Beneath the Surface: Secrets of an Obsessed Heart - Chapter 139: Check 138

A Lovecraft- inspired darker, grittier One piece fanfic. A fanfic based on emotion and madness. A fanfic not for the faint hearted.----------------Regret. I have been drowning in it for far too long. I’ve regretted every choice I’ve made, every mistake I’ve carried, every moment of my past. I’ve regretted the present I live, the path I walk. Even my future, uncertain as it may be, has been tainted by regret.But not anymore. I refuse to live under its shadow. Yet, I know the truth—I don’t have the power to escape it completely.Am I not like a flicker of flame? So fragile, so fleeting—one puff, and I’m gone.Regret has burdened me, weighed me down to make me climb the towering wall of greatness. But I press on.It was all I could do. All I ever wanted to do.

Power comes with a cost... and it was something she was willing to trade her soul for.A few nights before her wedding, Lauren sought a way to break her fourth engagement. Known for her bad reputation as the rebel princess, she was the only lady who had the guts to step foot on the Everston mansion, the house of a notorious warlord, in the middle of the night.She offered him a wicked alliance that the entire kingdom did not see coming: a marriage.A vixen pretending to be a damsel in distress and a man whose crimson eyes screaming for bloodshed. Could something blossom in this treacherous dance of lies and deception?--“Are you upset?”She eyed him sharply. “Should I be honored that I got tricked by you, milord?”He drank the remaining wine in his glass with one gulp and put it on the wooden table.He stepped in front of her. His hand was on the rail on her side while his other hand grabbed her glass and finished her wine before putting it down.The way his Adam's apple moved with his every violent gulp made her feel a tickling heat around her nape.When he brought his attention back to her, he licked his lips to wipe off the trace of wine.“How shall I make it up to you then?” he asked with his deep voice, like a seductive devil asking his victim how she would like to be killed. Dangerous yet… enthralling.