faeni

Kim Areum was just your average 24-year-old with an average life, until she died in the most cliché way possible—Truck-kun style. But instead of peace in the afterlife, she finds herself reincarnated as Lady Alexandra, the most hated noblewoman in a romance novel she couldn’t even finish.

Worse, she wakes up in a body that's already pregnant—impregnated by a cold husband who only touched her because he mistook her for his dead first love. To top it off, she remembers just enough of the story to know that Alexandra dies during childbirth.

Armed with half-baked plot knowledge, uncontrollable mood swings, and a growing list of people who want her dead (including the original heroine), Areum is determined to rewrite her tragic ending—even if that means throwing pillows at her expressionless husband, bullying fate into submission, and, for once in her two lives, choosing herself.

Can a modern-day nobody survive the drama of nobility, sidestep death-by-birth, and raise a baby in a world that already wrote her off as the villain?

Reborn as the Pregnant Villainess (And I Was a Virgin!)

The drawing room was filled with morning light and gleaming silence.

A half-circle of staff stood in attendance, their backs rigid and eyes straight. Duke Cassian Vale sat at the head of the table—serious, unreadable, and at the moment taking a sip from a cup as if it owed him an answer.

I sat next to him, swathed in pinks and innocence I hadn't accumulated after three lives. My hands shook—just a little—as I picked up my own mug.

"Is everything to your liking, Your Grace?" Marla asked, hovering to my right shoulder. Her voice was silky. Perfect. Rehearsed.

She'd given me her traditional 'I hope you die nicely' face.

Oh yes," I replied sweetly. "Though it does taste a bit. bitter today."

Cassian looked at me, in a mild way. "You insisted we use the same blend from last week."

I smiled, took another sip, then—very deliberately—dropped the cup.

It shattered on the floor. Gasps followed like wind through reeds.

I leaned forward, one hand on my stomach, the other on the table for support. "I. I don't.

Marla moved in—too fast. "Your Grace?!"

Cassian rose from his seat, lips compressed into a line. "Alexandra—?"

I raised one hand as if pushing aside light. "I am dazed. So odd. The same tea… and yet…"

There was a shifting—a flash of fear—and it was not from the Duke. Marla's stance changed, almost unnoticeable. Her gaze flew to the spilled tea.

That was the instant. I grasped it.

"Fetch Rona," I whispered. "And maybe the steward. I think the house staff should be present for this as well."

Cassian went to shout orders, but Rona had already appeared—how convenient—following behind her was the Duke's alchemist and two footmen.

"Here is the report," Rona said, tossing a sealed letter onto the table. "I took the initiative of testing the Duchess's tea before she let it touch her lips this morning."

Cassian opened it. Read. Went very, very still.

"Silkroot," he said, the word dropping like a stone. "Poison."

The room descended into appalled silence.

I rose slowly, the act finished, all eyes now upon her.

"This is the third time," I said smoothly. "Lady Elowen. The merchant's wife. And me. Always tea. Always so convenient."

Cassian spun around to Marla with ice in his eyes.

Marla blinked. Her mouth opened, then closed. She did not deny it.

Rona stepped forward, grinning like a cat who'd caught a duchess-killer.

"I think it's time we talked about where her loyalties really lie."

The Tea Trap