Reborn Princess: Burning Her Scornful Crown

The heavy oak door didn't make a sound. The thunder outside was too loud, shaking the very foundations of the Crown Prince's Palace, masking the turn of the brass handle.

She pushed it open.

The study was warm, smelling of old leather and expensive scotch. And smoke.

Bradley was standing by the fireplace. He wasn't looking at the storm raging against the floor-to-ceiling windows. He was watching a stack of papers curl and blacken in the flames.

Fiona recognized the heavy, cream-colored vellum and the distinctive crimson ribbon Bradley had forced her to tie around the bundle herself just yesterday. The fire licked at the edges, and for a split second, she saw the Orozco family's wax seal-a two-headed serpent entwined around a sword-melt and vanish into the flames.

Her trust fund documents. The final authorization for the transfer of her family's assets.

"Bradley!"

The scream tore from Fiona's throat, raw and burning. She rushed forward, her hands reaching into the fire, ignoring the heat, desperate to salvage what was left of her grandfather's legacy.

A hand grabbed her shoulder. Not to pull her back from the danger, but to shove her away.

Bradley didn't use much force. He didn't have to. Fiona stumbled back, her heels catching on the thick Persian rug, and fell hard onto her tailbone. Pain shot up her spine, but it was nothing compared to the coldness spreading in her chest.

"Stop it, Fiona," Bradley said. His voice was calm. Terrifyingly calm.

He dusted off his hands, brushing away imaginary ash from his pristine navy suit. He adjusted his cufflinks, ensuring the gold glinted just right in the firelight.

"It's done," he said, looking down at her.

There was no love in his eyes. The warmth, the practiced adoration he displayed for the cameras, the gentle smiles he reserved for charity galas-it was all gone. In its place was a flat, bored indifference. Like he was looking at a piece of furniture he intended to replace.

"You... you stole it," Fiona whispered, her breath hitching. "That money was for the foundation. For the children."

"It's for the Crown," he corrected smoothly. "And since I am the Crown, it's mine. You were just the vessel, Fiona. A vessel with a very convenient bank account."

Her stomach lurched. Bile rose in her throat. Three years. Three years of marriage. Three years of trying to be the perfect Crown Princess, of enduring his cold shoulders and long absences, believing he was just stressed, just burdened by duty.

"I am your wife," Fiona said, her voice trembling. "I have supported you. I have loved you."

Bradley laughed. It was a short, sharp sound. "And that was your mistake."

He turned to the intercom on his mahogany desk and pressed a button. "Send him in."

The door opened again.

Jimmie walked in. Her ten-year-old adopted son. He was wearing his silk pajamas, his hair tousled, but his eyes were wide awake. There was no sleepiness in them.

"Jimmie," Fiona gasped, reaching out a hand. "Jimmie, come here. Daddy is... Daddy is scaring me."

Jimmie looked at her. He looked at her outstretched hand, trembling in the air.

Then he walked past her.

He didn't even pause. He walked straight to Bradley and took his father's hand.

"Dad," Jimmie said.

He turned to look at her then. And in that moment, the resemblance was undeniable. The same shape of the eyes. The same cruel set of the jaw.

"Don't touch me," Jimmie said. His voice was ice.

Bradley rested a hand on the boy's shoulder, a gesture of pride Fiona had never seen him direct at anyone else.

"He's not adopted, Fiona," Bradley said softly. "Jimmie is mine. Mine and Icy's. We just needed you to... fund his future."

The world tilted.

A high-pitched ringing filled her ears, drowning out the thunder. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic bird trapped in a cage.

Icy. His sister-in-law. The Duchess. The woman Fiona treated like a sister.

"You..." Fiona couldn't breathe. Her lungs felt like they were filled with concrete. "You monsters."

She scrambled to her feet, fueled by a sudden, blinding rage. She lunged at Bradley, her nails aiming for his smug, perfect face.

She never reached him.

Jimmie moved faster than a child should. He grabbed her wrist, his small fingers digging into her pulse point, and sank his teeth into her arm.

