Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 91 - Chapitre 100

Neah's povThe report arrived at noon, and by the time I finished reading it, three of my attendants had already backed toward the door."She's alive," I said.The words came out calm, it was the most dangerous version of me, and everyone in the room knew it. I set the report down on my vanity and smoothed the paper flat with both hands, pressing the creases out slowly, as though the act of straightening a piece of parchment could somehow straighten the fury that was building inside my chest."Not only alive," I continued, "but still under his protection, in his household and breathing the same air, walking the same corridors, sleeping under the same roof as the man who was supposed to be mine."My wolf paced behind my ribs, restless and vicious. I could feel her pressing against my skin, wanting out, wanting to tear something apart with teeth and claws instead of words. I denied her. Wolves who lost control lost everything, and I had not spent nine years at Cedrick's side by being ca

Beatrice's povI stumbled backward from Charles's table and hit something solid.Familiar arms caught me and a scent my wolf recognized immediately, Martin's scent. He stood behind me with his hands on my shoulders, and I could feel his wolf pressing forward against his skin, not gentle this time, not restrained, but hard and hot and ready."Beatrice," he said. "Are you alright?"Before I could answer, Charles was on his feet. He'd hauled himself upright using the table for leverage, his face red and dripping, the water I'd thrown still running down his collar. His good hand gripped the tablecloth so hard the glasses rattled."That woman is my wife!" Charles shouted. His voice cracked through the restaurant, loud enough to stop every conversation in the room. The candlelit space, which had been murmuring with quiet dinners and polite laughter, went dead silent. "She is mine, and I will not be disrespected by a slave who doesn't know her place!"Martin's hands left my shoulders.I felt

Cedrick's povWe were three days into the negotiations, seated across from each other in a private dining room overlooking the harbor, and the conversation had drifted from trade agreements to court gossip. King Frederik was a talker, the kind of man who filled silences because he couldn't stand the sound of his own thoughts, and I had learned to tolerate it because his kingdom controlled shipping routes I needed access to.He was halfway through a story about a territorial dispute in his southern provinces when he paused, refilled his wine, and changed the subject entirely."I heard something interesting about your court," he said. "A woman. Princess, wasn't she? Reduced to slave status after her brother's conviction."I didn't react. I cut my meat and chewed and waited for him to reach whatever point he was circling."Word is she's been sent to Denmark," Frederik continued. "To King Charles, on the west coast as a companion." He smiled. "Or a breeding mare, depending on who's tellin

Beatrice's povI turned my head.Cedrick stood in the doorway at the far end of the corridor. His eyes were gold. Not flickering at the edges, not pressing forward. Fully gold, the wolf and the man fused into a single presence that flooded the corridor with a dominance so crushing that Charles's mother stumbled backward and the servants released my arms and dropped to their knees.Charles froze in his wheelchair. His good hand, which had been reaching for me, hung motionless in the air.Cedrick stood in the doorway, and he looked at me, and he looked at Charles's hand suspended inches from my body, and he looked at the scratches bleeding on my face, and something in his expression went beyond fury into a place that had no name and no bottom and no way back.The room rearranged itself around Cedrick the moment he stepped inside.Charles's mother moved first. She released my arm and backed away from me as though I'd caught fire, her face cycling from fury to fear to a desperate, scramb

Neah's povThe call came at seven in the morning, and by the time I reached my mother's sitting room, she was already standing at the window with the phone pressed to her ear and her face the color of ash."What do you mean she's gone?" I said.Margaret held up a hand to silence me. She listened for another thirty seconds, said something clipped into the phone, and ended the call. When she turned to face me, her composure was intact but barely. I could see the cracks running beneath it, the tight set of her jaw, the slight tremor in her fingers as she set the phone on the desk."Cedrick went to Denmark," she said. "He found her at Charles's estate and took her back."I stared at my mother and waited for the part that made sense, the part where she explained how a king who had told Henry not to bother him with Beatrice's affairs had somehow found out where she was, driven through the night, and crossed the border to pull her from another man's house.That part didn't come. Because ther