Corinne was never the princess, just her stand-in, sent to marry Alpha Barrett Locke and end a war. 

The crown was fake, the vows were lies, but the mate bond that snapped into place the night he marked her was brutally real.  He knew she wasn’t the real bride. He claimed her anyway. 

When the true princess returned, he locked Corinne away to bury the scandal. She escaped carrying his child.

Six years later, she returns, not as a decoy, but a self-made powerhouse with an empire of her own and a five-year-old son who has Barrett's eyes.  She came for revenge. 

He sees his mate, his heir, and the bond that never died. 

This time, he’ll destroy anything to keep them both.
One deception started the war between them. One child will finish it.

I follow Alice into the living room. "She's on the cusp of her first transformation, Alice."


I see Alice go stiff, and she turns to face me. "What?"


"But that doesn't mean anything." I see the nervous look on her face. "She's six. She won't have her first shift till she hits puberty or something like that."


"Have you discussed it with your healer friend?" I ask. Her silence confirms my initial doubt. I make sure Mira isn't coming before I continue, my tone urgent. "The signs are all there. And her scent will get riper. Once she undergoes her first transformation, she will smell more like a wolf shifter.


She has to go to a shifter school, Alice."


"I can't send her to one of those!" Alice walks over to the counter, resting her palms on the marble surface before looking at me again. "I can't afford to let anyone find out—"


Chapter 186 - Part Of Me