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!)

Cheers swelled like sea waves as our carriage rolled into the Old Market District. Banners billowed overhead, emblazoned in the colors of the duchy—storm blue and silver-gray, which seemed a tad on the nose, considering our emotional weather at present.

Cassian waved like a statue would: arm wagging, face frozen, soul long departed. I, on the other hand, had mastered the smile of a woman utterly thrilled to be being paraded about like a royal brood mare.

I was simply angling my "beloved wife with slightly swollen ankles" pose for best light when it happened.

A flash. Not confetti. Not flower petals.

Somebody in the crowd fell. Then another. The mob surged and fissured like ants under fire. Cassian reacted without a beat—his hand bracing me back into the seat, his other already going for the blade he'd kept concealed under his coat.

A whimper ripped through the throng. A man in the front row foamed at the mouth, collapsing forward. His ribbon was soaked with something gross. My heart attempted to burrow up my throat.

Cassian barked at the guards in short, deadly accents. "Clear the path. Guard the Duchess."

Before I could protest, Cassian rose and drew me into the shelter of his long coat. His protectively curved body was unnervingly close, as if the cold in his veins would somehow burn someone who tried to hurt me.

But the true threat no longer lingered in the crowd.

A figure atop a rooftop—hooded, thin, unmistakably holding a second canister—faced me.

This wasn't about Cassian. This wasn't about the baby.

Die like you're meant to, Duchess.

Cassian pushed me down, covering me entirely as air behind us exploded in a blast of something sour and green. Screaming trailed behind. Horses panicked. The carriage lurched hard, wood splintering as we crashed into a fountain edge.

Cassian growled as something scraped his shoulder—but he didn't move off me.

"So are my ears from your screaming."

He leaned in, voice low. "I only joke when I'm scared."

We remained thus for three clear heartbeats. Locked together, the world shrieking around us, smoke rolling through the spring air.

Then Cassian spoke the words that made my stomach freeze harder than the blast.

"They weren't shooting for the baby."

A Smile, A Scream, A Spark