A/N: I own nothing. Enjoy!

Annabeth Castellan felt like her insides were being constricted with every contraction that came. Fire, flames, burning sensations lit her senses into excruciating pain. None of her menstrual cramps had ever felt like this.

A cool hand wiped the sweat off of her forehead, but Annabeth could hardly see through the fogginess in her mind.

But none of the physical pain measured to the raw, emotional pain she had felt when she discovered her husband Luke fucking her cousin in her office. In shock, Annabeth had stumbled against the door frame. Luke had not heard the noise and continued to thrust in his illicit lover's body. But her cousin, Lady Kelli with her rich chestnut hair, had. And what had her cousin done? Kelli had smiled and squeezed herself tighter until Luke groaned his lover's name out loud.

He had never moaned Annabeth's name the nights they spent in bed together. She should have known even then.

Annabeth had fled out of her own office in half rage, half despair, but in hindsight, she should have thrown all the furniture in the mansion at them. But she had been afraid of what her anger and stress would do to the baby growing in her stomach. In her haste to get away from the scene, she had stumbled on the stairs, falling down to the bottom where her water broke.

"How long will she last?" A male voice asked.

"Too early to say." The midwife answered back.

At first, Annabeth's marriage had been sweet, with Luke smothering her with attention. Though he disapproved, Annabeth continued her architectural business. Since she was Countess Castellan, and Luke was the head of the White Knight Order, her business had quickly grown. Perhaps that was her first mistake.

Annabeth had become so engrossed in running her business, she had neglected to see what her husband had been doing behind the scenes. Then, her second mistake was hiring her cousin as an assistant in her company. Her aunt and uncle had passed away in a carriage accident, leaving Kelli with only a meager inheritance. Annabeth had thought she was helping her cousin by offering her a lucrative position. Turns out, Annabeth had invited a parasite into her mansion.

In a few more moments, the pain receded slightly as the midwife received a small messy bundle in her arms, born eight weeks early.

"A daughter," the male voice said, disgusted. "Useless thing."

Annabeth snapped through her haze of fury. She wanted to sit up and throw herself against Luke, to scream and hit him. Why? Why was she never good enough?

She had given Luke everything, her heart, her body, the control over her own personal investments and business. Yet Luke had never thrown more than a glance at her. First love, first kiss, first night. None of that mattered to the handsome Luke who played around to his heart's content. Annabeth must have been nothing else but a flower or jewel Luke had coveted and then thrown away in a mansion to display and rot while he collected other fair treasures.

What was it about Kelli that Luke favored? To her knowledge, Annabeth was quite pretty with her curly golden hair and tanned skin. Lady Kelli had straight chestnut hair, fair skin, innocent doe-like eyes that didn't match her curves most men would lust after and other women be envious of. Her husband had been one of those men, obviously.

Annabeth had thought the baby would change things. Both she and Luke had been overjoyed to learn of her pregnancy after three years of marriage. She, because she had yearned for someone else to love, and he for a legitimate heir. If she gave birth to an heir, then perhaps he would turn his beautifully cold blue eyes to her once more like they did before their marriage.

But her body wouldn't obey. She could hardly lift a finger towards Luke to give him a well-deserved slap. The stress of discovering Luke's fidelity, the fall, and her illness had sapped all the strength from her once powerful body. Annabeth could only weakly glare at her husband. He hadn't even come once during her ten hour long labor, only coming when the baby had been delivered to see the gender.

The midwife lowered Annabeth's daughter to her side. Although one of Luke's people, the midwife had some pity in her heart for the wife of Count Luke. Every other servant in the mansion was hired by Luke, and they knew of the stale relationship between the Count and his wife. They treated Annabeth with cold indifference.

Annabeth turned her head towards her darling daughter, with her still wet blonde hair plastered to her head. Her daughter was an angel to her, a small beam of light. And like an angel, her daughter soon flew into the sky, leaving nothing but a cold shell of body. The newborn had been born too early, impacted by Annabeth's fall and long-term illness during the pregnancy.

Annabeth's heart broke when she realized she could not hold her baby in her arms. And she never would again after the midwife removed the baby's body from the room. Luke turned his back onto her and exited as well.

Left alone, Annabeth felt a fever crawl upon her. She was bleeding from giving birth still, but no one checked in on her. Except Lady Kelli slipped into the room.

"Oh, no, no need for you to get up to receive me," her cousin said sarcastically.

Had it all been a lie? Annabeth wondered. Her cousin had the sweetest face and disposition, but now Kelli's face held nothing but triumphant contempt for her cousin and benefactor.

"So sorry to hear about your child, my dear Annabeth." Kelli cooed. "But don't worry, you'll follow her soon."

Annabeth wanted to scream and yell. What did Kelli mean?