Pain exploded. Sharp and wet.

She screamed and yanked her arm back. Jimmie let go, stumbling back against his father. There was blood on his mouth. Her blood.

He grinned. "Don't touch my dad."

Bradley sighed, checking his watch. "She's hysterical. Just like her mother."

He snapped his fingers.

Two guards stepped out from the shadows of the hallway. They were huge, faceless men in dark suits. They grabbed her arms, their grip bruising.

"Get her out of here," Bradley commanded. "The car is ready."

"No! Let me go!" Fiona kicked and screamed, but her feet barely touched the ground as they dragged her backward.

She watched them as she was hauled away. Bradley and Jimmie, standing by the fire. Father and son. A perfect picture of evil.

They threw her into the back of a black sedan waiting in the driving rain. The door slammed shut, the lock engaging with a heavy thud.

The driver didn't look at her. He just gunned the engine.

They tore out of the palace gates, speeding onto the winding coastal road. The rain lashed against the windows, turning the world into a blur of black and gray.

"Where are you taking me?" she yelled, pounding on the partition glass. "Stop the car!"

The driver didn't answer. He just accelerated.

They were approaching Dead Man's Curve. The cliffs dropped sheer into the churning ocean below.

Suddenly, the driver unbuckled his seatbelt.

He opened the door while the car was still moving at eighty miles an hour. And he rolled out.

The car swerved.

She screamed, bracing her hands against the front seat, staring in horror as the guardrail rushed toward her.

Metal shrieked against metal. The world flipped.

Weightlessness.

Then, impact.

Pain shattered every bone in her body. Cold water rushed in, filling her nose, her mouth, her lungs. Darkness swallowed her whole.

Her last thought, as the air left her body, wasn't fear. It was hate. Pure, distilled hate.

If she came back, she vowed into the void. She would burn them all.

The sensation of falling stopped.

Fiona gasped, her body jerking violently upward. Her lungs heaved, desperate for air that wasn't filled with saltwater.

"Haa... haa..."

She was sitting up. Her hands flew to her throat, then her chest, then her legs.

No pain. No broken bones. No freezing water.

She was sweating, her silk nightgown clinging to her skin. The air was warm and smelled of lavender and expensive linen.

She looked around wildly.

Pale gold wallpaper. The antique vanity table cluttered with crystal perfume bottles. The heavy velvet curtains drawn against the night.

Her bedroom. Her old bedroom in the Crown Prince's Palace.

She turned her head to the digital clock on the bedside table.

October 14th.

The year... it was three years ago.

The door creaked open.

"Your Highness?"

Fiona flinched, her heart skipping a beat.

Yana stood in the doorway, holding a silver tray with a glass of water and a pill bottle. Her face was round and worried, her dark hair pulled back in a neat bun.

Yana. Who had died shielding Fiona from the press when the scandal broke in her past life.

"Yana," Fiona choked out.

Tears welled up in her eyes, hot and fast. She scrambled out of bed and ran to her, nearly knocking the tray from her hands.

"Oh, Your Highness!" Yana set the tray down on a side table just in time to catch Fiona. "It's okay. I know the doctor's news was hard. But there are other ways... you can still be a mother."

She thought Fiona was crying about the infertility diagnosis. The fake diagnosis Bradley's doctors had given her yesterday to break her spirit.

Fiona hugged her tight, feeling the solid warmth of her body. Yana was alive. Fiona was alive.

"I'm not crying about that," Fiona whispered into her shoulder.

She pulled back. She wiped her face with the back of her hand. The tears stopped as quickly as they had come. Her breathing steadied.

The grief was still there, a heavy stone in her gut, but she pushed it down. She didn't have time for grief.

"Yana," Fiona said, her voice changing. It was lower now. Harder. "Where is Bradley?"

Yana blinked, surprised by the sudden shift in Fiona's demeanor. "He... he is at the Charity Gala, Your Highness. He won't be back until late."

"And the news?" Fiona asked. "What is happening with the Regent?"

"Prince Demian?" Yana looked confused. "The news says he is in critical condition. They say... they say he might not survive the night."

