Page 37 of The Alpha King’s Hidden Mute Mate

His gaze swept the room—overturned chairs, porcelain shards everywhere, brown liquid all over the floor, Leah curled up on the ground clutching her arm, and me backed into the corner, gasping.

"What's going on?" His voice was ice-cold.

"Your Majesty—" Leah lifted her head, tears pouring like an opened faucet. "She—she tried to hurt me... She's insane... She had that bottle, tried to poison me..."

My eyes went wide.

"What are you saying?"

I rushed forward, signing frantically. "Not me! It was her! She tried to drug my child!"

But Zane wasn't looking at me.

He walked over, crouched down, and helped Leah up. Her arm had a bruise—from hitting the table corner. She leaned into Zane's embrace, crying pitifully, looking fragile as glass about to shatter.

"Your Majesty, I was so scared..." She buried her face in his chest. "She looked so terrifying... She was going to kill me..."

Zane looked up at me.

Those gray-blue eyes held no questions, no hesitation. Only cold, certain disgust.

"Hold her down," he said.

Two guards rushed in, pinning my shoulders from both sides, forcing me to the floor. My knees hit the cold marble with a dull thud.

"Mia, how dare you do this?" Zane stood before me, looking down, his voice carrying a kind of exhaustion that broke my heart. "I thought you'd at least show some restraint. I thought if I gave you some space, let you tend your flowers, you'd settle down."

I shook my head, shaking it frantically, tears blurring my vision.

No. It wasn't like that.

"But you'll never settle down, will you?" He crouched, meeting my eyes at level, the coldness in those eyes making me tremble. "You always want more. You want my attention, my trust, the Luna position—and now you even want to kill Leah!"

My mouth opened, my throat making a hoarse wheeze like a dying animal.

"Lock her up." He stood, back to me. "She doesn't leave that room without my permission."

The guards dragged me up, pulling me toward the door. I struggled, looking back at him and Leah—she still leaned in his arms, looking at me with a victor's gaze, a barely perceptible curve to her lips.

That smile froze every drop of blood in my body.

She won.

Again.

I was dragged from the room, past the garden I'd planted with my own hands. Those daisies and lavender swayed in the sunlight, petals still holding morning dew. They didn't know what had happened. They just stayed there, quietly, innocently blooming.

Like a child who didn't know what they'd done wrong.

I closed my eyes, letting the guards drag me into the darkness.

Chapter Nine

Zane

I didn't expect Mia to show up at that fake ceremony with Leah.

For a split second, I actually hoped she'd come to stop me. But then I snapped out of it. She looked calm. Like she didn't give a damn that I was marrying someone else.