After Rebirth, I Became My Ex's Aunt-in-Law

”Just one Chapter,” Aria had lied to herself at 11:00 AM. ”Just to see what the formatting looks like.”

It was now 6:30 PM. The sun had completely set over the New York skyline, casting long, dark shadows across ICU Room 1.

Aria was currently twenty-seven Chapters deep into an epic, slow-burn, 150,000-word masterpiece titled The Demon King’s Pet, and her entire worldview had been irrevocably altered.

The internet was unhinged. The Wattpad girlies were feral. And the AO3 authors were writing with the kind of intense, descriptive passion that honestly deserved a Pulitzer Prize for creative anatomy.

She had scrolled past tags that made her violently blush: Dark!Damien, Praise Kink, Heavy BDSM, Leather Appreciation, Size Difference, and something called Somnophilia that she had to quickly Google on a separate tab just to make sure she wasn’t being put on an FBI watchlist.

The door to her hospital room clicked open.

Aria didn’t even look up from her iPad.

A young, cheerful nurse walked in, carrying a massive, greasy red-and-white striped bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

”One bucket of Extra Crispy, just like you ordered, Mrs. Sinclair,” Sarah smiled, setting the food down along with a stack of napkins. ”And a large mashed potatoes with gravy. Do you need anything else?”

”You’re an angel,” Aria distractedly reached blindly into the bucket, pulling out a steaming, golden-fried drumstick. ”I’m good. Thank you.”

The nurse quietly slipped out.

Aria sat cross-legged in the center of her hospital bed. She brought the drumstick to her lips, aggressively tearing off a piece of crispy skin as she scrolled down to the climax of Chapter twenty-eight.

The fictional Damien had just dragged the female lead into his underground, soundproof torture dungeon. He had tied her to a velvet cross using pure silk ropes.

Aria chewed her chicken, absolutely mesmerized.

’Okay, the silk ropes are a nice touch,’ Aria thought, licking a drop of grease from her thumb.

She swiped her greasy finger carefully along the edge of the screen to turn the page.

And then, she read...

With a dark, feral growl that shook the foundations of the dungeon, Damien unzipped his tailored slacks and unsheathed fifteen inches of punishing steel.

Aria froze.

The piece of chicken she was chewing suddenly forgotten.

She stared at the screen. She read the sentence again. Then, she read it a third time.

’Fifteen inches?’ Aria internally screamed, her brows furrowing in genuine confusion. ’Fifteen?! That isn’t a penis! That is a baguette!’

She tried to visually measure fifteen inches with her free hand, holding it up in the air.

’Where would that even go?’ she wondered, horrified. ’She would die! The female lead is going to be split in two!’

Aria was so entirely immersed in the internet’s fantasy that she completely missed the soft, electronic click of the ICU doors opening for a second time.

Damien Sinclair stepped into the room.

He had just come straight from Sinclair Headquarters. He was exhausted. His bespoke suit jacket was slung casually over his shoulder, his tie was completely undone, and the top two buttons of his crisp white shirt were unfastened.

He moved with the silent grace that was second nature to him, fully intending to quietly check if she was sleeping.

Instead, he found his wife sitting cross-legged in her panda pajamas, the sole source of light in the dim room coming from the glowing screen of her iPad. She had a chicken drumstick hanging out of her mouth like a cigar, her eyes blown wide in a state of absolute, traumatized shock as she stared at the tablet.

Damien paused at the foot of the bed.

He watched her hold her free hand up in the air, spreading her thumb and pinky finger far apart, seemingly trying to measure something invisible with a look of profound concern.

Amusement immediately chased away his exhaustion.

Damien set his jacket down on the plastic visitor’s chair. He walked around the bed, his footsteps completely masked by the soft carpet.

He stepped up right behind her.

Damien leaned down. He slowly and carefully rested his hands on the mattress on either side of her hips, boxing her in, and peered directly over her shoulder to see what had her so captivated. ℯℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

His golden eyes scanned the glowing text on the iPad.

He read the words underground torture dungeon. He read the words silk ropes.

And then, he read the sentence currently highlighted by Aria’s hovering, greasy finger.

...unsheathed fifteen inches of punishing steel.

Damien let out a soft, barely audible breath.

He slowly lowered his head until his lips were mere millimeters from the shell of her ear.

”Fifteen inches?” Damien whispered, his voice a deep, gravelly purr. ”I feel like my actual dimensions are being severely misrepresented, Mrs. Sinclair.”

Aria’s soul violently left her body.

”AHH!” Aria shrieked at the top of her lungs.

She jumped so hard she physically caught air. The chicken drumstick flew out of her mouth, completely missing the bucket and landing with a splat on the pristine white hospital sheets.

In a blind panic, she threw the iPad, but Damien casually reached out and snatched it out of the air with one hand, his reflexes inhumanly fast.

Aria scrambled backward until her spine slammed against the headboard. Her face was burning with the heat of a thousand suns, flushing a vibrant shade of tomato red from her chest all the way up to her hairline.

”Give me that!” Aria screamed, her voice cracking as she lunged forward to grab the iPad.

Damien simply held the tablet out of her reach, lifting it high above his head. He looked at the screen, then down at his wildly blushing wife, a slow, devastatingly wicked smirk spreading across his face.

”I have to say, I’m flattered,” Damien drawled, his golden eyes dancing with pure, unadulterated mischief. ”My wife is reading fanfiction about me.”

”I wasn’t reading it!” Aria lied loudly, desperately wiping the grease off her hands with a napkin. ”It was a pop-up ad! A virus! The Russians hacked my iPad!”

”The Russians hacked your iPad and forced you to read thirty Chapters of The Demon King’s Pet?” Damien asked, scrolling casually up to the top of the page with his thumb. ”They must be very invested in my fictional dungeon.”

”Give it to me, Damien!” Aria whined, covering her burning face with her hands. ”I am going to die of embarrassment. Just kill me now. Put me out of my misery.”

Damien let out a rich, heavy laugh that filled the entire room. It was a beautiful, rare sound.

He tapped the side button, locking the iPad screen and putting it face-down onto the bedside table.

He climbed onto the mattress, completely ignoring the greasy piece of fried chicken sitting on the duvet. He moved toward her, boxing her in against the headboard, his knees bracketing her hips.

Aria peeked through her fingers, looking up at him with wide, mortified emerald eyes.

”Is reading that what you were doing the whole day today?” Damien chuckled softly, reaching out to gently pull her hands away from her face.

”It was market research!” Aria defended weakly, avoiding his gaze. ”I needed to know what the public was saying!”

”Oh?” Damien hummed, his voice dropping into a husky, seductive register. He leaned in, his body pressing lightly against hers, effectively trapping her.

He brought his hand up, his thumb slowly brushing a stray crumb of fried chicken breading from the corner of her lips.

”So,” Damien murmured, his gaze dropping to her mouth. ”Should we order some silk ropes for the penthouse?”

Aria’s breath hitched.

”Maybe” she whispered breathlessly, her hands slowly sliding up to grip the lapels of his dress shirt.

Damien groaned, the playful amusement in his eyes immediately darkening into something raw.

”God, you are going to be the death of me,” he rasped.

He ducked his head and captured her lips, kissing her with a desperate, consuming hunger that tasted faintly of KFC grease.