Fiona's blood ran cold.

Tonight. It was tonight.

In her past life, Demian Ballard, the Regent, the most feared man in the kingdom, had suffered a catastrophic reaction to the Pyro-Toxin in his blood tonight. He survived, but the agony cost him the use of his legs for years and drove him into isolation. His weakness allowed Bradley to seize total control of the military. After Bradley discarded Fiona, she spent two years locked away in a remote villa. Her only companions were books. She devoured the Orozco family's private library, filled with ancient texts on medicine and poisons. It was there she found it-a detailed treatise on Pyro-Toxin and its unique, organic antidote. She had studied it, memorized it, dreaming of a revenge she never got to enact. Until now.

If she wanted to win, she needed a weapon. She needed a monster who could eat Bradley alive.

She needed Demian.

"Get me my black running gear," Fiona ordered, moving toward the hidden safe behind a painting of a lily. "And the medical kit. The surgical one."

"Your Highness?" Yana stammered. "You're grounded. Prince Bradley said-"

Fiona spun around. She grabbed Yana by the shoulders.

"Look at me."

Yana stared into Fiona's eyes, trembling.

"The Fiona who listened to Bradley is dead," Fiona said. "Do exactly as I say, or we both die. Do you understand?"

Yana swallowed hard. She saw something in Fiona's face that terrified her. But she nodded. "Yes, Your Highness."

Ten minutes later, Fiona was dressed in black, a hood pulled low over her face. She had a scalpel and a set of silver acupuncture needles strapped to her thigh.

She slipped out through the balcony. She knew the blind spots of the cameras-she had spent three years memorizing them, trying to avoid Bradley's spies.

She dropped into the garden, landing softly in the wet grass. The rain was starting to fall, just like the night she died. But this time, she wasn't running away. She was hunting.

She scaled the outer wall and flagged down a taxi three blocks away.

"Regent's Estate," she told the driver.

The radio was playing. A reporter's voice filled the cab. "...Crown Prince Bradley was seen comforting the Duchess Icy Duffy today, whose husband, Duke Asher, is currently deployed with the Third Fleet, praising her tireless work for the orphans..."

Fiona stared out the window at the blurring city lights. A cold smile touched her lips.

Enjoy your applause, Bradley. It will be your last.

The Regent's Estate was a fortress. High walls, electrified fences, guards with assault rifles.

Fiona had the taxi drop her off a mile away. She walked the rest, keeping to the shadows.

A delivery truck was idling at the rear gate. Arctic Ice Supply.

Demian's condition made his blood boil. Literally. He needed tons of ice to keep his temperature down during an attack.

Fiona waited for the guard to check the driver's clipboard. As he walked to the front of the cab, she rolled under the chassis.

She clung to the metal bars, the smell of grease and exhaust filling her nose. The truck lurched forward, carrying her inside the belly of the beast.

When it parked at the loading dock, she dropped down and rolled into the shrubbery.

The air here was different. It smelled of ozone and something metallic. Burnt sugar and copper.

The smell of Pyro-Toxin.

She followed the scent. She dodged two patrols, her heart hammering against her ribs, but her hands were steady.

She reached the master wing. The windows were frosted over from the inside.

She found an unlocked service door-sloppy, or maybe the staff was too terrified to go near him.

She slipped inside.

The hallway was freezing. Mist curled along the floorboards.

She heard a sound that made the hair on her arms stand up. A low, guttural growl. Like a wounded animal.

She pushed open the heavy double doors at the end of the hall.

The room was a freezer. Blocks of ice were stacked in the corners.

And there, in the center of the room, chained to a metal bedframe, was Demian Ballard.

He was shirtless. His skin was flushed a violent, unnatural red, steam rising from his shoulders. His muscles strained against the steel cuffs.

He looked up as the door clicked shut.

His eyes were entirely black. No whites. Just pools of endless, violent darkness.

The chains rattled with a deafening clank as Demian lunged against them.

"Get out!"

His voice was a shredded roar, barely human. The force of his shout hit Fiona like a physical blow.

