The Rejected True Heiress (Liora and Callum) novel Chapter 326

Bianca’s POV

I never thought I would admit this, but I was beginning to grow… desperate.

“She is the princess.” My aunt’s text glared up at me from the screen, placing my shame on full display. “Liora is the female Alpha.”

When I first found out, I didn’t want to believe it. My mind went over a million different possibilities; I told myself that it was just a mistake. That Liora was probably scheming in some way, that perhaps she was some kind of servant at the palace and wasn’t really the princess.

There was even a point when I tried to convince myself that I had completely imagined everything I had seen. That I was losing my mind, and that night I had seen Liora effortlessly open the gates of the palace hadn’t ever happened.

Somehow, the idea that my mind might be fracturing and conjuring up these scenarios seemed easier than the truth.

But no matter how much I ran from it, nothing could change it. It became more real each day.

Liora was the princess.

All this time, the girl I had been impersonating had been here. Watching me.

It was strange, though, that she hadn’t revealed herself sooner. Was she biding her time? Planning something? Laughing at me quietly, waiting for me to slip up so she could swoop in and take all the glory? Or was it another reason entirely?

Whatever it was, there was no time to find out. The new semester had started, and now we were all together again, and there was no knowing when my charade might be up.

I needed to act quickly.

Callum needed to be mine, in the more irreversible of ways, before Liora exposed her real identity.

My dorm was quiet, the sounds of students in the hallways muffled by the locked door. Everyone was settling in for the new semester, excited to see their friends and talk about their holidays.

I sat cross-legged on my bed, mulling over the holiday break in my mind.

Callum had been more distant from me than usual, which was saying something, because he was typically not very emotional with me. He avoided me at all costs; I wound up spending more time with his parents than with him.

It was only a matter of time before I lost him, too.

With shaking fingers, I picked up my phone and dialed the only number I could think of: my mother.

She picked up on the third ring.

“Bianca? Is something the matter, darling?”

“It’s Liora,” I said.

My mother didn’t answer right away.

“She’s the female Alpha.” My voice came out quiet, hardly more than a squeak.

I could hear my mother’s sharp intake of breath. “How do you know?”

I told her everything. She listened the entire time, and when I was finished, she was completely silent for a long moment. Finally, she said sharply, “Well, you’re going to do something about this, aren’t you? Aren’t you, Bianca?”

My spine straightened on instinct at the command in my mother’s tone. Usually, it was the other way around; my mother was often the weak one in our relationship, my punching bag, so to speak.

But we both knew what our relationship really was. My cruelty toward my mother was all just a tactic to make myself feel bigger, more important.

Deep down, my mother was the mastermind behind everything.

And if I failed in this…

“I don’t know what to do,” I admitted.

I could hear her click her tongue on the other side of the phone. “You’re a smart girl, Bianca. At least, I thought you were.”

“But she’s the female Alpha.”

“So? She’s wolfless, isn’t she?”

My chest constricted at my mother’s implication.

“You’re saying…”

“Either a real one or a fake one, yes. Whatever works.”

A pregnancy. That was what my mother was implying I should use to trap Callum, forcing him into marriage, forcing him to give me the title of Luna.

Whether it was a fake pregnancy or a real one, it didn’t matter. Just as long as it convinced him to stay, to ignore Liora and do his duty—something that we all knew he put above all else—then it would be enough.

My mind raced through the options, but none of them seemed viable.

“He won’t have sex with me,” I pointed out. “I’ve tried.”

“So? Make him think you did,” my mother replied quickly.

I blinked. “You mean… drugging him?”

“If that’s what it takes, then yes.”

I thought about that for a long time. It was a viable option; I could get him inebriated, craft a scenario that seemed like we’d had sex. Then, fake a pregnancy, force him to marry me, and oops! I had a miscarriage the night of our wedding. How tragic.

Or, alternatively, I could convince him to actually sleep with me.

I pressed my hand to my belly, wincing at the thought. I never really wanted children; they only felt like a future necessity, the kind of thing that would happen far down the line, once I had nannies and au pairs who could do all the work.

It wasn’t my initial idea, but I had to admit that it was a good one.

And if it meant keeping Callum and Liora away from each other… Forcing Callum to marry me, mark me, and make me his Luna before the truth came out…

Then I would do anything to make that happen.