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My world shattered when Julian Thorne repaid my ultimate sacrifice with cold betrayal. For nine agonizing times, I, Elara, a Life Weaver, poured my very essence into saving him from death, only for him to credit his scheming lover, Cassie Dane. After my ninth, desperate act of healing, he heartlessly ripped my family's sacred amulet from my neck, leaving me to die, forgotten. But fate, it seemed, had other plans, and I found myself gasping alive in my remote Ozarks cabin for a second chance. When Julian's deadly illness re-emerged, and his desperate family came knocking, I calmly delivered my firm "No," refusing to become his victim a tenth time. Yet, Julian, now deeply ensnared by Cassie, wouldn't accept my refusal, escalating his malice beyond measure. He married Cassie, then, with savage glee, knowingly drove his ATV through my vital medicinal garden, shattering my rare healing plants. His malevolence reached its horrific peak when he commanded his guards to systematically destroy my hands, the very conduits of my healing power, then pinned my hand to the porch with a hunting knife while Cassie livestreamed my screaming agony. How could the man I sacrificially loved become such a monster, so blind to truth, so twisted by a toxic parasite he called love, that he would try to utterly obliterate my very essence? Just as he raised the knife again to disfigure my face, the very earth rebelled. An ancient chandelier, a symbol of his family's past, crashed from the ceiling directly onto him, a swift and brutal karmic judgment that finally, truly, set me free.