Chapter 1
When my sister, Lilith Blake, threw the Abyssal Sacrificial Tome in my face, I knew she'd traveled back in time, too.
She thought that by stealing my fiancé, Arthur Kane, the one destined to ascend to godhood in my previous life, she could rule the entire world.
However, she had no idea he was a hypocrite who only knew how to suck his partner dry of Magical Energy.
She kicked me into the Abyss to be fed to a dragon, intending to destroy my body.
But the moment I signed the Blood Pact and plunged into the Abyss, the legendary black dragon, rumored to have torn half the continent apart, transformed into a man with the looks of a fallen angel.
He wrapped me in his massive dragon wings, pulling me into his scorching embrace. The wild fury in his eyes melted into a crazed obsession.
"I finally found you, my one and only mate," he said, his voice low and husky, dripping with dangerous allure. "Do you want to crush those pathetic insects with my power?"
*****
"Cecilia, Arthur is mine now," Lilith said.
With a smile on her face, she stepped out from behind the Paladin of Light and tossed a roll of blackened parchment onto the long table in front of me.
The parchment unfurled, blood-red runes pulsing with light, reeking of decay. It was the Abyssal Sacrificial Tome, an ancient pact that had to be signed every hundred years.
The Blake family had to offer up a mage to the Abyss to feed the world-destroying dragon that had been lurking there for thousands of years.
In my previous life, Lilith was the one who got sacrificed, whereas I married Arthur. His gentleness kept us inseparable for three years.
However, in the third winter, he drained me of my last bit of Magical Energy, and I died on our bed.
When I died, I was so skinny that I looked like a dried twig; my nails were pale.
He sat next to me, radiant, laughing and chatting with the high-society ladies who came to visit. He didn't bother to look back at me.
Now that Lilith traveled back in time, she latched onto Arthur's arm before I could, staking her claim on that so-called genius knight.
"Father has agreed," Lilith said, tilting her head with a sweet smile. "Arthur's going to marry me.
"As for you, Cecilia, the family needs you to be the one to make the sacrifice. You won't refuse, right? After all, you couldn't qualify as a level-3 mage."
The hall fell silent for a couple of seconds.
The elders sat in their high chairs on both sides, and no one spoke up in my defense.
My mother sat in the corner, quietly sipping her coffee. The rim of her cup hid her expression, but she never spared me a glance.
Arthur stood behind Lilith, looking as gentle and refined as ever.
"Cecilia, I'm sorry," he said. "Lilith and I are a better match. You wouldn't want a forced marriage to make us both miserable, would you?"
He sure knew how to talk. Back in my previous life, he said the same thing. "I don't want to force you, Cecilia."
And that very night, he put his hand on my back and began to siphon off my Magical Energy.
"Cecilia, sign it," my father finally spoke up. "The family has supported you for twenty years. Now it's time for you to pay us back."
My gaze swept around the room, landing on my cold father, my silent mother, Lilith's smug expression, and Arthur, the hypocrite.
Two rows of elders sat with their heads bowed, not daring to meet my eyes.
I'd seen these faces before I died in my previous life.
They came for Arthur's knighting ceremony, passed by my bedroom, glanced at my shriveled body through the crack in the door, gently closed it, and walked away.
"Fine," I replied, stepped forward, and bit through my finger.
A drop of blood fell onto the Abyssal Sacrificial Tome, and the runes flared to life. Searing runes wrapped around my wrist like snakes, burrowing under my skin. The pact was sealed.
Lilith's smile stiffened for a moment. "Cecilia, y-you signed it like that?" she stammered.
"Isn't that what you wanted?" I tossed the Abyssal Sacrificial Tome back onto the table, casually wiped the blood from my finger, turned around, and walked toward the magic circle in the center of the hall.
An ancient teleportation circle was etched on the tiles, leading to the Abyss.
When I reached the edge of the magic circle, I paused and glanced back at Lilith. "By the way, Lilith," I said.
She was clinging to Arthur's arm, her expression a little uneasy.
"Arthur's bed gets pretty cold at night," I said, curving my eyes and giving her a genuine smile. "Hope you can handle it."
Her face went pale. But before she could say anything, the magic circle flared to life.
A pillar of dark red light shot skyward, and a rush of weightlessness surged up from my feet.
I was falling. The wind roared in my ears, ripping my clothes to pieces.
Lilith's shrill laughter faded into the distance; Arthur's gentle reassurances were lost in the wind; all that remained was the lingering echo of my father's announcement of the wedding date. "In three days, Arthur will marry Lilith."
The red glow of magma surged up from the depths of the Abyss, the scorching heat washing over me and burning the tips of my hair and eyelashes.
Then, in blinding white flames, I stared into a pair of golden-red eyes with vertical-slit pupils. They were bigger than the entire magic circle.
Inside those eyes, a storm of violence and madness churned; it was enough to swallow half the continent. In the center of those pupils, I saw my falling reflection.
The world-destroying black dragon, rumored to have shredded three royal cities, was sprawled in the middle of the magma lake, its massive head tilted as it watched me plummet.
In my previous life, I died in bed. This time, I was tossed to the dragon's mouth soon after I got the second chance.
I closed my eyes as the wind roared past me in free fall.
Fine. I wanted to see who would die first.