Reborn to Flee My Fiance's Obsession (Fiona and Soren) novel Chapter 280

Neglected 280 Summary

Fiona feels a sudden, intense suspicion as she tends to the wounded Soren, who warns her to leave immediately despite his severe injuries. He insists that others are coming for him and that her presence would only hinder his escape. Torn between concern and caution, Fiona reluctantly obeys and departs in a carriage, leaving Soren to collapse alone in the cold shrine, knowing that anyone sent to save him has likely already been killed.

As Fiona rides away, she notices an embroidered pouch on the seat opposite her—a pouch she had sewn for Naomi years ago and had seen Soren wear before. This discovery reveals to her that the stranger she once saved in a past life was actually Soren himself. The realization brings a flood of memories, including how she had cared for him through the night and how he had promised to repay her kindness.

Fiona recalls how, months later, the Zonfrillo family arranged her marriage to Soren to protect her from the persistent advances of Prince Zephyr. Though Soren showed little affection and the union held no obvious political advantage, Fiona now understands it was a debt he was repaying for her past help. The marriage served as a shield, keeping her safe from Zephyr’s dangerous intentions, which had previously led to grim fates for other women.

Despite the protection, Fiona had often wondered about Soren’s feelings for her, but now she sees that love may not have been the point. Instead, their bond was forged in survival and obligation. She reflects on the heavy cost of that protection and the harsh realities she avoided by being Soren’s promised bride.

Back at the shrine, Soren lies dying, confronted by his killer. Even in his final moments, he remains composed, silently accepting his fate. His last thoughts drift to Fiona, remembering her desperate whisper of “Hubby” during a past moment of vulnerability—a memory that now fills him with regret.

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280 Hidden Sanctuary

Fiona’s pulse leapt, a startling suspicion blooming in the quiet chamber of her heart.

Soren’s voice dropped to a weary whisper. “Go back now, miss.” The words were gentle yet final, like a door closing against the

night.

“I can tell your injuries run deep,” Fiona murmured, her brows knitting despite herself. “Someone needs to stay by your side for at least two days, just to make sure you survive the night.”

“I have people coming for me any minute,” Soren replied, voice hoarse yet steady. “If you remain, you will only slow me down.”

Fiona hesitated, a faint rift opening between the memories of her last life and the moment unfolding before her eyes. Although she could not gauge how badly he truly hurt, uncertainty tightened inside her chest. Yet he still stood upright, shoulders rigid but unshaken; so she swallowed the rest of her concern, turned away, and climbed into the waiting carriage.

Soren kept his gaze on the receding carriag

e until its wheels dissolved into dusk–stained dust. Only when she was gone did his borrowed strength give way. He crawled through the splintered doors of the Custodian Shrine and fell onto the cold flagstones.

In the life that had come before, Fiona had been nothing but a stranger–one more merciful hand amid a city of wolves. Survival had made him accept her help without a second thought. This time, he would not drag her into the palace intrigue. Emperor Aldric had signed his death warrant; anyone who saved him would be condemned as an accomplice.

His breathing quickened, raw air scraping his lungs like sandpaper.

Footsteps parted the dusty silence; a lone figure crossed the threshold, sword glinting in the faint light. In that instant, Soren understood–every ally sent to fetch him was already dead. The reaper had arrived in their place.

His right hand closed around the hilt of his own blade, knuckles paling but grip unshakable.

With his left hand, he groped for the embroidered pouch that had once rested against his heart, but found only the emptiness of torn cloth.

The carriage rattled over uneven cobbles when Fiona’s gaze fell upon a lone embroidered pouch resting on the velvet seat opposite her.

It could only have slipped from the wounded man’s sleeve in his hurried retreat.

She stared, frozen. So it’s true. I’ve always suspected as much, and still, I never truly believed.

The pouch was the very one she had sewn for Naomi years ago–a crescent moon of teal silk, its stitches memorized by her fingertips. When Soren left Jexburgh, he had worn it at his waist.

Only now did she realize that the stranger she had rescued in her past life had been Soren himself.

Fiona had never imagined such a twist of fate. Of all people to drag from death’s edge, how could it have been Soren?

Yet, with the pouch in her palm, every unanswered question slid into place like tiles in a mosaic.

She had cleaned his wounds that night, wrapping bandages until dawn. As she worked, he had whispered, voice as cold as river ice, “I will repay you.”

Months later, Zephyr began circling her like a hawk over a rabbit, pressing for marriage. Meryl had gone to the Zonfrillo Estate,

FEAR

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pleaded her daughter’s case, and returned with an agreement: Fiona would marry Soren, and the prince’s advances would be checked.

Any other suitor might not have deterred Zephyr; when he desired a woman, he found a way. But the Zonfrillo family, blazing in the zenith of its power, forced him to retreat—for a time.

Fiona had often puzzled over it: Soren showed her little affection, and the Niven name carried no strategic value for him, so why had he accepted the match?

Now the answer gleamed before her–it had all begun with that silent debt.

The Zonfrillos had no obligation to shield her simply because she caught a prince’s eye. Yet as Soren’s promised bride, she could be guarded openly, reasonably, and she, hopelessly smitten, had wanted nothing more.

After the wedding, she scarcely attended banquets where Zephyr might appear; those invitations seemed to vanish before reaching her hands, a quiet courtesy orchestrated by Soren.

Even so, the realization left her slightly light–headed, like waking to find the room spinning a fraction off its axis.

All the while I fretted over whether he loved me or not… Ha. What did it matter? Perhaps I was only indulging in a sickness of my own making.

She had once assumed Zephyr’s restraint stemmed from her engagement; now she saw the truth. The match had been engineered solely to steer her clear of him, not because the Zonfrillo family had coveted a daughter–in–law from the Niven family.

A sudden queasiness rippled through Fiona, followed by a hollow bewilderment that left her clutching at air, as though the ground beneath the carriage had been yanked away.

Soren had called their marriage a debt repaid, yet to Fiona, it now felt as if he had offered up his own heart to rescue hers. Without his timely proposal, she would, in truth, have been claimed as Zephyr’s concubine.

And from the grim fates of Zephyr’s earlier concubines, she knew one thing: a woman who failed to profit him was discarded–or executed–sooner or later. The thought made her throat tighten.

“Ms. Fiona, I have only one question–if the day comes when I die, will you keep the Zonfrillo family safe in my stead?”

He had asked her that question before the engagement was decided. The sun sat behind him, sketching his outline in pale fire and lending his voice an almost otherworldly calm.

Fiona had answered with a single, solemn nod.

He had smiled–just faintly. Though afterward they seldom touched, every subsequent step of the engagement was carried out by his own weary hands.

Fiona lifted the carriage curtain and glanced back at the rutted road. Twin wheel tracks scored the dust like dark ink strokes–stark, straight, and accusing.

Back at the Custodian Shrine, Soren lay sprawled across the cracked stone floor, strength gone.

Blood threaded from his ribs in trembling rivulets, creeping until the scarlet reached the boots of the man who towered above him,

“I never imagined the mighty Lord Soren would die by my hand,” the man murmured, lips curving into a thin smile.

Soren met the man’s gaze, then closed his own eyes, offering no reply.

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Even with death crouching over him, his composure remained unbroken.

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