All Chapters of The Curse Of Our Ninth Life : Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

The car suddenly felt too small, too quiet, too cold, and I could barely hear anything except my own breathing. It came in short, painful heartburn as I stared at the man sitting in front of me. I wiped at my tears with trembling fingers, but they kept falling, and my chest ached so badly I wondered if my heart was breaking apart inside me. Then his last words replayed in my head “My twin brother won’t be happy knowing that his bride is a pathetic weakling...” Twin brothers Bride?? The words didn’t make any sense. I slowly lifted my head. “What... Did you just say?” He didn’t answer. He simply looked out of the windshield as though I wasn’t even there. My fingers curled into the fabric of my wedding dress. “I asked you a question,” I said, but he still remained silent. I swallowed hard. “If you’re not my husband...” My voice shook. “...then who are you?” Still nothing. I stared at his reflection in the rearview mirror. “You stood beside me at the altar. You exchanged vows with m

The car came to a smooth stop. My fingers stayed locked around the door handle as I stared out the window. The forest stretched endlessly beneath a blood red moon. The trees were taller than any I’d ever seen, their black branches twisting together like skeletal fingers clawing at the sky. Thick silver mist rolled across the ground and swallowed the narrow stone road behind us. This couldn’t be real. It had to be a set. Or maybe... maybe I’d finally lost my mind after watching my parents die. I squeezed my eyes shut. When I opened them again, nothing had changed. The crimson moon still hung above us. The forest was still there. The air outside looked darker, heavier, wrong. “Out.” Kai’s voice was calm, almost emotionless. I didn’t turn. “No.” Silence. A few seconds later: “Get out of the car.” “I said no. I’m not stepping into whatever this place is.” Draven let out a quiet laugh from the driver’s seat. “I like her.” Kai ignored him. “Maya.” “No.” “You’ll be safer inside.” I la

The diary was still on the floor where I'd dropped it.I stared at it for a long time before I made myself move. My hands were shaking so bad it took two tries to pick it up again, like some part of me already knew that once I opened it, I wouldn't be able to close it again and pretend I hadn't seen what was inside.I opened it anyway.The handwriting looked like mine. Not similar. Mine. The same slant, the same way I loop my Y's too big."This isn't possible," I whispered.The next page started with a date that meant nothing to me.Day One.If you're reading this, then we failed again.Don't panic.I know you don't remember me.I am you.My heart slammed once, hard, against my ribs. I laughed this short, broken, nervous sound that didn't feel like it came from me."No," I said, out loud, to an empty room. "No, that's not possible..."I turned the page anyway. I couldn't stop myself.The diary didn't explain anything. It just kept going, like whoever wrote it assumed I already knew e

Kai didn't try explaining anything.He just walked me back to my room in silence, his jaw so tight I could see the muscle working beneath his skin, and when I tried to ask, twice infact and he simply said, "Not now," in a voice that made it clear asking a third time wouldn't get me anywhere."Your Majesty." The words wouldn't leave me alone. They sat in my chest like a stone all through dinner, all through the long, restless hour I spent lying in that enormous bed staring at the ceiling instead of sleeping.Why would a servant call me that?Why did Kai look like the floor had opened under him?By the time the castle had gone quiet, I'd made up my mind. Nobody was going to answer my questions. Fine. I'd find the answers myself.The halls at night were worse than during the day longer somehow, the shadows between the chandeliers thicker, like the light was too tired to reach all the way to the corners. I kept one hand trailing along the wall so I wouldn't lose my sense of direction, co

The words were still hanging in the air she will destroy us all when the second attack came.I didn't even see it happen. One moment Kai had his arm around me, walking me out through the wreckage of the dining hall, and the next there was a blur of motion from the shattered window, a second figure dropping down from somewhere above the courtyard wall, blade already swinging toward the unprotected side of my body Kai hadn't thought to cover.He saw it before I did."Get down!" He shoved me hard, out of the blade's path, and turned into the strike himself instead of away from it.The sound it made when it connected didn't feel real. A wet, terrible sound, and then Kai staggered back a step, one hand pressed to his side, dark blood already spreading fast between his fingers."Kai!"Draven was there in an instant, driving the second attacker back with a force that sent the intruder crashing through the remains of the window frame and out into the courtyard, gone before the guards even re