The Alpha Prince's Defiant Second Chance Mate

Audra POV:

I gasped for air as my eyes flew open, the red candlelight burning my vision while a dry retch tore from my throat.

A heavy, scorching body pressed me down into the velvet mattress. The thick scent of cedar mixed with blood filled my nose, stealing my breath and making my limbs shake. In our werewolf kingdom, every wolf carried a unique scent that revealed their identity before their face ever could, and this suffocating aura belonged only to a royal predator.

I bent my knee to kick the man off me, but a rough, calloused hand pinned my wrists above my head like an iron clamp.

Sharp pain shot through my bones. I sucked in a cold breath as my blurry vision finally focused on the flushed, vein-bulging face hovering above mine.

It was Crown Prince Casimer Beaumont. The heir to the Silvermoon Kingdom, whom the entire Royal Court whispered was a sickly invalid on the verge of death, was currently pinning me down with terrifying Alpha dominance.

My head buzzed as if struck by lightning. Taking in the red silk drapes and white ceremonial candles around the room felt like having a bucket of ice water poured over me from head to toe. A scene I had lived through before overlapped with this one in a dizzying rush, and my mind snapped into icy clarity. If this was not a dream, then the Moon Goddess had given me a second chance-I had been reborn, back on the night of my Marking Ceremony, the very night that had destroyed my life.

My heart hammered against my ribs as bloody memories flashed through my mind. In my past life, because of tonight, my family, the noble Sinclair Pack, had been stripped of our titles, banished as landless Rogues, and slaughtered in the snow.

And Casimer-the man I had spent years cursing as the monster who defiled me-carrying my broken body out of that burning palace, taking a blade meant for my heart. Only then did I learn the truth: my betrothed, Bret Holland, and the Eldest Prince, Byron Beaumont, had drugged us both, plotting to ruin my honor, exile my family, and seize the Sinclair Pack's power. Casimer had never been my enemy. He had been the only one who tried to save me.

I bit down hard on my lower lip until the metallic taste of blood filled my mouth, forcing back the scream rising in my throat.

Good. Now I could not panic. Since the Moon Goddess had granted me a second chance at life, I would not walk into the same grave again. I would take my revenge on Bret and Byron, avenge my family, and protect Casimer Beaumont.

Turning my eyes past Casimer's broad shoulders, I stared at the closed carved wooden door, my stomach twisting with hatred.

Right outside that door stood my betrothed, Bret Holland, the heir to the Holland Pack. He had knelt before the Alpha King to beg for our Mate Decree, pretending to love me deeply, while secretly keeping a human woman named Grecia Banks in a brothel called The Velvet Den.

Casimer's heavy breath scorched the hollow of my neck, his skin burning with an unnatural fever.

Forcing down my fear, I looked closely at his face. His deep blue eyes had lost all focus, filled only with wild, beastly madness as sweat dripped from his sharp jawline onto my collarbone.

He had been drugged with a brutal heat elixir. It was a double trap set by Bret and the Eldest Prince, Byron Beaumont. They wanted to catch me in bed with the drugged Crown Prince to destroy my honor, control the Sinclair Pack's military power, and strip Casimer of his title all at once.

Soft footsteps padded across the thick carpet outside the corridor, coming closer by the second.

My sharp werewolf hearing caught Bret's lowered voice outside.

"Is everyone in position? Break the door down on my signal."

That familiar, fake voice made my stomach churn violently, and I dug my fingernails deep into my palms.

Stimulated by the voices outside, Casimer let out a low growl from deep in his chest, his movements turning rougher.

His feverish mouth trailed down the column of my throat, each clumsy, burning kiss leaving a wet trail that cooled in the candlelit air and raised goosebumps along my skin.

The loud rip of silk echoed through the quiet room, making my heart leap into my throat.

I twisted my body desperately beneath his weight.

"Casimer! Wake up! This is a trap!"

My voice was swallowed by his ragged breathing. Even as the highborn daughter of the Sinclair Pack Alpha, I could not overpower a top-tier Alpha who had lost his mind to a heat drug.

His large hand gripped the back of my head, forcing my chin up and exposing the fragile pulse of my neck.

I felt the sharp points of his canines graze my skin-and then, through the haze of the drug, something flickered in his eyes. A fractured, desperate resistance, as if some buried part of him was clawing to the surface, fighting the poison in his blood. His lips parted against my throat, and a broken whisper escaped him. "Forgive me... I can't-" His voice cracked, and his grip on my wrists loosened, trembling, as though he was using the last of his strength to hold himself back.

By ancient werewolf law, once a male wolf sank his teeth into a female's neck to leave a permanent mark, an irreversible bond was forged, and a disgraced royal marking here would destroy the Sinclair Pack forever.

The footsteps outside stopped right at the door, and the murmuring voices beyond it gradually fell silent.

