0003:Woke Up Seventeen, Again

ANGELA’S POV

I woke up choking on air, chest heaving like I’d just run for my life. My heart thrashed against my ribs so hard I thought it might split me open. I blinked once, twice, and my eyes caught the soft morning light bleeding through pale pink curtains. Curtains I knew. Too well.

My stomach lurched. No. No way. This wasn’t—this couldn’t be what I’m thinking—But it was. The ceiling above me was scattered with faint glow-in-the-dark stars I’d stuck there when I was fifteen, thinking they’d make me feel less small in the dark.

My bedspread still wore those ugly floral sheets Mom picked out—too girly for me even then. And there—God—there was the shelf with my dusty trophies. Cheerleading. Pack academy. Even one that said Best Smile. Like that mattered. Like smiling ever saved anyone.

I lay frozen, eyes wide open, staring until the patterns in the ceiling blurred. My brain buzzed, memories clawing at me.

Wait. Wasn’t I suppose to be… dead?

The rooftop. The cold sting of air against my skin. Kimberly’s hand steady, her grin twisted like she’d been waiting for that moment. The blade. The pain. The wet heat of blood spilling too fast. And Julius—his name still burned like acid in my throat. My mate. My husband. My everything. The man I had thrown myself at like a fool. And he let it happen. Hell, he probably wanted it to happen.

My throat closed up. The betrayal had cut deeper than the knife, deeper than anything I ever thought possible. It had hollowed me out. And not just for me—for the tiny life I had carried, the child who never even took a breath before it was stolen from him.

I swallowed hard, the lump in my throat painful. And yet here I was. Alive and back in my old bedroom. The one that smelled faintly of lavender detergent and… dreams I never reached.

My fingers curled into the sheets as dizziness slammed into me. A reel of mistakes, regrets, trust given to the wrong people—all of it played out in flashes. I was too naive. Too soft. Too forgiving. And in the end, too dead.

But I had wished, hadn’t I? In those final seconds, before the blackness swallowed me whole, I’d begged—pathetic, desperate—for another chance. To do it over. To not be that stupid, blind girl again.

I guess… someone listened.

Carefully, like I was walking on glass, I pushed myself upright. My body felt different. Smaller. Softer. The scars that should’ve been there—gone. I flexed my hands. My skin looked… new.

“What the hell…” I whispered, my voice too loud in the quiet.

I stumbled out of bed, my foot catching on that hideous pink rug I used to hate. I nearly faceplanted before rushing to the mirror.

And when I saw myself—I gasped. I was seventeen again. The same wide eyes, the same face I hadn’t seen in years staring back at me.

“No way,” I muttered, touching the glass like an idiot, half-expecting it to ripple or tell me the truth. But it didn’t. It was cold. Solid and absolutely real. Just like the truth that hit me: I was really back.

A laugh burst out of me, wild and uneven—the kind that didn’t sound right in this too-quiet, too-innocent room. I pressed a hand to my mouth, but I couldn’t stop. I was alive. I had another shot. Another chance to change everything.

I sat on the edge of my bed, heart hammering, thoughts crashing in like a storm I couldn’t outrun. If this was real, if I really was seventeen again, then it meant I had about six weeks. Six weeks before that damned engagement dinner—before Mom shoved me into a dress and paraded me at Alpha Martin’s house. And before Julius looked at me like I was his forever, and I was stupid enough to believe him.

God, I wanted to scream. Or cry. Or both.

I dragged my hands down my face, biting back a sob that clawed its way up. No. No more tears. Tears hadn’t saved me last time, and they sure as hell wouldn’t save me now.

I had just weeks before Julius claimed me—before I signed my own death warrant. Unless… My pulse jumped. Unless of course I broke it first. People said mate bonds couldn’t be broken. It was sacred, eternal and forever unshakable. But they were wrong. There was a loophole. A brutal one and I had lived it, but never again.

If I found my true mate—my real one, the one fate had actually made for me—before Julius marked me as his chosen, then that bond with him would never form. It would be void. All I had to do was find him first.

But the clock was ticking. And my parents—always loyal, blind, and devoted to Alpha Martin’s family—would never believe me if I told them the truth. I couldn’t exactly sit at breakfast table and say, Hey, Mom, Dad, small thing—I died, Julius cheats on me with Kimberly, and she stabs me on his rooftop. Pass the salt.

Yeah. That’d go over great. So I had to play this smart. I couldn’t trust Kimberly. Couldn’t trust Julius. Couldn’t even trust my own damn family. This time, I was living for me.

I pushed myself to my feet, staring at my reflection with a steadiness that hadn’t been there before. My voice came out quiet, almost a whisper, but it was a promise.

“Never again. I’ll never belong to him again.” Not in this life. Not in any.

I exhaled, grabbed the edge of the dresser to ground myself, and straightened. First things first—shower, get dressed, and start searching. Whoever my true mate was, wherever he was—I’d find him. And when I did… I’d never let Julius touch me again. Not even in his dreams.