Page 43 of The Alpha King’s Hidden Mute Mate

I gestured. The servants immediately understood. They stepped forward, gripping her shoulders from both sides, pushing down hard.

She struggled briefly—but it was useless. Her knees bent until they slammed hard against the marble floor.

A dull thud.

She knelt there, hair falling forward, covering half her face.

The hall was utterly silent. I could hear my own breathing, hear the servants holding their breath, hear Leah's muffled sobbing.

"Apologize to Miss Taylor," I said.

She kept her head down. Said nothing.

"I said, apologize to her."

Slowly, slowly, she raised her head.

She looked at me. No tears in those eyes. No pleading. Just one thing—something like a fire-tempered blade, sharp and cold and stubborn.

She didn't apologize.

That look was like a needle stabbing into my chest.

My fingers clenched.

"Take her back," I said, voice hoarse. "Confine her to quarters. Without my permission, she doesn't take one step outside that door."

The guards pulled her up from the floor. Her knees seemed injured—she stumbled when standing. But she didn't lower her head, didn't cry, didn't look at me again.

They dragged her away.

Whispers rippled through the corridor from the servants, like wind rustling through leaves, spreading all the way down.

Leah was still crying, shoulders hitching, looking pitiful.

I stood there watching Mia disappear, the anger in my chest still unsettled, but another stranger emotion slowly rising—something I couldn't name, like a fishbone stuck in my throat. Couldn't swallow it down, couldn't spit it out.

That night, I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep.

All I could see was her eyes—that hollow, stubborn look. And her trembling shoulders as she knelt.

What was she holding onto? What was she being stubborn about?

I rolled over, pressing the pillow against my face.

Stop thinking. She drugged you. She planted poisonous flowers. She tried to hurt Leah. She deserves this.

But that voice came back—that damn voice whispering in my head.

Are you really sure?

I wasn't sure.

I wasn't sure about anything.

Chapter Ten

Zane