Kiss Me, Then Kill Me

"You can forget a face. You can forget a name. But the voice - the voice burns itself into the soul."

I told myself I wouldn't follow him.

I told myself this life would be different that I would be stronger. Smarter.

Colder.

But when Kaelith walked past the western gates, flanked by guards, I was already moving. Not as a lover. Not as a victim.

But as a shadow that refused to be forgotten.

He rode a black warhorse, its hooves carving through the mud like the earth feared him. Villagers watched from behind half-closed shutters, whispering legends that didn't matter. But I knew the truth.

That man was no legend.

He was a curse wrapped in armor. A storm bound to my soul by blood and magic.

I followed them across the dry trails of Erenthel's edge, where the forest thinned into silver fields. I stayed hidden, far enough to be unseen, close enough to hear.

That was the mistake.

Because when Kaelith spoke…

"We'll rest at the ravine by dusk. No fires."

My body froze.

That voice.

That voice didn't belong to this life — it belonged to the past, to a thousand stolen moments by moonlight. To promises he never remembered making.

My knees weakened, breath staggered. The pain was sudden. Familiar. Unfair.

"No. I don't love him."

"Not anymore."

I repeated the lie until it lost its sound.

By dusk, they set up camp. Four soldiers. One prince. One memory too loud in my chest.

I crept closer.

Every instinct screamed to run. But fate has always made me reckless.

And curses don't break from a distance.

That's when I heard it — the whisper between two guards:

"Prince Kaelith's returning to the capital soon. The Queen's blood is failing."

I felt my blood chill.

The Queen. Still alive.

That changed everything.

Because in my fifth life, she'd died before I ever reached the palace.

And with her went the one person who might've known the truth behind our curse.

Now she lived. And Kaelith was going back.

Then so am .I stepped on a branch. It cracked loud, traitorous.

Kaelith's head turned sharply.

His eyes narrowed toward the trees.

I ducked.

"Who's there?" he barked, already rising, sword half-drawn.

The guards moved toward the sound. But Kaelith stepped ahead of them fast, precise, his boots crushing fallen leaves that once remembered my name.

I ran.

Not far — just enough to disappear.

He wouldn't find me.

Not tonight.

But the next time he looked into the dark…

I'd be standing in it.

This life would not end with a kiss.

This time, I would kiss him first.

And then decide if he deserved to live.