Chapter 1 : The Cursed Book

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Hannah Park, twenty-one and adrift in the cacophony of London's university life, had always found the real world unbearably loud. ...

Conversations twisted like thorns on her tongue, snagging and tearing before they could escape. Eye contact was a raw exposure, a vulnerability she couldn't afford. While her peers wove friendships with effortless grace, Hannah erected fortresses within the pages of books.

Fiction was her sanctuary-controlled, predictable, where emotions unfurled with logic and pain served a grander purpose, not the chaotic cruelty of reality.

But she harbored a secret weakness, one that consumed her in the shadowed hours of night.

Dark romance.

The kind where the male lead was a merciless storm to the world, yet devastatingly devoted to one woman alone. Power seeped from his every word like venom, empires forged in rivers of blood and unyielding loyalty. Love wasn't soft poetry; it was possession, a claiming that bordered on obsession, where desire twisted into something feral and unforgiving.

So when 'Sate My Love' appeared on the shelves, she snatched it without a second thought.

She fled back to the dim, cocooning warmth of her hostel room, the door clicking shut like a seal on her isolation. Curled on her bed, she devoured the book in one insatiable sitting, the outside world fading to a distant hum.

Now, in the final chapter, her heart pounded as Zavian Moretti, the brooding anti-hero, exacted his cruel vengeance on the villainess-Valentina Romano. The scene dripped with tension, the air thick with impending doom.

"You know why I'm giving you a torturous, agonizingly slow death?" he whispered, his voice a silken blade as he gripped her chin with bruising force, compelling her to meet his dark, cold, emotionless eyes-embers smoldering with restrained fury.

Valentina shook her head, her body trembling violently, wracked with pain from the torments he had bestowed upon her. She clutched her lower belly protectively, a desperate shield for the fragile life within. He unleashed a dark, hollow chuckle that echoed like thunder in the dim warehouse, his grip tightening until his nails dug into her soft cheeks, drawing crimson beads from crescent-shaped wounds. His gaze flicked to her protective gesture, and something primal flashed in his eyes-jealousy, possession, rage.

"How naive," he sneered, leaning in so close his breath ghosted her skin like a predator's promise. "Or should I say... stupid?" With a savage jerk, he shoved her face away, his voice barking like a whip. "You let your filthy husband touch what was mine."

Hannah's pulse raced, her fingers gripping the pages until they crinkled. "She did not-in fact, your fiancée went of her own accord, seduced her husband, shattered her happy marriage!" she muttered to herself, her voice laced with bitter indignation as she plunged deeper into the text.

"You let him make her pregnant, let his filthy little dick inside her-all because you couldn't conceive?" Zavian grabbed a fistful of her hair, yanking her head back with merciless strength, forcing her to arch in agony as he growled, "She begged you, pleaded with you not to force that upon her-and what did you do? You let your husband assault her!"

Hannah's breath hitched, a dark thrill mingling with disgust. "Damn, he's saying all the right things... for the wrong woman," she whispered, her cheeks flushing with a mix of arousal and fury as she read on.

Valentina shook her head frantically, tears carving paths down her blood-streaked face. "I... I didn't do such a thing. I'm being framed."

He stared at her for two excruciating seconds, the silence a noose tightening around her throat. Then, the corner of his lips curled into a cold, calculating, deadly smirk. "And you want me to believe the woman who tried to kill my little Lily? Though I should thank you for ridding her of that filth growing inside-and sparing me the task myself."

Hannah's stomach churned, a wave of nausea crashing over her. "Now, Zavian darling, let her go-she basically did you a favor, even if she didn't really do it," she muttered, gagging at the saccharine nickname for the protagonist, Alessia-my little Lily. "What are you, Severus Snape? This is twisted."

"And unfortunately for you, Valentina Romano, you and your child die by my hands today," he declared, drawing his dagger with a metallic hiss that sliced through the air. Valentina's eyes widened in terror, her body convulsing as she shook her head. "Please, no-not my baby! I conceived after so much struggle. Do whatever you want to me, but leave my child out of it!" Her pleas shattered the air, raw and desperate, but they fell on deaf ears, echoes in a void of indifference.

With chilling precision, Zavian plunged the sharp blade into her lower belly, where the tiny life flickered like a dying flame. He stabbed again and again, each thrust a symphony of vengeance, until her limbs went limp and cold, her blood pooling like dark ink on the concrete floor. He released her with casual disdain, her body crumpling with a heavy thud. Turning to his men, he barked, "Dispose of this." Then he strode out, sliding into his armored Mercedes-Benz, the engine's growl carrying him toward his sprawling mansion as if the carnage were just another shadow in his empire.

