The whispered conversation cut through the lavish silence of the prince's private suite like a shard of ice. "You’ll just have to get Ariel pregnant immediately. That way she’ll be chained to you forever," the King’s voice, cold and calculating, twisted my stomach. My fiancé, Prince Edward, responded with a dismissive, "She knows her place. She’ll fall in line and become a proper wife in short time."

My heart plummeted. They were talking about me, not as a future princess, but as a mere vessel. Every step I’d taken, every sacrifice I’d made for this political marriage, dissolved into nothing. Rage, cold and sharp, ignited within me as I heard their plans to break me, to force my submission. The thought of their greedy smiles, their casual discussion of my dehumanization, made me want to vomit.

I fled the suite, tears streaming down my face, my world shattering around me. The Great Hall, where I was to be married, felt like a cage. My mind raced, but one place called to me – a familiar corner, a worn brown door. I burst through it, stumbling into the room to find my brother Rafe and cousin Jesse, their eyes wide with shock. "I can’t do it!" I gasped, collapsing against the door, my face a mess of tears. Rafe's protective growl rumbled in his chest as I sobbed out the horrific truth.

"So, you run," Rafe said, pulling his hands away from his face, a deep frustration in his eyes. "You leave him at the altar, and the press paint him as the wounded party."

"Mom and dad can salvage the treaty this way," I insisted, "but I…I have to disappear, or else Prince will force me into it – I have too much leverage on him now."

Jesse’s wicked smirk appeared. "Nah. Let’s run. With us. Rafe and I are enrolling tomorrow anyway – we’ll just leave tonight and take you along to Alpha Academy."

Alpha Academy. The notoriously secretive, all-male military school. It was perfect. No one would ever expect me there.