The Alpha King's Second Chance

I wake in an unfamiliar bed, my hands and feet chained to the posts with silver handcuffs. Looking down, I notice I’m only in my bra and panties.

The bedroom door opens, and my mate’s brother walks in. “Finally, you’re awake. I was worried I gave you too much wolfsbane,” he says nonchalantly.

As the man leans forward, I wriggle as much as I can. My skin sizzles against the handcuffs, but I don’t feel the pain. My thoughts are only on escaping him.

Then I hear an animalistic growl and see the door being broken down.

“Freya…Freya, did you hear?” my best friend calls.

“Did I hear what, Penelope?” I ask as she bursts through my bedroom door, my godmother right behind her.

“Miss Penelope, Miss Freya was still getting her beauty rest,” the older woman reprimands, looking disgruntled.

Penelope just rolls her eyes, so I say soothingly, “It’s fine, Miss Greta.” I don’t want to upset Miss Greta; after all, she helped my mom deliver me.

Penelope jumps on my bed, and Miss Greta lets out a huff before leaving my room. Once my godmother is gone, my best friend says, singsong, “The prince is coming!”

I turn my head toward her, confused. I know she has a crush on my brothers, but they’re already home. They haven’t left.

Penelope rolls her eyes again, apparently understanding my thoughts. “Not your handsome brothers. I’m talking about Prince Jasper. The brother of King Ezra.”

My eyes widen before I school my face again. King Ezra is known as a cold-hearted, ruthless man. Supposedly, he’s handsome, but no one ever gets close enough to him to find out. He keeps to himself unless there’s a war, and we haven’t had a war in years—thanks in large part to how quickly he kills anybody who even mentions the wrong thing around him.

Just thinking about him makes me shiver.

“He’s looking for a wife,” Penelope says, bringing me out of my thoughts.

“A wife?”

She nods. “Yes, Prince Jasper is looking for a wife. It’s said that his brother, King Ezra, wants him to find a wife soon, but it’s hard to believe since everyone knows that the prince has many women. He doesn’t seem like the type to settle down.”

That’s true. The prince is known as a man-whore, never sleeping with the same woman twice. But what Penelope doesn’t know—what no one in my kingdom knows besides me, my dad, and my brothers—is that the prince is also a werewolf.

Yup, you heard right. King Ezra and Prince Jasper are werewolves. My brothers and I are too, but no one outside our family knows.

There are four kingdoms: the human kingdom, werewolf kingdom, witch kingdom, and vampire kingdom. King Ezra is the ruler of the werewolf kingdom, and my dad, King Oscar, is the ruler of the human kingdom.

My dad is human, but my mom, Queen Flora, was a werewolf. It’s unusual for werewolves to mate with humans, but my mom didn’t care. When she met my dad, it was love at first sight—or so I was told. I’ve always wanted a love like theirs…or, well, like the one they had before…

Since the visiting rulers are werewolves, that means Prince Jasper is actually looking for his mate, not his wife. But Penelope doesn’t know that.

I feel bad for Prince Jasper’s mate. She’ll have to deal with all the rumors of him sleeping with other women. She’ll probably even have to deal with those women herself.

We werewolves are meant to be with our mates—our soulmates, if you wish. We’re not supposed to have multiple partners unless our mates die.

Sometimes, we are blessed with second-chance mates, but that rarely happens. Besides, I doubt the king is looking for a new mate; no one could thaw his cold heart.

“Are you listening to me?” Penelope asks, snapping her fingers in my face. “I swear, sometimes you are in your own little world.”

I push my friend’s hand away. “I’m listening. You are excited because the prince is coming and looking for a wife. You are hoping he’ll choose you.”

Penelope gasps, and her face turns red. “I didn’t say that last part, Freya.”

I laugh. “You might not have said it, but you were definitely thinking it.”

She shakes her head. “You know me so well. Yes, I am hoping to be his wife.”

Grinning, I get out of bed and go to the bathroom, where I put on a long, simple baby-blue dress that hugs my curves. I would probably be bullied for my curves if I weren’t a princess, but I don’t care. I got my curves from my mom, and I love them.

As I leave the bathroom, Penelope whistles. “I wish I had your figure, Freya. I’m just a stick, but you…you have boobs and a butt.”