With no time left, I stopped struggling. My eyes turned cold as I lifted my chin-not to resist him, but to press my mouth directly against his burning lips, swallowing his broken apology.

Audra POV:

With Casimer's canines grazing my carotid artery, every hair on my body stood on end, yet I forced my tense muscles to go completely limp beneath him.

Instead of pushing his chest away, I arched my neck further into his grip.

His wild movements paused for a fraction of a second at my sudden surrender, a trace of confusion flashing through his unfocused blue eyes.

Seizing that tiny opening, I tilted my head and pressed my mouth harder against his feverish lips.

A low, satisfied growl vibrated in his throat. He immediately took control, prying my teeth apart with his tongue to claim more.

The moment he pushed inside without guard, I snapped my jaws shut with all my strength.

Hot blood burst between our mouths, the thick metallic taste coating my tongue.

Casimer let out a muffled groan and his heavy frame stiffened, the sharp pain finally cutting through the fog of the drug.

He jerked his head back, blood smearing his lips as his dilated pupils shrank, restoring a cold, razor-sharp clarity to his blue eyes.

Yet the pain also triggered an Alpha's furious instinct when provoked. His gaze darkened, and his hand slid from the back of my head straight to my throat.

Closing his fingers like an iron vise around my windpipe, he flexed his arm and lifted me straight off the velvet mattress.

My feet left the bed as my lungs burned for air. Grabbing his thick wrist with both hands, I kicked weakly while my face turned red from lack of oxygen.

He stared down at me, his voice slurred from his bitten tongue but dripping with murderous intent.

"Who sent you?"

I squeezed broken words out of my crushed throat.

"You... were drugged... look... around..."

My words hit him like cold water. Casimer's tight jaw twitched, and his gaze finally swept past my flushed face to take in the room.

Seeing the red marriage silks, the burning white candles, and the heavy pheromone incense hanging in the air, his face turned black as storm clouds.

Then his eyes snapped back to me, and the murderous fury drained from his face in an instant. His hand flew open as though my skin had burned him, and he dropped me onto the mattress, stumbling back a step. His gaze swept over my torn gown and the red marks on my throat, and something raw and stricken flickered through his blue eyes-horror, and beneath it, a shame that looked almost like grief.

"Audra," he breathed, my name cracking in his throat as if it had escaped him against his will. He dragged a shaking hand through his hair and half turned his face away, jaw locked, as though he could not bear to look at what he had done.

I had never seen the Crown Prince like this. In my past life, I had only ever known him as the cold, distant royal whose name was spoken in whispers-the invalid heir who had supposedly defiled me and then, years later, died carrying me out of the flames. I had cursed him for a monster. And yet the man before me now looked more broken by what had happened than I felt.

Casimer POV:

The searing pain in my tongue blurred my vision, yet it ripped me out of the sickening, feverish heat boiling in my veins.

Tasting my own blood, my chest heaved with rage at being set up, driving my hand to crush the neck of the woman beneath me.

Only when she choked out that warning did I realize where I was. This was the Marking Chamber prepared for Bret Holland's wedding ceremony.

I narrowed my eyes and looked back at the girl gasping in my grip. Seeing her pale silver curls and stubborn amber-gold eyes, my heart clenched as if squeezed by an invisible hand.

It was Audra Sinclair. The girl I had secretly guarded in my memories since our five years together at the Western Border-the girl I had loved from the first moment I saw her-was nearly ruined by my own hands tonight.

Cursing inwardly, I opened my fingers and dropped her back onto the mattress. Watching her curl up and cough violently, my fingers twitched with a panic I rarely felt.

I turned my back to her at once and yanked my torn shirt collar closed, hiding the shameful loss of control she had triggered in me.

Footsteps echoed clearly in the quiet hallway outside the door.

Bret Holland's voice drifted through the wood panels.

"It is almost time. Have the men arranged by Prince Byron arrived yet?"

I clenched my fists until my knuckles cracked, my blood running cold.

My half-brother Byron and Bret Holland actually dared to use such filthy tricks on me, dragging Audra into their mud. And I had nearly given them exactly what they wanted-nearly marked her, nearly destroyed her, while lost to that poison.

I turned back around, forcing the cold mask onto my face, though it did not quite fit. My eyes kept snagging on her torn sleeve, on the bruises rising on her wrist, and each time they did, my jaw tightened as though I were biting down on something I could not say. I strode to the edge of the bed and looked down at her, keeping my voice level, though I caught the faint rasp beneath it.

"Can you still walk?"

She wiped her mouth and looked up, her amber eyes showing no fear, only a chilling calm that caught me off guard.

"If you do not want your reputation ruined, Your Highness, do exactly as I say."

Sitting on the messy velvet bed, I rubbed the blood from the corner of my mouth with the back of my hand and scanned the room for an escape route.

Outside the door, Bret suddenly raised his voice, putting on a fake, anxious tone.

