Chapter 4

Odalys didn't even glance back at Percival Stewart. No hesitation, no acknowledgment. Instead, she turned with effortless grace and fixed her gaze on Dorian. The butler looked as if someone had just smacked him with a frying pan.

Her voice, calm and detached, cut through his stupor. "Where's my room? Be a darling and show me the way."

She wasn't asking; she was commanding. And it didn't matter that she was deep in Stewart family territory. Odalys carried herself as if she owned every inch of it.

Dorian blinked, struggling to process what he'd just witnessed. After a quick, uncertain glance at Percival, who gave the faintest nod, Dorian's demeanor shifted. Gone was the stunned confusion, replaced by cool professionalism.

"This way, ma'am," he said, gesturing with the practiced precision of someone who knew better than to ask questions.

Percival, however, remained rooted to the spot. Hands clasped loosely behind his back, he watched her walk away, his sharp eyes narrowing as if trying to dissect her piece by piece.

Only when she disappeared around the corner did he lower his gaze to the tattered remnants of his shirt—and the skin beneath it.

The sight stopped him cold. The wounds that had ravaged his body for years—open, festering, and bleeding—were gone. The relentless, searing pain that had been his constant companion? Vanished.

His hand drifted to his chest, tracing the spot where her fingers had brushed against him. The second she'd touched him, his heart had nearly stopped, as if it couldn't decide whether to keep beating.

"The Bennett girl?" he murmured, his lips curling into a faint smirk. "Huh. That's new."

"Mr. Stewart!" The voice cut through his thoughts. Callum Hale strode toward him, his face a mixture of concern and barely contained panic. "Are you okay? What just happened?"

Percival didn't answer immediately. His eyes flicked toward the hallway where Odalys had disappeared.

Finally, his raspy voice broke the silence. "The poison it's suppressed."

Callum froze, blinking as if he'd misheard. "What?" He whistled, running a hand through his hair as he began pacing. "Hold up. Suppressed? Are you serious? That thing's been ripping you apart for years, and now—what? She waves her hand, touches you, and poof? Just like that?"

He scoffed. "Percival, no offense, but that sounds like a load of bullshit."

Percival didn't respond. His hand lingered on his chest, his mind replaying the moment over and over.

For years, his body had been a battlefield, the poison clawing at him from the inside out. Doctors—some of the best money could buy—had tried and failed to cure him.

Every day was the same cycle: pain, blood, wounds that refused to heal, and scabs that tore open again. Each time, the intervals grew shorter, the pain sharper, the decay more brutal.

The verdict had been unanimous. He was living on borrowed time, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. Not even the Stewart family, with all their money and power, had been able to fix it.

That was why his grandfather had gone looking for answers elsewhere. Desperation had led him to mystics, fortune tellers—anyone who might offer some kind of hope.

And hope had come in the form of an arranged marriage—a union between Percival and a woman whose unique fate could balance his own.

"She came for me," Percival said suddenly, his voice quiet but firm.

Callum stopped pacing and stared at him. "For you? You think she's here to kill you?"

The second the words left his mouth, Callum winced. "Shit. No, that doesn't make sense. If she wanted him dead, she wouldn't have just saved his life. So, what's her game?" he wondered.

"Kill me? Nah, I don't think that's her angle. But she knew I was poisoned, suppressed it with one simple move, and had the balls to say she could buy me another month. I'll play along—for now. I want to see how she plans to pull that off," Percival said, his voice steady, his gaze sharp.

Callum frowned, nodding slightly as the logic landed, but his worry lingered. "Mr. Stewart, even the top doctors wouldn't make that kind of promise. What if she's the one who poisoned you in the first place?"

Chapter 4 (continued)

Percival didn't respond immediately, his eyes distant. "Look into her," he finally said, his voice cold and steady.

Callum hesitated for a second before understanding dawned. With a sharp nod, he replied, "Understood. I'll get on it now!"

He had barely begun to leave when Dorian entered the room with his usual precise movements. He stopped a few steps away from Percival and respectfully began reporting everything that had happened at the Bennett estate.