I shake my head. “Penelope, you’re beautiful. I may have boobs and a butt, but my figure also makes me stick out around the other girls. Everyone wants to be slim.”

“I’d rather have your curves,” she mumbles.

Smiling sadly, I wrap my arm into hers and guide her out of my room, toward the kitchen. As usual, she’ll sit with me and my family for breakfast as the maids serve us.

Because while I called Penelope my “best friend,” the truth is, she’s the only one I’ve got.

Not long after Penelope and I sit down to eat, my brother Nicholas walks in with some girl on his arm. She glares at us before trying to sit down.

Nicholas notices. “You can go home,” he says.

She looks shocked.

“You can go home,” he repeats. When the girl doesn’t respond, he continues, “Did you think I didn’t see you glare at my sister? No one glares at her, so go home and lose my number.”

As she stomps away, ignored by Nicholas, my other brother, Lance, settles at the table too. We’re triplets—Nicholas the eldest by two minutes, then Lance, then me—but we look nothing alike. I look like Mom, and my brothers look like Dad.

We all turned eighteen last month, but none of us have found our mates. Nicholas has been enjoying his time with many women while Lance has a friends-with-benefits situation with some girl who isn’t his mate. I’m the only one who’s actually waited.

“Why did what’s-her-face glare at you?” Lance asks.

I shrug. “Don’t know, don’t care. You both know that most girls don’t like me.”

“Her name is Emma,” Penelope interrupts.

Nicholas turns his nose up. “Oh, that’s her name.”

I scoff. “You don’t know her name, but she was in your bed.”

He shrugs and begins stacking his plate with a bunch of food.

Penelope turns to me. “She probably doesn’t like you because you told her she could never get with your brother.”

I grimace. “I tell a lot of girls that. They all think they’ll make one of them settle down. I’m just trying to help them, but they take it the wrong way.”

Just then, Dad walks in and goes to his chair. The maids bow. Once he is seated and his food is served, we all begin to eat.

After a minute, quiet except for the sound of silverware clattering and mouths chewing, Dad clears his throat. “Prince Jasper will be here today with some guests, and they will stay for a week. Martha has made up the guest hall for them. I expect you all to be on your best behavior.”

Dad gives my brothers a pointed stare, and they grumble but don’t argue. We all eat the rest of our breakfast in silence, and then Dad sends us on our way.

Most nights, I let my wolf out in the forest that surrounds our kingdom. It’s about the only time I’m able to clear my mind. But during the days, Penelope and I take walks out here, and that’s almost just as nice.

“Do you think the prince will like me?” my friend asks now. “Do you think he’s sexy? How about his brother?”

I haven’t ever seen the prince, as far as I can recall, but I don’t tell Penelope that. I’m too distracted by my wolf.

Just then, I hear a shriek.

As my gaze refocuses on my friend, I see that her yellow dress has a big coffee stain on it—and that my coffee cup is tilted toward her dress. “I’m so sorry, Penelope. I wasn’t paying attention.”

Tears well in her eyes, but she says, sniffing, “It’s okay. I know you wouldn’t do that on purpose. It’s just… This is my favorite dress, and I wanted to look nice for the prince.”

Without replying, I grab Penelope’s hand and lead her to the small river in the woods. I glance around, then command, “Take off your dress.”

She looks mortified.

“No one is around,” I say. “Take it off, and I’ll wash out the stain. It’s so hot that it will dry quickly.”

Penelope does what I requested, and after some scrubbing, I get the stain out. I then lay the dress on a rock in the sun, and we wait for it to dry.

After about thirty minutes, we hear a horn signaling that the guests have arrived. Penelope quickly puts her now-dry dress back on, and we rush to the front of my house, where everyone is waiting. I stop beside my dad and brothers just in time for four buff men to approach.

On my right, Penelope smiles hard at the handsome prince, who is tall and muscular with blond hair and brown eyes. He emits a powerful aura that would usually make my wolf bow in submission, but Lupa actually seems happy to see him.

Then I notice the look of disgust on his face. He looks like he hates me.

“Maid,” he whispers. I don’t think anyone else heard him, and if I didn’t have werewolf hearing, I wouldn’t have heard him either.