Alle Kapitel von Karma's Bride: His Until Death: Kapitel 1 – Kapitel 10

“You were never the bride. You were always the fool.”I whisper the words to my reflection in the stained mirror of the venue bathroom. My fingers tremble as I push the cheap plastic post of a fake pearl earring through my left lobe. The metal scrapes raw skin, but I do not flinch. Pain is the only thing keeping me grounded.I touch my stomach absently, my palm pressing against the champagne-colored dress I spent three months of wages to buy. A dress meant for a bride. A dress for the life Lancelot promised me before Kara came back from Europe and took every single piece of my world.The bass from the ballroom vibrates through the cheap tile walls. I smooth down the fake silk, my knuckles white. I came here to beg. I came to strip away the last scrap of my dignity, to crawl on my knees if that is what it takes to stop Lancelot from destroying what little life I have left. I am guilty of loving him, guilty of trying to hold on to a man who turned his back on the mate bond the second a

“Bend over, cough, and don't make a sound unless you want a baton across your spine.”The female guard’s rubber-gloved hand shoves my head down onto the cold, disinfectant-slick metal table. I clench my teeth so hard my jaw pops, holding back the bile rising in my throat as she roughly searches my body, treating me like a carcass on a hook.“The wedding witch finally got what she deserved,” the second guard mutters, tossing my torn champagne dress into a yellow hazmat bin. “She thought she could poison Alpha Lancelot's bride and walk away.”They toss a faded, oversized orange jumpsuit onto the table. It smells like harsh lye and old sweat. As I pull the rough fabric over my bare skin, my mind snaps backward. I remember when Kara used to wash my hair in her marble bathtub, laughing while she braided soft jasmine flowers into my curls. Now, cold hands pry through my hair, searching for hidden razor blades. She used to call me her sister. Now strangers search my private parts while guard

“You look like death, Precious, but you’re still breathing.”The man on the other side of the thick glass doesn’t blink as I am shoved into the visitor chair. He sits still, tall and terrifying, wrapped in a black suit that costs more than my old life. His eyes are razor sharp, dark and ancient, tracking the dried blood on my chin and the pale sway of my neck.“You’re Timothy Theophilus Zuckerberg Perfection,” I whisper, my throat raw and burning. “The lawyer said you bought my sentence.”“I don’t just buy sentences, Miss Vance,” he says, his deep voice sliding through the speaker grate like velvet over steel. “I own the system that built them.”He doesn’t look at me with pity. He looks at me with intense, terrifying recognition. It is everything Lancelot isn’t—he is younger, harder, colder, built like a warlord who rules from the shadows. His presence crushes the air in my lungs, my wolf stirring in my chest, terrified and mesmerized all at once.“You don’t remember me,” Theo continu

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Perfection-Zuckerberg! I swear on my mother’s life I didn’t know who you were when you arrived!”The guard’s uniform is pressed so tight the seams look ready to burst, but his knees are shaking as he lowers a silver tray onto my bedside table. A hot porcelain mug of coffee sloshes over the rim, scalding his fingers. He doesn't even flinch at the heat. He just wipes it frantically with a white cloth, his face pale as chalk.“Where is the female guard from yesterday?” I ask, my voice gravelly as I sit up against the soft pillows. “The one who threw my dress in the bin?”“Transferred, ma'am,” he stammers, dropping his eyes to the floor. “Mr. Perfection had her and three others reassigned at four this morning. To a pack-owned copper mining site in northern Kazakhstan. They’re already on the transport plane.”My hand freezes halfway to the coffee mug. Power doesn't just knock on the doors of this prison; it breaks the locks and rewrite the laws before breakfast. The guards

“Find a rich alpha, Precious, and stop playing with creams in a bowl,” Kara laughed, flopping onto her twin bed in our tiny, cramped apartment three years ago.I kept stirring the hot plate, blending the shea butter and vitamin C formulas for my thesis project, Precious Glow.“I want my own empire, Kara,” I said, wiping a streak of sweat from my forehead. “Not a husband’s allowance.”Kara smiled, but the warmth never reached her cold blue eyes. “You’re so cute when you’re naive.”Two months later, at the regional pack business gala, I wore a thirty-dollar thrift-store dress. I turned a corner near the bar and slammed straight into Lancelot Oscar Peterson, spilling red wine across his silk dress shirt.I apologized profusely, my face burning with embarrassment. Lancelot just laughed, his golden alpha eyes crinkling at the corners. We ended up standing on the patio talking for two straight hours. He asked for my number before I left. I gave it to him, my chest floating on air.When I go