Sometimes the one we love the most isn't by our side, but in our hearts—forever a memory.
Kaden once remembered what Lina told him in their second life. They were sitting at a bar, cigarettes permeating the air, tobacco smoke in their lungs, as she let out a burst of soft laughter. He had broken her heart into a thousand pieces by rejecting her proposal of marriage, for he had played with what wasn't his.
At that time, she belonged to Atlantis in both hand and body, but Kaden gambled for her heart.
In Lina's second life, Kaden was her first in bed and lips, but in the end, Atlantis was her lawful husband. History wrote it as such.
"I might forgive you a thousand times, but I'll only trust you once," Lina had said to him, her lips painted as red as her wedding dress the next day.
Their love affair had come to an end at the exact spot that it had begun.
"How dare you smile?" Lina harshly asked him. "How dare you smile at the expense of my happiness?"
Kaden didn't understand what she meant at that time. But when he stormed the wedding the next day, it was all too late. With the very gun he had gifted her, she shot herself dead.
Now, history was right in front of him. Her blood on his hands, her lifeless body in his arms, and his scream like a wounded beast.
"Lina, wake up."
Kaden could barely register the events before him. He suddenly became aware of his inability to stand. People rushed around him, guards tackling the artist, and ambulance crews rushing onto the scene.
No one else was shot, but his woman.
Lina, who knew he was immortal, took the bullet for him. Lina, his tender and endearing wife, would rather let herself die in his arms than let him experience pain. Kaden knew, in this entire world, there was no one who loved her more than him.
"This isn't funny." Kaden couldn't hear his own voice. He felt people prying at his shoulders, Mia yelling in the background to let go, and Milo shoving at the mountain.
Kaden let out a burst of satanic laughter, his eyes wide with disbelief. He shook her limp body, blood on his fingertips, and a corpse in his grasp. Kaden forgot how to speak. His arms forgot how to behave. He only knew how to hold onto her for dear life.
"Sir… Sir!"
"You have to let go!"
"Sir!"
Without warning, Kaden shot to his feet. She weighed like nothing in his arms. He was beginning to lose his sanity. Everything snapped in the blink of his eyes. All the sound in the world blurred to nothing. He felt his entire heart split open and blood pour out like the gushing of an unstoppable tidal wave.
Lina, Lina. Lina. She was so beautiful, her name was like poetry. She was the love letters that star-crossed lovers exchanged, the prose that stung, and a newly painted artwork. She was everything pure and perfect. Why did he have to go along and ruin her?
Lina was never going to be the same again.
- - - - -
Kaden lost count of how many times he said her name. Even when she was rushed into the back of an ambulance, he murmured each letter, each syllable, they belonged to him.
Lina, her name was like a song lyric. Lina was the name of the woman he'd never fall out of love with. She was terrified of falling, but didn't realize he had already dived off a cliff for her.
"You're a horrible man," Lina once said to him in their second life. "It's heartbreaking when people who give us the best memories become memories themselves."
Kaden couldn't understand what he had done to her until it was too late. Until, he was left to suffer for 500 years waiting for her to be reborn in her third life.
In his blind greed, Kaden wanted to claim her before anyone else took her. Then, he let his dear dove go, hoping she'd spread her wings far into the sky. He only wanted a moment with her, for he deemed himself too unsuitable to stand by her side.
Since Lina's suicide on the battlefield, Kaden had dreamed of the day she would be reborn. He waited centuries.
His eternal life was nothing without her. He had tried everything to kill himself, to end his grief and misery without her. But that was the curse of his immortality.
Kaden had dreamt of her touch again. Her voice. Her laughter. But when she was reborn in her second life and standing there right in front of him in the flesh, despite his undying love for her, he was floored.
Every cell in Kaden's body yearned for her, she was within reach, but also not. That was, until he saw someone else enter into the picture—Atlan. And nothing made his blood roar more than revenge, so he took what wasn't his, and was the first to taste her before reluctantly walking away.
Little did Kaden know, a tamed bird didn't know how to fly outside of their cage. Once Kaden broke up with Lina at the bar, he destroyed more than he had bargained for.
Kaden lied to her. He said he was a married man with a wife and child waiting for him at home. He declared that the wealthiest heiress in the entire city of Ritan was just his mistress.
Kaden had never seen a woman driven by insanity from depression. Not until he saw her. Not until he helped her out of a mental hospital just a week before their fateful and final encounter at the bar.
"Say something to me, Kaden please," Mia begged him loudly, bringing him back to the present.
Kaden could barely register what was happening. One moment Lina was in his arms, her blood staining his shirt, the next, she was cleaned and in a hospital bed. Where did it all go wrong?
Kaden always tried to picture the exact moment everything came crashing down. In their first life, it was his stubbornness. In his second life, it was his greed. Now, in their third life, what was it? He tried to fix what destroyed them in their previous lives.
Kaden held back his stubbornness. He gave her what she wanted. He rarely disagreed with her, for his opinion rarely mattered when she was around. Kaden always lost the ability to think properly in her presence. If she wanted the world, he'd ask her when she wanted it.
"Boss… please… it has been—"
"Get out!" Mia cried, shoving everyone out of the room. She let out an aggravated scream, walking circles in the hospital room, clutching her forehead in disbelief.
The most powerful man in Ritan was a stone statue.
Kaden was a greedy man by nature. When he encountered Lina in their second life, he was blinded by desire. Atlan took Princess Lina's virtue in their first, so Kaden decided to take Young Miss Lina's virtue in their second life.
Kaden never planned for her to fall so hard in love, that she'd rather take her life than marry another man. He had grossly underestimated her feelings. He thought he could get his fix of her and walk away without any repercussions. He was wrong.
And Kaden suffered for it. He suffered centuries of heartbreak where he barely slept, barely breathed, barely survived. Now that Lina was back in his arms, what did he do?
What was Kaden's mistake in this final and last life they would ever share together?