Chapter 3 Three

Nymera Lancaster POV:

“Lady Athlea? Are you okay?”

My eyes snapped open, whispers coming in. For a second, I couldn't breathe, my eyes were all rounder, dizzy. The ceiling above me was gilded, painted in arcs of silver and deep midnight blue. This wasn't my apartment.

I say up too fast, my hand instinctively touching my stomach. “My baby.” But nothing was there. My tummy was so flat and I couldn't help but frown.

A bathroom. I was in the bathroom.

How?

I remembered things clearly— I was in my car, driving and then — and then I lost my hands on the…

I staggered to my feet, nearly slipping on the red rug, and I caught myself against the edge of the sink.

The mirror.

I stood frozen as my reflection stared back at me, it was all the same. The same brown eyes, the same dark hair plastered with sweat. But something was off — not wrong, just off. My clothes weren't mine. The silk gown clinging to me wasn't from my closet at all. I have never seen, nor worn it.

Where the fuck was I?

“Lady Athlea,” I heard the voice again but this time, with a knock nearly enough to stop my heart. “Are you well?”

Athlea?

I gripped the sink so hard my knuckles turned pale. My chest rose and fell as I tried to understand what was going on.

That wasn't my name. Athlea wasn't mine. My name was Nymera. That one name I cherish so much.

Before I could speak, the door swung open and a woman rushed inside, alert written all over her face.

She was radiant, tall, her blonde hair braided. Her eyes softened immediately they landed on mine, like I meant a lot to her.

“There you are,” She whispered, rushing forward. I watched as her hand gripped my shoulders like we'd known each other forever. “Breathe. I know it's all much for you. You need to breathe, Athlea. Don't let them see you falter. You know you will end up making him laugh.”

I stiffened, my face covered with confusion as she called the name again. “My name is not…”

“Shh.” Her finger pressed lightly against my lips, her gaze darting toward the door. “Not here. Do you want them to think you're broken already? You can't let them see you're defeated.”

Her words. It was all confusing. I didn't know who was coming to see me defeated.

My heart hammered in my chest. “W. ..where am I?”

She blinked, then sighed as if I'd sled the silliest question in the world. “At court. Where else? Athlea, do not even play one of your silly games at this point. You're expected and everyone's waiting on you!”

Court? My stomach twisted in fear. I was in court? Where exactly was this place? Wasn't I supposed to be dead.

My baby is gone…I ….

Nothing in this room ..this world …looked remotely familiar.

She squeezed my hand, her tone filled with urgency. “You need to steel yourself. You prepared well for today and now you're lagging behind. You either stand against him or surrender while you still can.”

Him? She kept on with the ‘him’ that I do not even know!

“Against who?”

Her expression darkened as she exhaled out. “The Alpha Lawyer.”

And amidst all my plight, I almost laughed. Who gave that kind of name? Alpha? Lawyer? My mind couldn't just string those words together. It didn't make any sense but her deadly serious expression stopped the sound in my throat.

And before I could protest, she was dragging me out of the bathroom. My body moved, but my mind was screaming this wasn't real because it definitely wasn't real. Perhaps this was all a game.

Maybe I had died in that car crash and now I want to be given my judgement.

We got into a big massive hall where dozens of people lined in the corridor, their gazes snapping toward me, then away again, like my presence was not even it. I could see it in their eyes: fear for me.

I stumbled beside the woman, dragging me in, who held me upright with a strength nobody would believe she carried.

Who exactly was she?

A friend to this body? How come we have the same features? Or was this my afterlife?

I had a lot. A lot of questions in my mind.

“Walk tall,” She hissed in my ear. “Don't let them smell your fear.”

Smell?

What was this lady saying?

As we reached a towering set of double doors, two guards pushed them open, and the air shifted.

The hall was decorated with so many branches that I have never seen before. It all didn't look real or was I dreaming? Was all of this a dream?

This is a dream! Nothing real about this, so I am going to continue what I came here for till someone wakes me up from my deep sleep. I really can't wait to tell my best friend, flair, about this.

But on second thought….was the news about me being the side chick a dream too?

As we walked in, a shiver ran down my spine, this wasn't a courtroom. This was an arena dressed up as one.

My legs nearly buckled and I grabbed the wooden stand beside me for support as I stared at the scene below.

The hall didn't look like a normal courtroom. It wasn't divided into sections,with the judge's bench at the front, no jury box, no right and left tables for the prosecution and defense team. Just a king's chair.

A fucking king's chair?

A man — tall, broad-shouldered, with his face streaked in dirt, was chained like a wild animal and his eyes darted between the crowd, panic all over his face and some parents beside him, tears all over their face — something that told me they were the victim.

Perhaps they lost their daughter to him.

This….this didn't look like justice but a spectacle.

A bush came suddenly, silence coursed through the room and then the door opened — I turned my back to see him.

The Alpha Lawyer?

He strode through the doors opposite me, followed by men who carried themselves like they had all the authority to make people beg for their lives. His suit was sharp, tailored to fit his hard body. Black, immaculate, the kind of suit that cost more than I'd ever earned in a year.

But it wasn't about the fabric that froze me and left my mouth open. It was him.

His presence, cold, cutting, washed with authority in every step. His dark hair dripped with, perhaps oil or water and his cold face. Everything was just spilling authority and control.

The crowd bowed their heads and even the chained man flinched.

But,I remained head tall, staring intensely at this man. I couldn't look away.

He moved to the center of the room, in a commanding voice. “The accused,” he said, gesturing with the ease of a man who owned the air itself, “stands guilty of murder. Three witnesses. Blood on his hands. And yet…” he paused, his lips curling… “we know that justice is not about evidence. It is about strength. Power and Order.”

The crowd murmured in agreement.

I scoffed, a frown settling on my face. I see why, I see why he looked all different from all the lawyers I have seen. What the hell was this? Evidence didn't matter?

He was defending a murderer with empty rhetoric, and no one questioned it?

The woman holding my hand whispered beside me, “Athlea, will you just give this up already and not come between Alpha Lawyer? He is not someone to defeat.”

The Alpha Lawyer continued, his words getting into my angry mind. The way he painted the killer not as a man who had taken a life but as a man who “asserted dominance.” Oh really? He twisted cruelty into necessity. Who even does that?

He bent every eye on the chamber to his will, until even the chains on the accused seemed like trophies instead of restraints while the victim seemed powerless.

“Who are the parents?” I asked, but she shook her head in fear.

“Lady Athlea, let's not do this, please.”

I couldn't just breathe. This wasn't justice at all!

“Objection!”

The word tore from my throat before I could stop it, my eyes now looking dead pissed.

Gasps rippled through the chamber and every head turned and my supposed friend clamped around my arm in horror, but it was too late. I had spoken.

The Alpha Lawyer's gaze cut towards me, the smirk fixed on his mouth shut as slow and dangerous, staring at me with nothing but interest.

His voice rolled through the silence, “Objection, Overruled.”

He took a step closer, his eyes locking onto mind with unnerving precision.

“And who,” he asked, every word deliberately slow, “are you to question me in my court?”

Beside me, my supposed friend's fingers dug into my arm. “Athlea,” she hissed, her whisper trembling. “Please, for the Goddess same, don't say another word. This won't come out well.”

But I wasn't having it at all. I had watched enough courtrooms to know injustice when I saw one — and this was the worst kind.

“I'm not wrong,” I whispered back. “He's defending a killer, and no one's saying a damn thing! This can't even go Scot free with his bullshit rules.”

I scoffed, stepping slowly into the crowd, towards him. “Your court? Objection is never Overruled! I'm the Lawyer of the deceased and you will allow me!”