Page 57 of Alpha's Impostor Bride

“What do you want?” I snarl at her.

She has tears in her eyes. “Your Majesty, we helped the queen escape. Is it—Is it true that she’s dead?”

All the fight leaves me.

Dead.

My beautiful Leanna is dead. My shy mate—the one who liked to chase my tail in her wolf form, the one who used to burrow her face in my chest when I held her at night—is no more.

A thick, rolling wave of grief staggers me. “Yes. Leanna is gone.”

“Leanna?”

“That was her name,” I say hollowly.

And I loved her.

How did she do that? How did she go and make me fall for her so effortlessly? I don’t even know where to go and ask her. I don’t know which room to search for her. She’s not going to be there.

It’s hard to breathe. I failed her. I failed her, and that will haunt me forever. She died thinking I had lied to her, used her.

I don’t know which is worse, that she’s gone or that she believed that of me as she died.

“They’re asking for help at the border.”

Edgar gives me his report as I stare at the paper before me, my eyes unseeing. “So, send help. What’re you asking me for?”

Edgar clears his throat, looking tense. “They’re requesting your presence.”

“I’m busy. They can deal with it themselves.”

“The elders are insisting you help them. The monsters are encroaching on their territories.”

“The elders, huh?” I think about the twelve men who claim to be loyal to the royal family. “Tell them to send their sons to the battlefield.”

Edgar flinches. “Cedric—”

“No.” I look at him coolly. “It’s ‘Your Majesty’ to you.”

My childhood friend doesn’t look away from me. He meets my gaze head on. “Don’t question my loyalty, too, Cedric. I faced my father in a physical duel to claim the position of head of the family so that I could side with you during the council meeting two weeks ago. I went against my parents, went to bat for you, to prove my loyalty to you. There’s nothing more I could have done.”

I don’t respond.

“What is that woman doing?”

“Which one?” Edgar asks quietly.

“The queen.”

“She has called a designer. Bella is assisting her.”

“Restrict her budget. I don’t want that frivolous creature emptying the treasury.”

Edgar nods.

“Call Harriet.”

He leaves the room, and a few minutes later, Harriet enters.

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