Chapter1
Three years ago, I was the Princess of the Wolf Clan. To secure his throne, I tore out half of my beast core with my bare hands and willingly offered myself as a hostage to the enemy camp for a three-year truce.
In the Lion Clan’s hound-breaking camp, I fought wild dogs for scraps and slept beside them in cages. Three years of relentless torture and conditioning almost completely washed away every trace of my wolf nature. Whenever I heard a guard striking a metal basin, my body involuntarily dropped to the ground, and I whimpered like a dog. Whenever agonizing cramps tore through my stomach, my only relief was pawing away the dirt like a senseless beast to gnaw on raw grass roots. I believed that as long as I endured, I was at least buying peace for the Wolf Clan.
But today, when I was finally brought back to the royal city, my mate the supreme Wolf King, Kaelen coldly informed me that there was no Lion Clan army at our borders. The news of a war between our two clans was entirely fake. Those so-called lion clansmen were nothing more than actors he hired, and the hound-breaking camp was built specifically for me. He had tricked me into living as a dog simply because my sister, Elara, cried that I had accidentally killed her pet hound. He told me to bow my head and apologize, saying the position of Wolf Queen still belonged to me.
Looking into his arrogant, patronizing eyes, clarity suddenly hit me. A heart made of ice could never be warmed. I didn’t want it anymore.
"I was pinned down in the mud by those disgusting male lions and brutalized. I fought wild dogs for food. I was branded like livestock." I stared at Kaelen, who sat leisurely upon his throne. "Kaelen, I don't want you anymore. Go find someone else to be your Wolf Queen."
A flicker of shock crossed Kaelen's eyes. He clearly hadn't expected the woman who had once carved out half her beast core for him to utter those exact words.
"Are you done with this lunacy?" He let out a cold laugh, taking long strides down the steps. "You’d actually invent such shameless, filthy lies just to avoid apologizing to Elara?"
"I'm not lying. If you don't believe me, forget it."
He stopped directly in front of me, glaring down from his towering height.
"Elara already made arrangements for your stint in the training camp. It was just a strict facility who would dare force themselves on you? So what if the training was a bit rough? You weren't served prime meat every day, and now you want to drag Elara's name through the mud, claiming she set you up?"
I lifted my gaze to look at him.
Looking at his self-righteous face, I suddenly let out a miserable, broken laugh.
On my very first day at the hound-breaking camp, they ground down my fangs, clipped my claws, and tightly bound my tail. After being force-fed rotting meat for seven straight days, my stomach was completely destroyed. From then on, I could only follow the pack, surviving on moldy beast bones and grass roots. For three years, he sat comfortably on his throne. During all that time, he didn't even check on me once.
"What, nothing to say? Feeling guilty?" Seeing my silence, Kaelen's tone grew increasingly impatient. He reached out and grabbed my shoulder. "Stand up and act like a Wolf Princess!"
The second his fingertips brushed my collar.
My body reacted faster than my mind. I dropped to all fours, uncontrollable canine barking spilling from my throat. Desperately, I rubbed my face against his dusty shoes, my tongue instinctively darting out to lick the tips of his boots in a pathetic display of submission.
Kaelen jerked his foot back. He stared down at me as I groveled like a beaten mutt at his boots, his face darkening dramatically.
"What kind of deranged game are you playing?" He yanked my collar fiercely, attempting to haul me off the ground. "To force me to compromise, you'd stoop so low as to act like a cheap dog? Where is your wolf pride?"
Right then, a violent spasm of agony exploded in my gut.
I broke free from his grip and scrambled on all fours, frantically crawling toward the courtyard just outside the great hall.
A jagged, purplish-black root protruded from the soil. It was Bonesbane weed.
I clawed madly at the filthy dirt, ripped out the root, and shoved it straight into my mouth.
"Are you out of your fucking mind? That’s poisonous!" Kaelen charged after me, seizing my wrist in a vice grip. "Spit it out!"
I bared my teeth at him like a feral dog guarding its scrap of food. As he reached out to pry my jaws open, I clamped down hard on the webbing of his hand.
Hissing in pain, he fiercely shook me off. I was slammed hard into the mud, the bitter root still clutched firmly between my teeth.
The agonizing cramps were slowly dulled by the numbing effects of the toxin. I curled into a ball at the edge of the flowerbed, panting heavily.
Cradling his injured hand, Kaelen stared down at me. Blood seeped from the deep teeth marks, but the look in his eyes held no pain only pure, unadulterated disgust.
"Anya," he said, his voice plunging to sub-zero temperatures. "You are a woman destined to become Queen. And look at you now. Sprawled in the mud, gnawing on roots like a cheap, feral dog. Do you honestly think putting on this sickening display will make me feel sorry for you?"
I gave no answer. He was the one who threw me into the kennels, forcing me to survive on rotting meat and poisonous weeds for three years. And now he stood before me, demanding to know why I acted like a cheap, feral dog.
"If you still refuse to apologize to Elara by tomorrow morning," he spun around, turning his back to me, "I won't hesitate to throw you right back into those kennels for another three years."
His footsteps gradually faded away.
I tilted my head back against the dirt, swallowing the last muddy, bitter mouthful of leaves.
Was it poisonous? For the past thousand days, this had been the only ration I relied on just to stay alive.
