Chapter 1
When my fiancé left me to burn alive to save his "fragile" white lotus, I thought my story was over.
But death had other plans.
Reborn with memories intact, I watched him make the same fatal choice—abandoning me in the flames for her. This time, I smiled and said, "Go save her."
Because this time, the most powerful Alpha in North America was coming for me.
Derek thought he was discarding a burden. He had no idea he was throwing away his only lifeline.
Now, as I stand beside Lucas in his billion-dollar empire, watching my ex grovel in the gutter, I have just one message: karma is a bitch, and so am I.
Selena's POV
The excruciating pain of a silver arrow piercing through my chest still lingered in my nerves.
My lungs felt like they were stuffed with shattered glass, each breath tasting of blood.
I snapped my eyes open.
No cold morgue. No territory raid from my past life that had killed me so brutally.
All I could see was a sky full of flames and the acrid smell of gasoline mixed with wolfsbane.
"Selena! The fire's too intense—the barrier's been destroyed!"
Derek's panicked voice rang in my ears.
I turned my head to look at the face I had once loved to my very bones in my past life, the same face that had ultimately pushed me into hell.
His face was covered in soot, looking genuinely worried, but his eyes kept darting to the right.
There lay Chloe, trapped under a fallen beam.
A pitiful white fox shifter. Also Derek's precious obsession.
"Derek... save me... I'm so scared..." Chloe coughed violently, tears streaming down her face as she looked our way.
In my past life, it was at this exact moment.
Hunters had ambushed our camp and set this fire.
My leg had been caught in a bear trap coated with wolfsbane. I couldn't move.
I had begged Derek to take me with him.
But he had looked at Chloe and hesitated.
"Selena, you're the strongest warrior. Only you can endure this. Chloe is too fragile—this would KILL her!"
Those were the last words he'd spoken to me in my previous life.
Then he had scooped up Chloe and rushed out of the flames without looking back.
And I had been burned alive under the poison's corrosion, unable even to shift into wolf form to save myself.
Now, I was back to this moment.
I looked down at my right leg—the bear trap was clamped tightly on it, blood flowing freely.
The pain was brutally real.
I had been reborn.
"Selena, I..." Derek turned to look at me, that familiar, hypocritical struggle crossing his face from my past life.
Did he think everyone was as stupid as he was?
Did he think I would still beg like a dog for him to stay?
How RIDICULOUS.
"Go save Chloe," I said coldly, my voice cutting through the crackling flames.
Derek froze. His eyes widened as if he couldn't believe his ears.
"What?"
"I said, go save her." I gritted my teeth against the searing pain in my leg and laughed bitterly. "She's a weak shifter—she won't last. Besides, I don't want someone's death on my hands."
Derek's eyes lit up, but he quickly masked it, putting on that disgusting, lovestruck expression.
"Selena, you're too kind. Wait for me—I'll get her to safety and come right back for you! I SWEAR!"
Without hesitation, he spun around and ran toward Chloe, easily lifting the beam that wasn't actually that heavy and scooping her up in his arms.
"Derek, what about Selena..." Chloe buried her face in his chest, her voice delicate and weak.
"She'll be fine," Derek replied without even turning his head.
Watching their figures disappear into the flames, the last ripple of emotion in my heart died completely.
Come back for me?
He had said the same thing in my past life. By the time my bones had burned to ash, he was still in the safe zone comforting his precious, traumatized Chloe.
I took a deep breath of the smoke-filled air, my eyes going cold.
Derek. Chloe.
In this life, you can stay locked together and go to HELL as a pair.
I clenched my jaw and gripped the edges of the bear trap with both hands.
The wolfsbane was numbing my nerves, but I couldn't die here.
I let out a low growl as my nails extended, transforming into razor-sharp claws.
CRACK.
I forcibly snapped the steel teeth of the trap, tearing away a large chunk of my own flesh in the process.
The agony made my vision go black, but I didn't stop.
I dragged my mangled right leg and began moving step by step toward another section of the inferno.
I didn't need anyone to save me.
In this life, my life was MY choice.
The temperature around me kept rising, the oxygen growing thinner and thinner.
The roof ahead groaned under the strain, ready to collapse completely.
My vision started to blur—my strength had reached its limit.
Was I really going to die here again, even with a second chance?
Just then, the door was violently blasted open by a terrifying force.
A powerful, suffocating top-tier Alpha pheromone swept through—like a winter blizzard that instantly suppressed the raging flames around me.
A tall, dark figure strode toward me against the firelight.
