The Alpha King's Defiant Hidden Princess

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icy memory of a needle plunging into my arm. The chemical fire spreading throu

ed with goose down-my bedroom in the Mayer estate. My hands flew to my throat, my chest-alive, warm, breathing. No needle mark on my arm. No restraints. I pressed my palms into

lendar glowed with the date: the second month after

ck. I remembered this feeling: My personal maid, under the orders of Caitlynn Strong - my mother-in

unctuated by suppressed, theatrical sobs. My heart didn't race;

lit my lip. The way they dragged me across the marble floor while I begged. Then the trial, the gleeful witnesses, the gavel that seal

st, his accusations ringing in my ears-You pushed Caitlynn. You killed my and Caitlynn's baby. I remember

My mother-in-law's eyes as she watched me crumble. That memory had haunted my last years

d open, splintering the

a rage that made him ugly. Behind him, his mother, Lady Rowena, her expression a mask of

tracking clean paths down her cheeks. One hand pressed protective

d and hard as a tombstone. "You," she

g the crystal on the vanity. "What did you do to Ca

ched the performance. A flicker of something that might have been a smile

t, her voice a pathetic whimper. "Our baby is gone

family will not tolerate a murderer in our midst! Y

at, so empty. I knew better than anyone tha

haos filling the room. The drug still made my limbs heavy, but my will had been forged in the fire of a second chance. I had died once. I had felt m

k a threatening step toward the bed. "You dare to look

its place was something ancient and cold, a shard of ice from the grave I had just

gh the noise like a razor. "For a pregnancy that

hey all stared, their scripts forgotten. This was

ure panic flashed in her eyes before sh

ed, her voice cracking. "You're j

finger at me. "The evidence is clear! Do you deny you were a

kept my eyes loc

had once feigned. "Before you condemn me, shouldn't you f

on his white-hot rage. He looked down at the woman

, burying her face in his shirt, her shou

st life had taught me that. They would twis

y of my first death, surged throug

e sickly, compliant wife, but Fiona Avery, a princess, daughter of

three of them, my postu

had never heard from me before, "demand the pack doctor be summo