“You killed her!”

A sharp, angry voice – unbecoming of the solemn funeral hall – rang out, echoing through the room.

All eyes turned to the source of the outburst.

A woman glared at a man crying at the coffin.

She lunged forward and grabbed him by the collar.

Her eyes, locked on his, burned with the intensity of someone confronting their mortal enemy.

“You killed Olivia!”

The man’s pupils dilated as he tried to remove her hand.

But only the woman facing him noticed the small change.

Though he hesitated for a moment, he quickly regained his composure.

Biting down hard on his trembling lips, he lowered his head.

To anyone watching, he looked like a grieving fiancé who had just lost the love of his life.

There were murmurs of sympathy from those around her, and soon sharp glances were directed at the woman.

“What nonsense are you talking about? Lady Grosvenor was killed by a wolf.”

A bitter sneer escaped the woman’s lips.

“A wolf? You mean she was killed by a wolf?”

Her hand, still gripping the man’s collar, began to shake.

“What, did you strangle her first and then throw her to the wolves? To destroy the evidence? To erase the marks your hands left on her throat?”

The man who had listened in silence suddenly raised his head.

The sad expression of a few moments before had vanished without a trace.

His eyes, now sharp and cold, bore down on the woman.

With a rough movement, he pulled her hand away.

“What are you all doing? Are you really going to let Olivia’s funeral turn into this mess? How long are you going to stand there and listen to this madwoman insult her?”

At his cold voice, the knights who had been watching in silence rushed toward the woman.

Even as she was dragged away, her arms held by men a head taller than her, she kept her eyes fixed on the man.

“Eric Anderson! I’m not going to let you get away with this. I swear, I’ll-“

“Wait.”

Just as the man was about to return to the coffin, he turned back to the woman.

Leaning close, he whispered in her ear.

“I don’t know where you heard such ridiculous things, but you’d better shut up and leave this place quietly.”

He grinned, a corner of his lips curling up.

“Life is precious, isn’t it?”

The woman, trembling, stared at the man as he walked away.

“Life is precious?”

Of course it had been – once.

She, too, used to flinch at the slightest cut on her fingertip, afraid of pain… and afraid of death.

Just a few days ago – before she was strangled to death by the hands of the man she once loved.

“Ridiculous?”

Everyone said that naive Olivia Grosvenor had gone for an unescorted walk in the woods and been killed by a wolf attack.

They also pitied Eric Anderson, heartbroken over the tragic death of his beloved fiancée.

But there were three people in the world who knew the truth behind the rumors.

Eric, Scarlett-the woman he had been having an affair with-and the woman who was now being dragged out by the Knights.

They alone knew that what the world believed… was a lie.

Because…

“This is how I died.”

The soul in this dirty, impoverished commoner’s body was none other than Olivia Grosvenor – the very woman who had been murdered by this man’s hands just yesterday.

She had witnessed Eric Anderson’s affair, and in the next moment he had strangled her.

And now she had woken up in someone else’s body.

“I can’t forgive him.”

As she watched her grieving family cry over her lifeless body, she bit her lip hard, fighting back the tears.

Her beloved parents and older brother.

Would anyone ever understand what it was like not to be able to tell them that she was the daughter and sister they loved so much?

The thought of her being alive but unable to face her family tore her apart.

There could be nothing worse than watching the people she loved cry in despair at her own funeral while she stood there, unseen.

“I will never forgive him.”

She didn’t know how or why she had come back like this.

But in that moment, Olivia made a vow-one that felt as if it had been carved from blood.

No matter what it took, she would bring that shameless man, Eric Anderson, to his knees.

She would make him feel the same excruciating pain that had been inflicted on her.