Hannah paused, her chest heaving, a storm of emotions raging within-outrage, sorrow, a twisted admiration for the brutality. "Come on, I loved him, but he didn't do right by Valentina. She was a saint, and that baby was yours, you idiot!" she exclaimed, slamming the book shut for a two-second reprieve from the trauma that clawed at her soul.

In the aftermath, Zavian dismantled everything: slaughtering her husband, obliterating the Romano family, razing her company to ashes. He even shattered Alessia Romano's legs, chaining her to him in eternal captivity. The story culminated in their marriage, sealing with a spicy first night that Hannah couldn't stomach-not after the villainess's gut-wrenching fate. She skimmed the erotic haze, her skin crawling with revulsion.

In a surge of fury, she hurled the book across the room, where it smacked against the wall with a satisfying crack. Pulling out her phone, she checked the novel's rating: 4/5. Disbelief twisted her features into a scoff. "The people who rated this must be sick in the head!"

She raised her arm to fling the phone too, but hesitated-remembering it was her last savings poured into this trash, with no backup to spare. Instead, she stood, pacing like a caged animal, muttering under her breath. "How could this garbage have a 4/5? The title's a joke-it should be Sate Her Lust, not Sate My Love. Who didn't she sleep with?"

Number one: She bedded Valentina's father-the man who adopted her as a daughter! Perhaps that's why he never inherited the Romano empire.

Number two: Jealous of Valentina's fragile happiness, she seduced her husband and got pregnant, knowing Valentina had struggled with infertility for five agonizing years of marriage.

Number three: She slept with the male lead-fine, he was her fiancée-but why his business associate, the one controlling vital shipping routes? She accused him of assault when she'd sauntered there on her own two feet!

The author had done the villainess dirty. Valentina was a saint by comparison-loyal to her husband, utterly misunderstood. It was as if the narrative conspired against her happiness, dooming her to shadows. In her youth, her parents relentlessly compared her sharper features to Alessia's soft curves, breeding resentment. When Grandfather Vincent Romano bequeathed her the empire, the hatred intensified; they painted her as vulgar at every elite gathering, every charity ball.

And her husband, Edmund Sterling-that treacherous bastard. He played the devoted assistant-boyfriend, all saccharine affection, until marriage secured him the company. She handed it over, dreaming of a quiet home life. But five barren years later, he blamed her, ignoring his own potential infertility. He divorced her in her despair, driving her to drown sorrows in a club's haze, where she stumbled upon a drunken Zavian, their hookup a fleeting spark in the darkness.

This book was a waste of money, a thief of peace. Sleep would evade her now, haunted by the trauma etched into her mind. The clock struck midnight, its chime a mocking toll. She rose to open the door, but her foot slipped on the discarded book cover, sending her crashing down. Her head struck the floorboard with a sickening thud, stars exploding in her vision as the world spun into oblivion.

She awoke to gentle taps on her shoulder, consciousness seeping back like fog lifting from a graveyard. "Ma'am, your makeup is done. You fell asleep midway through."

As the haze cleared, she found herself seated before a vanity mirror, staring at a reflection that wasn't her own. Gone was her slight tan skin and chocolate-brown eyes; in their place was a woman of porcelain pallor, raven hair cascading like midnight silk, and eyes as dark as forgotten sins. She was clad in a white organza and silk gown, embroidered with diamonds that glittered like captured stars, a sweetheart neckline dipping provocatively, off-shoulder lace whispering secrets against her skin. A white net veil with intricate lace hems perched atop her head, secured by a silver tiara, while a diamond necklace choked her throat like a lover's possessive grasp.

"What the hell?" she exclaimed, her voice trembling with a cocktail of shock and dawning realization. "Did I just... reincarnate into Sate My Love as the

villainess?"

Mere moments before her doomed marriage to Edmund Sterling. A smirk tugged at her lips, dark and defiant. "At least I'm not that whore of a protagonist."

"It's time for some character development," she declared, rising with predatory grace and striding to the balcony, ignoring the makeup artists' quivering forms.

Peering over the edge, she calculated the drop-plummeting heights that promised swift release. "Oh, hell no," she murmured, a thrill of rebellion coursing through her veins like poison. "I'm not repeating her mistakes by marrying that snake today. If I'm to die, it'll be single and unburdened, not chained in marital despair with shadows under my eyes."

The wind whipped her veil like a harbinger, the city below a glittering abyss of temptation and terror. In this new skin, darkness beckoned-not as victim, but as queen.

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To Be Continued

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