Reborn: The Duke's Obsession-Chapter 269 - Two Hundred And Sixty Nine

The world swam back into focus with a nauseating lurch. Delia lay on the damp, mossy ground, the side of her head screaming with a dull, throbbing pain. Black spots danced in her vision. She tried to push herself up, but her limbs felt heavy, disconnected, refusing to obey. Above her, a figure came into view, silhouetted against the bright, indifferent sky.

"Philip?" she managed to say, the name a confused, painful gasp. Her voice was a thin, reedy thing. "How are you here? And how... how are you walking?"

The triumphant, cruel sneer on his face was the only answer she needed. The limp, the cane, the pained grimaces—it had all been a lie. A long, elaborate, perfectly executed lie. He reached into his coat and brought out a coil of rough, thick rope.

"I was beginning to think I wouldn’t get to use this," he said, his voice smooth and conversational, a terrifying contrast to the cold, dead look in his eyes. He smirked as he knelt beside her. "You are quite clever, Duchess, I’ll give you that. Your little act with the pregnancy sickness was almost believable." He grabbed her arm, his grip like iron, and roughly pulled her into a sitting position. "But not quite clever enough."

He began to tie her hands tightly behind her back, the rope biting into the delicate skin of her wrists. She struggled weakly, but it was like a mouse fighting a hawk. The blow to her head had stolen all her strength.

"What... what do you want from me? What are you going to do?" she asked, each word a struggle, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps.

Philip finished the knot and moved to her ankles, binding them with the same brutal motion . "Since you asked so nicely," he said, his smile widening, "I’ll tell you." He stood up, dusting off his knees as if he had just finished a simple chore.

"Eric," he began, savoring the name. "I want to kill him. Of course. But just killing him won’t be any fun. It’s too quick, too clean. He wouldn’t have time to truly suffer." He paced a small circle around her, like a wolf circling its prey. "So I thought about it for a long, long time in that dreary prison cell. I thought about the best way to torture Eric. The best way to make him feel a pain so deep it would shatter his very soul. The best way to make him feel like dying a thousand times. And I realized the answer was simple."

He stopped and looked down at her, his eyes gleaming with a mad, triumphant light. "It would probably be to lose Delia. His precious Duchess. The one he loves more than his own life." He let out a short, sharp laugh, a sound utterly devoid of humor.

A surge of protective fury cut through Delia’s pain. "You basta..." she started to snarl, the insult a final act of defiance.

She was interrupted as Philip leaned down and roughly stuffed a wadded handkerchief into her mouth, gagging her. The taste was foul, and she choked, her eyes watering.

"There," he said, his face inches from hers. "You look much better when you’re quiet."

Without another word, he hoisted her off the ground as if she were nothing more than a sack of grain. He carried her to the carriage and dropped her unceremoniously onto the floor inside. The door slammed shut, plunging her into a dark, stuffy blackness, her head still reeling. She heard his footsteps, the creak of the driver’s box, and then the sharp crack of a whip. The carriage lurched forward, carrying her into the heart of her worst nightmare.

~ ••••• ~

Miles away, Eric was living his own. The carriage flew down the country road, the horses galloping at a speed that was both reckless and necessary. The wind whipped past his face, stinging his eyes, but he didn’t dare blink. His hands, raw and chafed, gripped the leather reins with a desperate strength.

He recognized this route. Every tree, every curve, every dip in the road was a scar carved into his memory. This was the shortcut. The same shortcut he had commanded his driver to take in his last life, his voice hysterical with the need to get to Delia, to save her from a threat he had not yet understood. And now he was using it again, a terrible, agonizing echo of the past.

The scenario of that day, the final day, came flooding back to him, not as a distant memory, but as a vivid, raw flashback.

[ He brought his head outside the carriage window, shouting at the driver. "Faster! You must go faster!" The news from Prescott’s letter is a fire in his gut. They’ve framed her. She’s in danger.]

He rounds a sharp curve in the present, the carriage wheels groaning in protest.

[The same curve. His past self is thrown against the side of the carriage as the driver takes it too fast. In a few miles, he sees another carriage, moving slowly. Too slowly. "Watch out!" he screams.

The memory of the crash is a deafening roar in his mind—the hideous sound of splintering wood, the terrified shriek of horses, the world tumbling into a chaos of pain and darkness.

He’s lying on the ground, his own body broken. But he ignores the pain. He crawls, dragging his useless legs, towards the wreckage of her carriage. He sees her. Delia. Her beautiful face is pale, a trickle of blood running from her temple. Her dress is torn, her body is trapped, limp like a broken doll.

His breath catches in his throat now, a sob of remembered grief. He pushes himself harder.

Her breathing was a shallow, rattling sound in her chest. His own life was fading, but he didn’t care. "Delia," he whispered , his voice choked with blood and tears. "I’m here. I’ll save you."

Before he could reach her, before his hand could find hers, he fell to the ground.]

"No," he said out loud now, his voice a raw shout against the rushing wind. "I’m going to stop it this time. I will not allow fate to repeat itself!"