"You're going to die soon, so I have no problem letting you know." Her brown eyes were alight with a deadly, fanatic excitement. "Have you been wondering why you've been sick these past months? Luke and I have been poisoning your tea every night. And you never suspected a thing!" Kelli squealed.

Damn. Damn it all. Every day when Annabeth worked in her office, Luke or Kelli would bring in a cup of tea on the pretense that the workaholic Annabeth should take a break. She should have known it was suspicious that Luke had never done such a thing in their first two years of marriage. Gods, how stupid had she been?

"It's a slow poison," Kelli exclaimed. "I wanted your death to be as slow as possible."

Why? Annabeth thought. She had given Kelli all her support. What had Annabeth done to her cousin for all of this?

"All my life, I have been compared to you, you know that, Annabeth? My father was born two years younger than yours, and because of that your father became a Baron while my father had start from scratch. You had everything, and I had nothing! Nothing!"

That's not true! Annabeth wanted to scream. Kelli's father was a hard worker, but his wife was an extravagant spender. Whenever her uncle made money, her aunt and cousin would spend it all until nothing was left. Even now, Kelli was decked in an elegant jewels and a dress that showed off her big bosom. The dress was pure white, ironic for the demon Annabeth felt Kelli was. Annabeth felt even sicker the longer she looked at Kelli's dress. It was a wedding dress, Annabeth realized.

"But you know what's funny, lovely Annabeth? When you got engaged to Luke, I was already with him. Oh yes, I was. In fact, I encouraged your little engagement." Kelli said. "Because now, I finally have something to give to you. I could give you my man in exchange for a little patience and the jewels you gave me. But I could take him back at any time."

Annabeth felt the poison slowly work through her body. Her body was getting colder by the second.

"And now I will," Kelli said happily. "After your death, your company will be given to Luke, and he will marry me. With all the wealth, Luke might even be made a Duke. So you're not needed in this world, my dear cousin. Have a nice afterlife!" Kelli said sarcastically.

Annabeth's anger reached her limit. Was that it? Was her life going to end like this? All her life she had tried to please others, please her family, please her husband. When had she ever lived for herself?

Tears of bitterness fell down her pale face. Kelli placed a pillow over Annabeth's face, but Annabeth couldn't even turn her head to avoid her fate. As the last of Annabeth's life slipped away, she cursed and swore revenge on those who had harmed her.

Unbeknownst to Kelli, the simple pearl necklace Annabeth wore underneath her nightgown glowed with an inexplicable light.

Three days later, the twenty-six year old Annabeth and her daughter was laid to rest. Everyone who was there swore they had never seen a prettier corpse or a more sorrowful husband. The funeral was as befitting for a Countess. But after the funeral, any servants who could be sympathetic to the former Countess was fired from the Castellan mansion.

There were rumors after Count Luke quickly courted another wife, one who was the cousin of the former Countess. But they explained that Luke had sought marriage from the Chase family, and since the first bride of the Chase family had passed away, it was only his duty to take on another bride from the grieving Chase family.

Annabeth's grave soon lay forgotten and untended except for the visits from her blood-related family and one other man.

The man, dressed in all black, lay a single blue rose on top of Annabeth's grave. May you find happiness in your next life, the dark-haired man prayed.

That night, the blue rose took root in Annabeth's grave, feeding on her grief and anger.

"My lady? Annabeth! Master, Mistress, come look! Lady Annabeth is awake?"

Footsteps rushed to her bedroom.

Annabeth blinked open her eyes. Was that all a dream? It had been such a realistic dream, living through three years of her life as a wife of the Castellan family.

Her grey eyes landed on a red velvet canopy above her. Hold on. Her bedroom at the Castellan mansion was white silk, not red velvet. This was her childhood and family bedroom.

"Oh, Annabeth!"

Baron Frederick Chase and the Baroness, her stepmpther came into view, peering anxiously at their eldest daughter. To them, she had been sick for a week after contracting the plaque.

Annabeth's memories of this event was vivid. The death plaque that had gone around the country was vicious, taking many people's lives, both commoners and nobles alike. It was found that the disease was spread by insufficient sewage systems and poor city planning. It was after this plaque that Annabeth had built her successful company on, redeveloping the cities.

But this event was four years ago from when Annabeth had passed away.

She had gone back in time.

A/N: So ya girl has been reading a lot of isekai (reincarnation) webtoons and mangas, and I decided I should try a stab at this genre. I know, I know, I should be working on my other stories...but Scandal is my only story that will update on a stable schedule of Sundays and Wednesdays, and this story will be updated whenever I have time. (I have soooo many essays and papers to write on top of a full time job, it's not even funny)

Until next time, and let me know if y'all like this!