The Rejected True Heiress (Liora and Callum) novel Chapter 458

Liora’s POV

The guard yanked me to the front. The crowd parted like the sea, everyone turning to stare with wide, confused eyes.

“Sister?” I heard multiple people whisper. “She’s Bianca’s sister?”

With a final shove, the guard released me, sending me stumbling toward Bianca. I caught myself in time, ignoring the pain that lanced through my leg at the movement.

Bianca and my father stood before me, and for the first time, I felt smaller than I should have. Less significant. My father looked down at me like I was nothing. Like I was just a random person who had been brought before him to plead my case, and not like the daughter he had doted on for years.

Bianca lifted her hand, quieting the murmuring crowd. Her eyes glimmered as she looked at me.

“I think it’s time to air out our dirty laundry,” she said, still smiling that eerie smile that reminded me too much of the witch. “Don’t you?”

I pulled my shoulders back. “I do, actually.”

Before Bianca could speak, I turned to face the crowd. Pointing at her, I said, “Bianca is an imposter! She’s been lying to you all for months—she’s not the female Alpha! I am!”

The crowd murmured again, but silenced quickly when my father cleared his throat.

“The girl speaks lies. Bianca is my heir.”

“The girl?” I whipped my head around to glare at him. “All my life, I was your heir, your only true daughter! Bianca is the child of an affair and not a legitimate heir to the throne!”

Bianca sighed as the crowd went wild again. She waited patiently for the voices to go quiet, as if she had all the time in the world.

“My sister is right about one thing,” she said once everyone was calm again. “It’s true: I was born out of wedlock to a call girl.” Her eyes tightened a little, just enough that I noticed. “All my life, I was not formally recognized as the King’s heir. But now, seeing as our illustrious female Alpha has lost her wolf and misbehaved terribly, my father has finally recognized me. I am the heir now. I have received my inheritance.”

“In order to ensure I didn’t take her place,” Bianca went on, “Liora did everything in her power to knock me down a peg. She engineered scenario after damning scenario to destroy me. She used her status as a way to force me to comply. She threatened me into performing a fake pregnancy and miscarriage—by threatening to kill my mother—all to humiliate me and drive you all to hate me.”

More shouts, louder this time. I winced at the sound.

Bianca paused, licking her lips as her eyes flicked over the crowd, then continued, “She tore my one true love, Callum, away from me—all in service of herself. Because she knew that she no longer had a true claim to the throne, and she felt the need to drag me down with her.”

“That’s not true,” I said.

Bianca looked at me. “Isn’t it?” she asked. “How about the night of my banquet—the night that our dear cousin, Ambrose, was set to marry his bride. You lied, made up tales about events that never happened, all to destroy him and humiliate me.”

“What? Bianca, that’s—”

“Because you knew that your inheritance was slipping,” she cut me off, raising her voice now to beat out the growing noise of the crowd. “Because you knew that, since you lost your wolf, you were unfit for the throne; you were unfit for Callum.” Her lips curved slightly. “You knew that you would be expected to marry Ambrose, becoming the Lady of Falcon’s Reach, and you wanted to put him behind bars to ensure that never happened.”