Esther’s POV
The gossip spread faster than wildfire.
By the next morning, every corridor of the palace buzzed with whispers: The healer rejected the Alpha King. The Alpha humiliated his mistress. The Blue Lake Alpha proposed to his lost love.
Every word was a dagger turned in my gut.
By noon, servants stopped meeting my eyes. The healers who used to greet me with nods suddenly found other hallways to take. Even the guards outside my quarters pretended not to hear when I gave them orders.
It was as if Nicholas had stripped away my name with a single cruel sentence, leaving only a hollow version of myself, the woman who used him.
He hadn’t come to see me. Not once.
Good, I told myself. I didn’t want him to.
That night, when I sat by the twins’ beds and listened to Sofia’s soft breath
