“Blake! Why are you doing this to me?!”
Seeing that hair clip finally broke my composure completely.
That was the last thing my grandmother left me.
That sweet old lady didn’t know any other way to make a living except collecting plastic bottles and hand making little crafts to scrape by.
Even the day before cancer took her, she was still out on those freezing streets with her little stand.
Because she wanted to save enough for her beloved granddaughter’s college tuition.
“Because you OWE Candy this! Now you’re scared of getting some snake bile, but how helpless must she have felt back then?!”
Blake was unmoved by my tears.
As he spoke, he casually tossed the hair clip into the snake pit, where it disappeared in seconds.
“NO!!”
I screamed.
I couldn’t care less about my bone–deep terror anymore.
That was the last thing that old lady left me!
She was so stingy she wouldn’t even visit my dreams, and now I was about to lose the very last reminder of her.
I dove headfirst into the snake pit, frantically searching for that little flower hair clip.
But the suddenly startled snakes weren’t about to let me off easy.
When the first snake sank its fangs into my ankle, pain shot through my whole body.
Then came the second bite, the third…
Soon I was numb from the pain.
I couldn’t even spare a hand to shake them off–I was completely focused on finding grandma’s keepsake.
Hundreds of snakes were tearing at my body.
Only when my clothes started soaking through with blood did everyone realize something was wrong.
After all, no fighter would just stand there getting bitten without fighting back.
Up on the platform, Blake’s face went white. His eyes were shaking violently, like he was seeing something that would haunt him forever.
“These were supposed to be the harmless pet snakes I had them switch in! Why are they still biting?!”
“What the hell went WRONG?!”
But nobody answered him.
The carnage in the snake pit was still going on–the snakes were literally eating chunks of my flesh.
Finally, I found that blood–stained, filthy little flower hair clip.
Chapter 3
I carefully pressed it against my chest.
And only then did my body register the excruciating pain.
I could barely stand.
But I knew if I fell down, the swarming snakes would devour me until nothing was left.
That’s when I heard Blake’s voice, completely hysterical:
“Riley! The pendant I gave you–break it open! There’s snake repellent inside!”
He was practically hanging over the edge of the platform, his eyes full of panic and helplessness.
So he had been reborn earlier, but still brought me and Candy to this fighting arena today.
His plan was to make me–the person who’d stolen Candy’s lifetime of happiness–experience the same suffering she’d gone through.
But he never actually wanted to hurt me.
After all, we’d been married for years. How could he not have feelings for me?
He just wanted to scare me.
Wanted me to cry and beg him for forgiveness.
But he never expected that the harmless pet snakes he’d arranged to have switched in had somehow become real venomous ones.
Thank God he’d prepared the snake repellent in advance and given both me and Candy one.
But when I lifted my mangled, bite–covered arm and struggled to open the pendant at my chest, all I found inside was ordinary ginger powder.
Ginger powder couldn’t repel snakes.
Though it was great for settling your stomach.
Even as I was losing consciousness from the pain, my brain somehow found that darkly ironic thought amusing.
From blood loss, I finally couldn’t keep my balance and stumbled.
My body was torn to shreds, with white bone showing through in several places.
And Blake completely lost it.
“No! This is WRONG! Why is it ginger powder?!”
But there was no time to figure it out–I was about to collapse,
He immediately tried to climb down from the platform to save me,
But Candy, who’d been watching everything, suddenly grabbed him tight.
Chapter 4
Chapter 4
Sara Lili is a daring romance writer who turns icy landscapes into scenes of fiery passion. She loves crafting hot love stories while embracing the chill of Iceland’s breathtaking cold.