The Lycan King's Second Chance Mate: Rise of the Traitor's Daughter-Chapter 204: Exposed

Darius~

I couldn’t breathe.

Not because the air was gone—but because I could feel it pressing down on my lungs like a curse. Thick. Suffocating. Like death was standing behind me, grinning.

And I think it was.

Natalie Cross.

Natalie Cross is the celestial princess?

I stared straight ahead, but I didn’t see anything. The chandeliers above me blurred into glimmering orbs, the velvet-lined walls trembled in my vision, and the people murmuring all around me were nothing more than shadows with knives for tongues.

I shouldn’t have come.

I knew it. Every bone in my body had screamed for me to stay away from this damn ball. I should’ve listened, I should have run. Vanished. Burned my name from every ledger and buried myself in the deepest forest. But no. I let that Maeron imposter whisper poison in my ear. Urged me to speak. To mock Natalie in front of the entire kingdom.

And I did.

Like a fool.

Like a damned fool.

Now the exits were sealed. Royal guards posted like statues of judgment, their hands resting on their blades. No one gets in. No one gets out.

And me?

I was a caged animal.

A trapped Alpha with nowhere to run and everything to lose.

I tried. Goddess knows I tried—I reached out through the mind link, ordering my pack at home to scatter, to vanish, to hide in the deepest corners of the forest... but nothing. My link didn’t go through. I tried again. And again.

Still nothing.

Blocked.

Severed.

A silence I’d never known before.

My chest tightened. My heart dropped into my stomach like a stone, heavy with fear.

The king’s voice rang through the grand ballroom like a death knell.

"After leaving the Silverfang Pack, Katrina Charles gave birth to a child... a daughter. A child born of love, not duty. A child with the blood of the Iron Claw and the Silverfang. That child... is Natalie Cross."

Gasps. Dozens. Hundreds.

Whispers broke out like a spark in dry brush—fast, frantic, and impossible to contain.

"She’s a princess?" someone gasped, voice cracking with disbelief.

"No... not just a princess," another murmured, louder now, "She’s the celestial heir."

The room shifted. The air itself felt heavier.

"She lived among us," a shaky voice whispered from somewhere behind me, "and we treated her like dirt."

A low, hollow breath came from one of my own pack members. "We called her cursed... a wolf without a wolf. We mocked her. Bullied her. Left her for dead..."

"She was royalty all along?" someone else barked from the other side of the hall, their words thick with fury. "She was the one we’ve all been waiting for?"

A pause.

And then rage.

"The Silverfang Pack is damned. They stood here and lied to everyone!

"They didn’t just exile a girl—they cast out the goddess we were meant to protect."

The voices rose, tangled in grief, guilt, and outrage. Accusations turned sharp and poisonous, echoing through the ballroom like knives thrown in every direction.

I could hear them.

All of them.

Their disgust. Their fury. Their disbelief.

And I—Alpha Darius Blackthorn—stood in the center of it all, watching the world catch fire around me.

And I knew deep in my bones...

There was no coming back from this.

I could feel my pack’s panic through our bond. They were trembling. And I couldn’t calm them. I couldn’t reach them. We were alone.

The king’s voice rose again, his tone heavy with judgment.

"Katrina Cross, her mate Evans Cross, and their trusted friends... were murdered. Slaughtered under false pretenses."

Silence fell like a guillotine.

I knew what was coming.

"Alpha Darius of the Silverfang Pack accused Evans Cross of treason. But after an extensive investigation conducted by my court, we have found no such evidence."

More gasps.

Somebody dropped a glass. The sound of shattering cut through the air like a scream.

But the king wasn’t finished.

"In fact," he said, his voice cold and precise, "it was Darius who orchestrated every single piece of this tragedy."

Gasps rippled through the crowd like a shuddering wave, but the king pressed on.

"The night before the royal visit, Darius arranged for Katrina to be kidnapped. When Evans tried to find her, Darius forbade it, claiming Evans was needed for the final preparations. But Darius knew Evans wouldn’t listen."

My breathing turned sharp and uneven. My fists clenched, knuckles white and trembling.

The king’s gaze drifted slowly until it landed on me—heavy, knowing, unforgiving.

"And when Evans disobeyed, Darius framed him for negligence, twisting the entire royal visit into a disaster. When the dust settled, he seized the moment... and used the chaos as justification to execute them both—Katrina and Evans."

"No," someone whispered in disbelief, almost like a prayer to a cruel goddess. "No... oh my goddess..."

"But he didn’t act alone," the king continued. "His current Beta, Timothy Coal, helped bury the truth. He silenced the only man who knew what really happened that day—Gamma Kelvin."

Shock struck the room like thunder. Heads turned. Eyes widened.

Timothy, standing stiffly at my side, instinctively took a step back. A coward’s move. The guilt dripped off him like sweat.

"And to make sure the truth stayed buried," the king went on, "Darius ordered Timothy to destroy all evidence—including Gamma Kelvin himself. Timothy shot him multiple times and left him to rot in a shallow grave in the woods."

Gasps again. Louder this time. Angrier.

"But the goddess wasn’t done with Kelvin," the king said, and for the first time, something warm flickered in his voice—hope? Justice? "By some miracle, Kelvin survived. Broken, bleeding, and barely alive... he crawled out of his grave and disappeared into hiding."

The room was dead silent now. You could feel the tension pull the air taut.

The king’s voice cut through the stillness.

"With the help of Prince Zane’s investigation team, Kelvin was found. And he has testified to everything."

As if summoned by fate itself, the ballroom doors swung open with a thunderous creak. Guards stepped aside without a word.

And there he was.

Gamma Kelvin.

Alive.

He walked down the marble floor slowly but with purpose, a living ghost come to demand justice. His wounds had healed, but his eyes carried the weight of the grave he’d crawled out of.

He stopped before the king and dropped to one knee, bowing his head in deep respect.

But it wasn’t the king who lost his breath.

It was me.

The moment my eyes met Kelvin’s, something in me cracked. I didn’t flinch. I didn’t run. I just stood there frozen, my face draining of all color as the truth settled in like ice through my spine.

I knew.

I knew the punishment waiting for me would be worse than death. fгeewёbnoѵel.cσm

Beside me, Gabrielle watched in horror. Her eyes locked on Kelvin, then darted to me, and something inside her shattered.

Her legs gave out beneath her.

She collapsed to the floor, sobbing uncontrollably as if the weight of every lie, every betrayal, and every drop of innocent blood had fallen directly onto her shoulders.

And in that moment, the whole room knew:

This was the beginning of the end for me.