperate for air that won't come. The stone floor of the prison is freezing against my cheek, but I barely feel it anymore. Everything is going dead.
"Does it hurt, sister?" Vivienne's voice floats down from somewhere above me. She sounds happy. Excited, even.
I try to look up, but my vision is fuzzy. Two forms stand over me—one with golden-red hair that catches the torchlight, the other with raven-black curls that frame a beautiful, cruel face.
Damian and Vivienne. The two people I loved most in this world.
The two people who are killing me.
"I asked you a question, Celeste." Vivienne crouches down, her violet eyes sparkling with joy. "Does. It. Hurt?"
I want to scream at her. I want to ask why. Why did my own sister do this to me? But my lips won't move. Blood trickles from the corner of my mouth instead.
"Of course it hurts," Damian says, laughing. He kneels beside Vivienne, his golden eyes—the same eyes I used to think were beautiful—staring at me like I'm nothing. "That poison is meant to hurt. It makes you feel everything while you die slowly."
"How long did the poison seller say it would take?" Vivienne asks, tilting her head. She's studying me like I'm an interesting bug.
"About an hour." Damian checks his pocket watch. "We're only twenty minutes in. Plenty of time left. "
Twenty minutes. I've been dying for twenty minutes, and it feels like years.
"I can't believe she still trusted you after everything," Vivienne giggles, poking my shoulder with her finger. "Even when Father signed over her inheritance to me, she still believed you loved her."
"She was pathetically easy to fool," Damian agrees. He reaches down and touches my hair, the same way he used to when he pretended to love me. " Sweet, stupid Celeste. So desperate to be loved that she never saw the truth."
The truth. The truth is that I've been blind for five years.
Five years of marriage to Damian, thinking he was my soulmate. Five years of watching my stepsister Vivienne cry fake tears and steal everything from me. Five years of my father picking his new wife's daughter over his own flesh and blood.
And I let it happen. I smiled and forgave and loved them anyway, because I thought family meant something.
"Should we tell her the best part?" Vivienne asks, bouncing happily.
"Why not? She's dying anyway." Damian leans close to my face. His breath smells like the wine we drank at dinner—the wine he poisoned. "Your father thinks you ran away, Celeste. We wrote a letter in your handwriting saying you couldn't handle the shame of losing everything. Everyone believes you're a loser who abandoned her family."
No. No, that's not true. Father wouldn't believe that. Would he?
But even as I think it, I know he would. He's believed every lie they've told about me for years. Why would this be different? "And the Ashford fortune?" Vivienne continues, her voice dripping with fake sweetness. "All mine now. The house, the businesses, the land—everything your mother built. Gone. Just like you'll be in..." She looks at Damian's watch. "About forty minutes."
Forty minutes left to live.
I can feel my heartbeat slowing down. Each breath is harder than the last. The cold is spreading through my body, making my fingers and toes go totally numb.
I'm twenty-three years old, and I'm dying on a dungeon floor while the people I loved laugh at my pain.
"You know what the funny part is?" Damian says, standing up and brushing dust off his expensive pants. "I never loved you. Not even a little bit. From the time I met you at your coming-of-age ceremony, I knew you were just a stepping stone to your family's money."
The coming-of-age event. Six years ago, when I was eighteen and stupid and full of hope. The day I picked Damian as my bonded shifter companion.
The day I made the biggest mistake of my life.
If I could go back... if I could do it all again...
I wouldn't choose the beautiful fox with the charming smile and the lying eyes. I wouldn't trust my sister's tears or my stepmother's kindness. I wouldn't be sweet or understanding or stupid.
If I could go back, I would choose differently.
I would choose the monster everyone feared instead of the prince everyone loved. I would become cold instead of kind. I would protect myself instead of believing others.
If I get another chance, I'll make them all pay.
"She's almost gone," Vivienne says, her voice coming from very far away now. "Look at her eyes. They're glazing over."
"Good," Damian answers. "Let's go. I don't want to watch the real death part. It's boring."
Their footsteps repeat as they walk away, leaving me alone in the darkness.
My last thought, as the world fades to black, is a prayer to any god who might be listening: Please. Give me another chance. I'll do everything differently. I swear I will.
Everything goes black.
And then— I'm breathing, sitting up so fast my head spins. My hands fly to my throat, feeling for the damage, expecting blood and pain.
But there's nothing there.
I'm in a bed. A soft, warm bed with silk sheets and sunshine streaming through familiar windows.
My childhood bedroom.
The one I left six years ago when I got married.
My heart is pounding so hard it hurts. I look down at my hands—they're smooth and young, without the scars from Vivienne's "accidents" over the years.
What's happening?
A knock on my door makes me jump. "Miss Celeste?" It's Mary, my old maid. The one who quit four years ago. "Your father wants you to come down for breakfast. It's Selection Day in six months, and he wants to discuss your choices."
Selection Day.
Six months away.
That was six years ago.
I jump out of bed and run to the mirror. The face looking back at me is eighteen years old—young and unmarked by everything Damian and Vivienne did to me.
My hands are shaking as I touch the glass, making sure I'm real.
I'm eighteen again.
Six months before I choose Damian and destroy my entire life.
I've been given a second chance.
The bedroom door opens suddenly, and Vivienne bounces in with a bright smile. "Good morning, sister! I had the most wonderful dream last night." She sits on my bed, looking so innocent and sweet. "I dreamed that we'd be sisters forever, always taking care of each other."
I stare at her—at the girl who will poison me in six years—and something ice-cold rests in my chest.
"That's nice, Vivienne," I say quietly.
But inside, I'm screaming with joy and rage and relief.
Because this time, I know exactly what she is.
This time, I'll be ready.
This time, they'll be the ones who pay.
And it starts with one easy change: I won't choose the fox shifter everyone loves.
I'll choose the snake everyone fears.