"Audra? Are you in there? I heard strange noises inside!"

Heavy fists pounded against the wooden panels right after. He was signaling the nobles and guards gathered by Prince Byron in the hallway to break the door down.

The wood groaned under each blow, the sound slamming through my skull like a war drum, and the air in the room was already turning thick and hot from the candles and the incense, sticking to my skin. I could feel the heat of Casimer's body at my back, the sweat cooling on my own neck, and every second stretched thin as a blade.

I clutched my torn silk collar as my heart raced. If they burst in and saw me half-dressed with the Crown Prince, the Sinclair Pack would be doomed before dawn.

I turned my head sharply toward Casimer.

"The windows are on the south wall, above the second-floor terrace. We have to jump now."

Casimer stood still and let out a cold laugh, a ruthless glint flashing in his blue eyes.

"Just leave? That would be letting them off far too easily."

Reaching to his waist, he drew a long silver sword from its scabbard, the blade gleaming under the candlelight. In our world, silver was the only metal that could burn away a werewolf's healing power and kill an Inner Wolf, so only the royal family monopolized silver mines to forge such deadly weapons.

Thinking he meant to charge into the hallway and slaughter them, I reached out to stop him.

"If you go out there now, you are walking right into their trap! They brought witnesses!"

Casimer paused at my words, the silver blade half raised. His jaw tightened as he weighed them, and then the cold anger in his eyes sharpened into something far more calculating. He gave a slow, almost imperceptible nod-not retreating, but changing his approach.

Instead of walking to the door, he turned back to the bed and swung his silver blade, slicing through the heavy silk bed curtains.

With a loud tear of fabric, the canopy collapsed over the messy sheets.

Striding to the corner stand, he used the tip of his sword to flick several thick burning candles straight onto the wool carpet and fallen silk drapes.

Dry silk caught fire instantly, and bright orange flames shot up like hungry snakes across the floor.

Scorching heat filled the room within seconds as thick black smoke rose toward the ceiling. The fire roared and cracked, drowning out the pounding at the door, and the smoke clawed at my throat until each breath burned. Sweat slid down my spine, and the flames threw wild, leaping shadows across Casimer's face as he moved.

The pounding on the door grew frantic, and Bret's voice cracked with genuine panic.

"What is going on? Why is there smoke coming from under the door? Ram it open!"

A plan snapped into place in my mind. No, Bret Holland had not set this fire-but to bring him down, I needed everyone at the trial to believe he had. While Casimer turned toward the mattress, I darted to the door, tore a strip of silk from the burning drape beside it, smothered the small flame between my palms, and shoved the charred cloth deep into my sleeve.

Casimer sheathed his sword, walked back to the burning mattress, and yanked off the white bedsheet stained with the blood from his bitten tongue.

I did not flinch at the speed or the raw strength in his arms. In my last life, I had learned the truth the hard way-the sickly, dying prince the court whispered about was a mask, and beneath it was a warrior who could move faster than any Alpha I had ever seen. He had carried me out of a burning palace once before.

Stuffing that bloodstained cloth-which looked exactly like the proof of a virgin's first marking-inside his coat, he moved with a swift power that no sickly prince could ever possess.

"Move!"

Barking the order, he stepped to my side and wrapped one strong arm around my waist.

His rough, hot palm pressed tight against my lower back through the thin silk, making my spine stiffen. The heat of his hand seared straight through the fabric, and I could feel the hard beat of his heart against my shoulder, fast and steady all at once.

Before I could steady myself, he lifted me off my feet and charged toward the tall stained-glass window on the south wall.

Lifting his heavy military boot, he kicked the center of the glass pane with brutal force.

The stained glass shattered with a deafening crash, sending colorful shards raining down into the night air.

Cold wind rushed into the room, whipping my hair across my face and fanning the flames into a roaring sea of fire that swallowed the entire Marking Chamber. The sudden chill bit into my bare skin, a sharp contrast to the scorching heat at my back.

Pressing my head against his chest to shield my face from the glass, Casimer leaped out the second-floor window with me in his arms.

My stomach dropped as we fell through the dark air, my fingers tangling tightly in the front of his shirt. The wind screamed past my ears, sharp and cold, and for one endless heartbeat there was nothing but the rush of falling and the iron grip of his arm around me.

Wind howled past my ears while the burning timber crashed behind us.

With a heavy thud, Casimer landed on the grass outside the terrace, his powerful Alpha legs absorbing the drop without even bending a knee.

He released my waist at once and stepped back, putting polite distance between us as if that tight embrace had never happened.

Looking up at the second floor, I watched flames lick the stone window frame while black smoke billowed into the sky.

Through the roar of the fire, I heard the bedroom door finally crash open above us, followed by Bret's furious, frustrated roar when he found nothing but flames.

Watching the blaze light up the night, I curled my lips into a cold smile.