Hunted by assassins? The regent blocks every blade. Swallowed by a tiger? I tame the beast and turn it into a pet. Want to survive? I make the ice-cold regent beg me to stay with his own lips.
Surrounded by elite warriors and bolts of silk in his sprawling courtyard, I was moved to tears. "Your Highness," I said, "you've been so good to me. Tell me your heart's desire-and I'll make it happen."
The man lowered his gaze, his voice deep and low. "I want an heir."
***
Ah...... I'm dead!
Darkness swallowed me whole.
When consciousness returned, it was to a cold that felt like it was inside my bones. I was lying on something hard, unyielding. My body was a statue, completely frozen. I couldn't move a muscle.
I tried to open my eyes. My lids felt like they were sealed with lead. All I could perceive was a dim, blurry blackness.
Then the memories came.
Not my memories.
They poured into me, foreign and overwhelming, carrying a life that wasn't mine. A girl named Danette Espinoza was Twenty years old. She Diagnosed as "wolfless," a disgrace to her family and her Pack.
Seraphina Valerius-the Alpha King's favored consort, pressing a cup into Danette's hands. "Drink, dear. It's medicine."
Danette was the Alpha King's daughter. His only child by his first wife, Helena. But after her mother fell from favor, Seraphina had taken charge of her care.
Flashes of a sweet, cloying broth, forced down her throat day after day. The weakness that followed, a slow decay from within. The woman who called herself Danette's caretaker had been systematically poisoning her.
The final memory was the worst. A gut-wrenching pain. The taste of copper as she coughed up blood. Her vision fading to black as she collapsed.
I understood.
The knowledge hit me like a physical blow, and for a heartbeat I teetered on the edge of panic. I had died, a modern woman with the same name as this girl. And I had woken up in the body of a princess who had just been murdered.
What the hell? The thought, my own, screamed through the foreign memories. I was just trying to make a deadline. I ran one stupid red light.Then I got into a car accident.
The scent of mildew and bitter herbs crept into my nostrils. My senses were slowly coming back online.
A voice, cold and old, drifted from outside a door. "I've confirmed it, Matron Gable. Not a breath in her."
Another voice chimed in, dripping with satisfaction. "Finally. The family's shame is over."
Matron Gable's voice cut through the air again, sharp and final. "Follow protocol. Alert the cleaning crew. Dispose of it before sunset. I don't want the filth stinking up this place overnight."
My heart-if this body still had a functioning one-seized in my chest.
They were going to throw me out like trash.
A primal need to survive, raw and overwhelming, surged through me. I had to take control of this vessel. Now.
I heard footsteps retreating down a hallway. I didn't have much time.
I focused all my mental energy, every ounce of my will, on my right hand. Move.
Just a finger. Move.
My pinky finger twitched. A spasm. It sent a searing pain, like a tearing nerve, all the way up my arm.
But it worked.
A flicker of hope ignited in the cold darkness of my mind. I kept trying, pushing against the rigid paralysis.
Then I heard it. A soft, suppressed sob from a corner of the room.
The new memories supplied a name. Helena Acosta. The original Danette's mother. Locked away in this hovel, her mind broken.
A wave of something-pity, a daughter's concern-mixed with my own desperation. It gave me a jolt of strength.
I tried to pull air into my lungs. My chest seized, refusing to expand. Panic flared. I forced myself to focus, to try again. This time I fought for a breath.
My lungs screamed as icy air flooded them, a feeling of being burned from the inside out.
But I did it. I was breathing.
I forced my eyes to move, to focus. The room swam into view. It was dilapidated, dark. A single sliver of light pierced through a crack in a boarded-up window.
In the corner, a thin woman was curled into a ball, hugging her knees. Motionless, like a statue carved from grief, except for her thin fingers plucking at a frayed thread on her sleeve-a tiny, repetitive motion that spoke of a mind lost in its own world. My mother. Helena.
I wanted to call out for help, but I knew. A woman who had lost her mind couldn't save me.
I had to save myself.
More footsteps approached the door. Heavier this time. The cleaning crew.
The door creaked open.
In that split second, with a surge of adrenaline that felt like lightning, I poured every last bit of my will into one, single action.
I sat up.
The two men who entered the room froze. Their faces, rough and uncaring a moment before, twisted into masks of pure terror. One of them let out a choked scream. The other simply stared, his jaw hanging open, a dirty burlap sack dropping from his nerveless fingers.
They saw a dead girl, eyes wide open, sitting bolt upright on her own deathbed.