Page 68 of Alpha's Impostor Bride

Erik stares at him silently, and I flinch inwardly.

Even now, he’s going to try to sabotage me? Erik knows what happened, or at least part of it. If Cedric really decides to—

“She’s my fated mate!” Cedric snarls.

I go still. That wasn’t what I expected.

“Your fated mate?” Erik sneers back at him. “But you’re mated to Princess Vivian from the Eastern Wolf Kingdom. Do you really expect me to believe that you are mated to another woman and have a fated mate? You do know that once you give a female your mating mark, your bond with your fated mate disappears. You have no claim to this woman.”

Cedric glowers at him. “Vivian does not bear my mating mark!”

Erik scoffs. “So what? You refused to mark your queen, and now Leanna should serve as your mistress? Is that what you’re trying to imply?”

Erik’s absurd conclusion has my head whipping around so I can gape at him. Cedric didn’t say anything remotely like that!

However, the king of the Human Wolf Kingdom has his eyes on the Northern king. He doesn’t even glance in my direction.

“That’s not what I meant,” Cedric snarls. “When did this happen? When did you and Leanna—” He can’t seem to form the words, apparently too enraged by the idea.

Erik smirks. “Around eight years ago. I found her on the palace grounds, badly injured. She and I are old acquaintances, you know.”

Cedric struggles to speak, and when he looks at me, I see a strange emotion in his eyes. A look of betrayal.

I tear my gaze away. It hurts to look at him. But how dare he act like I’ve done something horrible when he was the one who betrayed me?!

“You had a child together?” Cedric asks, his voice heavy and filled with something that has my wolf lurching inside my mind.

“Yes, we did.” Erik puts his arm around my waist.

“So, you’re his mate?” Cedric looks at me. Why does he looks so anguished, like I have done him a terrible wrong?

I finally summon the strength to speak. “Did you expect me to come back to you? So you could finish me off?”

He flinches. “No. No, I would never have—Leanna, I never ordered your execution.”

My chest tightens, and I want to cover my ears. I don’t want to hear about the past from him. I don’t want to be faced with those memories. The last time I saw Cedric and talked to him was in his office when I gave him the small snack I had made for him. I still remember how I felt, the tight, pained sensation in my chest at his words to Bella about how I was just a tool.

A tool that missed him every night waiting for him to come home.

A tool that was meant to be discarded when he finally got the real thing.

A tool that believed in him till the bitter end.

I was so foolish back then, so desperate to survive, that I had clung to the idea of him, to the hope that he might care for me.

My body feels cold as I’m sent spiraling into the past.

Even in my wolf form, I wasn’t strong enough to fight the monsters that circled me in the Misty Forest. So, I ran. Injured, bleeding, I crawled to the edge of the Veil, a shimmering tower of light. I could hear the monsters gaining on me, and I had no reason to live—except for the possibility of the existence of a baby inside me.

I just wanted a chance. One more chance at life, with my child.

“Erik”—I hold out my hands—“give Finn to me. I’m going to go wait inside.”

“No!” Cedric snaps. “I’m not done talking to you.”

“Enough!” Erik looks really angry now. “You’re crossing a line, King Raine. Go inside, Leanna. I’ll meet you there.”

“Leanna!” Cedric roars my name as I take Finn and begin walking away. Each step is heavy on the ground, and my heart is beating wildly. My mind is a tangled mess, but the weight of the quiet son in my arms is all I need to keep going.

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