Percival's sharp eyes narrowed slightly as he listened. His voice dropped to a cold drawl. "She took all the wedding gifts?"

"Yes, sir," Dorian replied. "She also gave me her ID and asked me to open a safety deposit box at the bank to store them." As he spoke, he pulled out the ID and handed it to Percival.

Percival took the ID and studied the photo. Her sharp eyes seemed to glare back at him from the card, almost daring him to underestimate her. He stared at it for a long moment, his thumb lightly brushing the edge of the image.

"Fine," he said eventually, handing it back to Dorian. "Make sure it's all stored properly."

"Yes, sir," Dorian replied. He turned to leave but stopped abruptly, as though something had been weighing on him.

"Mr. Stewart," he said, his voice quieter this time, "there's something odd. The bride was supposed to be Sophia Bennett, not this newly rediscovered eldest daughter."

"Do you think the Bennetts switched her on purpose, knowing we needed this marriage to resolve certain issues?"

Dorian hesitated, recalling the tension at the Bennett house. The muffled arguments upstairs, the way everyone avoided eye contact—it all added up to something shady.

Percival smirked. "The Bennetts are shrewd. They wouldn't risk a bad deal. Who in their right mind would marry their daughter to a dying man?"

His gaze shifted almost imperceptibly toward the hallway leading to Odalys's room.

Inside the bridal suite, Odalys paced slowly, taking in the luxurious furnishings. The room was opulent, filled with antique pieces that screamed old money.

It was a world apart from the cramped, forgotten corner she'd been shoved into at the Bennett house.

"Well, damn," she muttered, a smirk playing on her lips.

From the moment she woke up in this second life, every move she'd made had been deliberate. Becoming a stand-in bride wasn't an act of desperation—it was a power play.

The Bennetts thought they'd pulled a fast one by sending her, but the joke would be on them. If Percival survived, the Stewart family's wealth and influence would drive Sophia insane with envy.

And the Bennetts? They'd learn what it meant to play with fire.

Her eyes narrowed as her thoughts shifted to Percival's condition. She murmured, almost to herself, "But seriously, how does a man like him end up poisoned like that?"

This wasn't some ordinary poison. Hospitals wouldn't even know where to start with something like this. The symptoms were brutal—first it flared up once a month, then weekly, then every three days.

By the end, it attacked daily, ripping the body apart until blood vessels burst and death came in the most horrific, agonizing way possible.

This wasn't just murder—it was annihilation. The poison also rendered its victims sterile, ensuring there'd be no heirs. Whoever had done this wasn't just after Percival's life—they wanted to destroy the entire Stewart bloodline.

Odalys's expression hardened, her eyes turning cold as ice.

She hadn't saved him out of kindness. No, she wanted answers. Who had done this to him? And why?

At the same time, she'd made sure the Stewarts understood her worth. Even if the Bennetts wanted her gone, the Stewarts wouldn't let anything happen to her now.

She wasn't foolish enough to think she could do everything on her own. Strength wasn't about refusing help—it was about using the tools and allies at your disposal. Anything else was just stupidity.

Chapter 4 (continued)

Her phone buzzed, dragging her out of her thoughts. She frowned and picked it up, answering without checking the caller ID.

The voice on the other end was sharp and accusatory. "Odalys, what the hell did you do to Sophia?"

Odalys blinked, momentarily caught off guard. "Excuse me?" She glanced at the screen, and her expression darkened when she saw the name Finnian Lark.

The sound of his voice sent a rush of bitter memories crashing over her. Finnian, the man who'd haunted her past life. Cold, distant, always dangling just enough affection to keep her hooked. He'd broken her piece by piece, twisted her mind until she couldn't tell up from down.

And when the Bennetts had forced her into marriage, he hadn't lifted a finger to stop it. She'd resisted, of course. They'd punished her for it—humiliated her, stripped her of her dignity, and recorded the entire thing to control her.

Her eventual death? Finnian hadn't held the knife, but he'd sharpened it.