All Chapters of bride of vengeance : Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

valeria pov I came to the Lycan Kingdom to kill a king.The cold wind slid past my hair as I landed without a sound inside the palace grounds, my boots meeting stone with barely a whisper. Years of training had taught me how to move like a shadow, how to breathe without being heard, how to make my own heartbeat quiet enough that even I sometimes forgot it was there. Tonight, it refused to be quiet. It pounded with twelve years of waiting, twelve years of nightmares, twelve years of a single promise I'd made to two graves that never got proper headstones.The silver badge hidden beneath my cloak felt heavier tonight than it ever had. It was the same badge I'd seen on the men who murdered my parents — the same crest, the same cold gleam, stitched into the collars of soldiers who had shown my family no mercy. I'd carried that image with me since I was small enough to still believe monsters only existed in stories.Tonight, the Lycan King would finally pay for what his men had done.My n

Valeria pov I don't know where the courage came from, but I spun around instantly, dagger raised, ready to strike whoever had crept up on me without so much as a whisper of warning.It was an old woman.She couldn't hurt me physically — or so I told myself in the half-second it took to look her over. But something about her didn't sit right, something that had nothing to do with age or frailty. She carried an aura strong enough to make grown warriors bow without being asked, silver hair that seemed to move even without wind, silver eyes that held no visible pupil at all, and a stillness that made the very air around her feel thinner, harder to breathe. She stood several feet away in the doorway, and yet her whisper had touched my ear like she'd been standing directly behind me, breath against my skin.That's not possible. Unless she isn't entirely what she seems to be.I'd trained myself never to run from danger, never to let fear show on my face even when it screamed through every n

Alejandro pov Today was the bride selection, and I already knew, with a certainty that settled heavy in my chest, that it would end in disappointment. I had sat through selections before — smaller gatherings, quieter affairs, my council urging me year after year to simply choose someone, anyone, before the kingdom's patience wore thin. Each time I'd found some reason to delay. Tonight, my council had left me no room to delay any further. The hall had been filled since dawn with carriages and nervous mothers and daughters dressed in colors chosen to catch a king's eye, and I had spent the entire morning dreading exactly this moment. The hall was full of young women — some trembling with nerves, others angling every curve toward me like it might somehow change my mind about a bond I had no control over. A few caught my eye deliberately, holding my gaze a beat too long, clearly coached by mothers standing just behind them. None of them stirred anything in me, not even the fain

Valeria's POVThe arrow flew before I'd even fully processed what I was seeing.Years of training took over completely, faster than thought, faster than fear. I shoved Alejandro sideways with every ounce of strength I had, my shoulder colliding hard into his chest as we both stumbled off balance. The arrow that should have buried itself in his heart instead whistled past us, close enough that I felt the wind of it against my cheek, and struck the marble fountain behind us with a sharp crack that sent chips of stone scattering across the grass.For one suspended second, neither of us moved.Then chaos erupted.Guards flooded the garden from every direction, drawn by the sound of the impact, shouting orders I could barely follow over the ringing in my own ears. Someone yelled for the shooter to be found. Someone else was already sprinting toward the hedges where I'd seen the glint of metal, though I suspected whoever had fired was already long gone, melted back into the darkness the way

Valeria's POV I waited until the palace had settled into its deepest hours of quiet before slipping from my room, my bare feet silent against the cold stone floors. Sleep had refused me entirely after the attack in the garden, my mind circling the same unanswered questions over and over until I could no longer lie still beneath the covers pretending rest was possible. The failed assassination had left me with more questions than answers, and I could no longer ignore the growing certainty that something far larger than a simple plot against the king was unfolding around me. If someone wants Alejandro dead badly enough to send an assassin into his own gardens, and someone else wants me gone before the next full moon those two things might not be separate at all. I moved through the darkened halls with practiced care, keeping to the shadows between torch brackets, my senses stretched wide for any sign of a patrol. The palace at night felt different from the palace by day quieter, heavi