She didn't flinch. She didn't step back.

She raised her hands, palms open. "I can help you."

He laughed, a wet, choking sound. "Help? I'll tear your throat out."

The heat radiating from him was intense, battling with the freezing air of the room. He was burning up from the inside out.

"Your heart rate is over two hundred," Fiona said, walking closer. Her boots crunched on the frost covering the floor. "The ice isn't working. The toxin has reached your marrow."

Demian stilled. His head cocked to the side, a predator assessing prey. "Who are you?"

"Does it matter?" Fiona stopped just out of his reach. "I'm the only one who knows how to stop the boiling."

"You're Bradley's wife," he rasped. The recognition flickered in his eyes, cutting through the madness. "The vase. The ornament."

"The ornament is broken," Fiona said flatly. "I'm here to make a deal."

He pulled against the chains again, the metal groaning. "I don't make deals with corpses."

"If you don't let me treat you, you'll be a cripple by morning. Or dead."

Fiona took a step forward. Into the kill zone.

Demian moved faster than she expected. His hand shot out, grabbing her neck.

His fingers were scorching hot. They clamped around her windpipe, lifting her off her feet.

Fiona choked, clawing at his wrist. Her vision spotted.

"Give me one reason," he hissed, pulling her close to his face. She could feel the heat radiating from his skin. "One reason not to snap your pretty little neck."

"Because..." Fiona wheezed, staring straight into those black voids. "Because I hate him... more than you do."

His grip loosened. Just a fraction.

"And," Fiona gasped, "I have the antidote."

She didn't wait for permission. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a silver needle. Before he could react, she jammed it into a pressure point at the base of his skull.

Demian stiffened. His eyes widened.

The tension in his arm vanished. He dropped her.

Fiona fell to the floor, coughing, massaging her bruised throat.

"That will only hold the pain back for five minutes," Fiona said, her voice raspy. "We need to flush the blood."

"How?" He was slumped back on the bed now, breathing heavily. The redness in his skin was pulsing.

Fiona pulled out the scalpel.

"My blood," she said.

It sounded insane. But her grandmother, a practitioner of old medicine, had insisted Fiona take a daily tonic since childhood. A family secret, derived from the rare Blue Lotus, meant to 'strengthen the Orozco bloodline.' Fiona never understood it. But in her past life, after years of research in the palace's forgotten archives, she found a text describing its true purpose: it was the only known natural neutralizer for Pyro-Toxin. Bradley thought her blood was merely blue; he had no idea it was also the cure.

She didn't explain the science. She just sliced.

She drew the blade across her left wrist. A line of crimson welled up, dark and rich.

"Drink," she ordered.

She shoved her bleeding wrist against his mouth.

The smell of blood hit him. His pupils dilated. The beast took over.

He grabbed her arm, his grip bruising, and pulled it to his lips.

He drank.

It was a violation. A somatic, visceral intimacy that made her stomach flip. She could feel his tongue against the wound, the suction, the desperate hunger.

Her head spun. The room tilted.

"Easy," Fiona whispered, her free hand finding its way into his sweat-drenched hair. "Easy, Demian."

She was feeding a monster. She was saving the devil to kill a demon.

Slowly, the heat in the room began to dissipate. The unnatural flush faded from his skin, leaving it pale and clammy.

He stopped.

He pulled back, his chest heaving. There was blood on his lips. Her blood.

His eyes were clearing. The black receded, revealing irises of piercing, icy gray.

He looked at her. Really looked at her.

Fiona was swaying on her feet. The blood loss, combined with the adrenaline crash, was too much.

"You..." he murmured. His voice was deep, resonant. Dangerous.

She collapsed forward.

He caught her. His arms were no longer burning hot; they were just warm. Strong.

"You owe me," Fiona whispered, her cheek pressed against his bare chest. She could hear his heartbeat slowing down. "A life for a life."

Demian's thumb brushed the corner of her mouth.

"Done," he said.

Darkness took her again. But this time, it wasn't the cold darkness of the ocean. It was warm. And safe.