All Chapters of The Lycan King’s Forgotten Wife: Chapter 1 - Chapter 5

Arden POV"Stand up straight, and try not to look like you walked in off the street," Octavia said, her fingers digging into my shoulder as she steered me toward the ballroom doors."I am standing straight.""Then do it better." She let go and swept past me in a rustle of blue silk, not bothering to look back.The Celestial Crown Hotel glittered under crystal chandeliers, marble floor packed with beaded gowns and tailored suits, waiters weaving through with trays of champagne. I smoothed the sleeves of my plain black dress, bought off a clearance rack, and told myself it didn't matter that I looked like I didn't belong here.This was my first Marcellis family gala, years of being kept in the back rooms while everyone else went out and shone, and then, out of nowhere, a gold-embossed invitation showed up demanding the whole household show up."Is that Darius Marcellis's other daughter?" a woman near the fountain whispered to her friend, not quietly enough."I didn't know he had another

Arden POV"Don't move," I whispered, dropping to my knees on the wet pavement beside him.His eyes snapped open, gold and sharp even in the dark, and I recognized him instantly as the stranger from the platform, the one everyone in that ballroom had been trying to reach all night. His hand shot out and locked around my wrist before I could pull back, his grip iron-tight despite the blood soaking through his shirt."Who sent you?" he growled, blood trickling from his lip."Nobody sent me." I winced against his grip but didn't pull away. "I saw you fall. You're bleeding out."His eyes searched for my face and missed it, sliding just to the left of where I actually knelt, and something about that small failure seemed to frighten him more than the wound itself. "I can't... see you clearly. The poison's blurring everything.""Then stop trying." I pressed my jacket hard against his ribs, and he sucked in a breath through his teeth. "Lie still and let me work."He arched off the ground with

Arden pov "You're late, Arden," Octavia said, not looking up from her tablet as I walked into the sunlit breakfast room. "And you look like a ghost. Sit down before you embarrass the family again."I pulled out a heavy oak chair, my knees trembling so hard I had to grip the table edge to keep my footing. Three weeks had passed since that night in the Black Hollow District. Three weeks of quiet, mounting terror that I tried to push into the back of my mind while I buried myself in my research.I reached for the pitcher of water, but the moment the smell of the toasted dark rye bread hit my nose, my stomach flipped violently. I slammed my glass back down, water sloshing over the rim, and pressed a hand flat against my mouth.Celeste, sitting across from me in a tailored cream suit, paused with her coffee cup halfway to her lips. Her eyes narrowed, tracking the motion of my hand, the paleness of my skin, and the way I leaned back, breathing shallowly through my mouth to block out the mo