My 99 Regressions

I had regressed ninety-nine times, and it all started because I brought home an injured man.

Every time I came back, strange floating comments appeared in front of my eyes. I could also hear my baby brother's thoughts.

The moment my brother saw Tristan Price, he screamed and refused to stop crying.

"Send that man back! He's going to get our whole family killed!"

I reached out hesitatingly toward Tristan, and the chat overlay flickered to life again.

[The man lying in your bed is your future husband and the prince regent. He never forgets a kindness. Save him, and he will make you his princess consort. Your entire family will be protected and well provided for.]

The first time, I followed my heart and did what the messages told me to do. I saved Tristan, and he used me as a human shield. The assassins hunting him found us, and my entire family was slaughtered.

The second time, I listened to my brother instead and sent Tristan back where I found him. His men came to our door anyway, accused me of leaving him to die, and killed everyone.

The third time, I found Tristan's closest aide before the assassins arrived and quietly handed Tristan over. Then Tristan went mad without warning and stabbed me himself. When my family tried to avenge me, they were killed too.

I tried every approach I could think of to avoid my family's tragic fate, and every single one ended in failure.

This time, I chose to wait for death.

Then the comments appeared again, and something about them caught my eye.

I was back at the moment I'd just fed Tristan Price the medicine that saved his life.

I stared at his sleeping face, and my blood boiled.

Why?

Why had I brought him home and saved him?

If I was going to regress, why couldn't I have gone back to before I ever met Tristan?

I clenched my fists tightly, afraid I wouldn't be able to stop myself from wrapping them around his throat.

My baby brother, Caleb Lloyd, stirred in his cradle and let out a soft murmur.

I covered his eyes before he could look at Tristan, scooped him up, and carried him away.

Would things have turned out differently if I'd never been able to hear what my brother was thinking?

I sat as far from Tristan as I could, watching the comments scroll across my vision in a constant stream.

This was the first time I'd ever wasted precious moments, moments that could have been spent keeping Tristan alive, reading the chatter of a bunch of strangers.

[Why isn't the female lead taking care of the injured male lead? What's so great about that dumb little brother of hers?]

[Seriously. The novel said she fell for him at first sight and spent three days nursing him without ever leaving his side. This drama is changing way too much.]

[Oh, stop complaining. Adaptations always change things. They're still going to fall in love. We just have to wait for the sweet moments.]

My hand paused mid-pat on Caleb's back.

I'd known for a long time that I was living inside a story. The people leaving comments were viewers who'd already read the original novel.

If what they said was true, that Tristan and I were always meant to fall in love, then why did my entire family have to die repeatedly across ninety-nine lifetimes?

Was all of it just the result of what they were calling an adaptation?

I frowned, going over those ninety-nine lifetimes again and again.

Even though I was living inside a story, every choice I made still felt like my own. There was no sense of being controlled or guided by some outside force.

That meant there had to be something I was still missing, some detail I'd overlooked.

'Natalie, make that man leave. He's going to kill our whole family!'

Caleb was facing away from Tristan, cradled against my chest. But his voice rang out inside my head just the same.

A chill shot straight down my spine.

How did Caleb know who I'd brought home when he hadn't even seen the man's face? How was he so certain Tristan was going to kill our entire family? And why was what Caleb said the complete opposite of what the commenters kept insisting would happen?

I forced myself to breathe, to think. If I wanted any chance of escaping the fate that had killed me so many times before, I had to get through today first.

The only way to find a way out was to stay alive long enough to look for one.

I walked to Tristan's bedside and pressed my golden needles into several points along his body. Then I grabbed his collar, pulled out the bone whistle hanging around his neck, and blew it hard.

I'd found that whistle in my forty-eighth lifetime. Its sound worked like a signal, guiding the people closest to Tristan straight to its source.

Less than two hours later, a team of ten appeared at my door, all of them dressed in black.

And with them came Tristan's childhood friend, Selena Miller, the prime minister's daughter.

She was also the woman who had killed me thirty-six times.