A Crown This Cold And Heavy Audiobook Novels & Stories

Her crown fell to the marble floor with a clear clang, there seems also to be a clanging sound of someone's sword falling to the ground outside the palace gates. The deep red gem on the crown shattered and scattered. Warm blood down the steps on the cold ground, slowly spreading, reminiscent of the shallow creek she used to play in barefoot as a child. This golden hall of Avalon became her grave, swallowing her bones, burying her life. Outside, the sun shone on the snow, melting it bit by bit…

CHAPTER 10 Three Heartbeats One Crown The mist tightened—a living noose around the turnout. Headlights dimmed. Engines died. Even the crickets went silent. The drowned king rose higher. Water streamed off stone shoulders in sheets. Chains clanked like funeral bells. His crown—three rusted points—tilted toward me. Remy’s growl vibrated through the asphalt. He was full shift now: no half-coyote compromise. Shoulder height to my chest, nearly the size of a horse, silver-black fur rippling like liquid metal.

The crown pulsed in his hands, dark light bleeding from the thorns. He brought it to me. "This will hurt too," he said. "I know." He pressed the crown against the wound on my arm. The darkness exploded. Not outward—inward. The poison in my blood surged toward the crown, drawn to it like water to a drain, like a wolf to its pack. The black lines on my skin writhed, retreated, pulling back from my neck, my face, my chest. The numbness in my heart began to fade, warmth spreading through my veins like the first breath of spring. I gasped, my back arching, and the gold beneath my skin blazed one last time—bright, brilliant, alive.

The Crown of Ice and Light The frost rose around me. Not to consume, but to embrace. The throne pulsed beneath my hands, and I felt it all rage, mercy, sorrow, wisdom. The crown that formed was not hollow. Not flame. But a single band of light and ice, wrapped with the seven sigils of the old gates. It did not weigh on my head. It settled like truth. I felt the Hollow pulse within me. I felt the Gate open wider—not to darkness, but to possibility.

With a shaky breath, she stepped forward, the weight of the crown heavy in her hands. "I choose," she whispered. The words were a vow. A promise. A curse. As the crown touched her brow, something within her shifted , a spark, a pulse of power that was both foreign and familiar. The moment the cold metal made contact with her skin, the pain was immediate. A searing heat shot through her, like fire in her veins, burning her from the inside out. She gasped, stumbling back, clutching at the crown as if it might rip her apart.

I whisper, the words tasting wrong in my mouth. Blake swallows. “No.” I look down at my hands. They look the same. They feel the same, at least physically. But when I flex my fingers, there’s a faint delay—a moment where sensation lags behind intention. “I am the seal.” The Crown hums. Agreement. Ethan’s growl rumbles low, barely restrained. “Then we find another way.” I want to believe him. Gods, I do. But the knowledge is already settling into my bones. The Crown doesn’t care about comfort. Or identity. Or love. It cares about survival, and it has decided that I am an acceptable price.

And I, Aurora Vance, daughter of the Alpha Prime and heir to the throne of the North, had never been more certain of anything in my life. Some wolves spend their whole lives chasing someone who will never see them. I stopped chasing. And I found everything I had been looking for. THE END

Althea fought her way back to Argos for Lysandros and helped him reclaim the throne, only to find herself trapped in the enemy kingdom of Thrace, wearing a slave's collar for three full years. Through three years of mortal danger, being dragged behind chariots, and bone-chilling winters, Althea survived on a single conviction: her betrothed, Lysandros, would come to rescue her. But when she finally set foot in the royal city again, what awaited her was not an embrace. It was a heavy golden laurel crown pressed against her brow, the Sacred Flame seal clutched in another woman's hand, and a royal heir growing in that woman's womb. She clung to one last hope: perhaps they had cast her aside onl

The city lay cradled between stone cliffs and frozen pines, cloaked in mist and moonlight a neutral ground carved from old treaties and older blood. Even here, I could feel the tension in the air. Wolf-shifters moved through the streets in wary silence. Some bore the white tattoos of the Highland Clans, others the storm-gray brands of the South. They nodded as I passed, respectful, but wary. I was Frostfang, northern royalty and a healer in a world that only valued warriors. My wolf stirred beneath my skin. Something is wrong, Nemphis whispered. I didn’t answer. I couldn’t afford to listen to instincts, not here, not now. I looked up and admired the Hall.

I copied her and lowered my voice for my second reply She gasped and covered her mouth, "You totally have a secret admirer," she gushed, "Someone who could afford to buy you real diamonds..." she trailed off in thought before her eyes widened, "Oh My God, one of the Crown brothers has a crush on you!" she squealed "Maybe even all of them, if that one rumour is true," she wiggled her eyebrows at me I rolled my eyes, "Don't we have somewhere to be?" I asked her