All Chapters of QUEENS DO NOT BEG FOR THRONES : Chapter 1 - Chapter 8

Elouera's POV I stood in front of the floor to ceiling mirror in my private bedchamber, the heavy velvet drapes pulled tightly shut against the morning sun. My fingers, trembling slightly from the lingering chill of the night, grasped the end of the binding cloth. I took a sharp breath expanding my lungs as much as I dared and pulled the fabric tight across my chest.Pain bloomed immediately, a dull, familiar ache settling deep in my ribs. I secured the pins, making sure the linen flattened every curve, erasing the woman I was born to be and leaving behind the hollow silhouette of Prince Elian.Through the narrow slit in the drapes, the city of New Avalon mocked me. The Sovereign Empire’s capital was a glittering monster of towering glass and polished steel, stretching out over a sapphire harbor that caught the early morning light. From up here in the Blue Mountain Estates, the world looked perfect. Untouchable. But inside these stone walls, power was measured in blood and deception.

Elouera's POV The Imperial War Room was designed to make you feel utterly insignificant.Carved from the hollowed core of the Blue Mountain Estates, the circular chamber boasted walls of raw, jagged obsidian and a massive central table made of polished iron. But it wasn't the architecture that was suffocating me today. It was the scent.Three dozen of the Sovereign Empire’s highest ranking generals and warlords were crammed into the room. They were all Alphas. The air was thick, choked with the heavy, aggressive pheromones of men trying to silently dominate one another. Bitter coffee, burning tobacco, crushed iron, and the sharp tang of sweat pressed against my skin like a physical weight.I stood in the darkest corner of the room, as far from the iron table as the guards would allow.Every breath I took was a quiet, agonizing battle. Callan’s practice sword had definitely fractured at least one rib on my left side during our morning session in the arena. To keep my chest perfectly f

Elouera's POVI broke away from Stirling so violently my boots skidded on the damp flagstones. I didn’t look back. I couldn’t. The phantom burn of his thumb against my racing pulse pounded in my veins, warring with the sheer, suffocating terror of my slipping mask.I just needed my quarters. I needed the dark, a basin of cold water, and another dose of the suppressant.But I didn’t make it to my sanctuary. At the intersection of the west wing, two Imperial Guards wearing the Empress's personal crest of silver and obsidian stepped out of the shadows, blocking the corridor."The Empress requires your presence," the larger one grunted. It wasn't a request.My stomach plummeted, a cold stone dropping into a bottomless well. Every breath I drew scraped agonizingly against my fractured rib, but I forced my chin down, rounded my shoulders into their familiar, pathetic slump, and followed them.Entering the Empress's private solar was like stepping into the heart of a glacier. The air was kep

Elouera I didn't scream.As the liquid fire of the tainted pill tore through my veins, shredding the last remnants of my Beta disguise, I didn't give Archduke Holden the satisfaction of my terror.He sat there in his wheelchair, wearing the face of the only father I had ever known, watching me burn with a cold, clinical detachment. He wanted to use my forced Omega heat as a weapon. He wanted the guards to find me, wild and biologically shattered, so my mother’s empire would crumble under the scandal.But Holden had made one critical mistake.For eight years, I had played the coward. I had perfected the art of flinching, of stammering, of looking at the floor. He believed the act just as much as my mother did.My hand shot out, grabbing the heavy iron fireplace poker resting by the hearth. I didn't swing it at him. I swung it in a brutal, two handed arc directly into the roaring fire.Sparks and burning embers exploded outward in a blinding, hissing cloud of ash and smoke. Holden thre