My Secret Lover Is The Crown Prince Alpha

LIVIA POV:

I had been pacing the hardwood floor of the Hunter's Lodge for hours, wearing a path into the rug. My maid, Tess, kept trying to coax me into sitting down, but my nerves were too frayed. Finally, the sound of heavy, defeated footsteps echoed on the porch. The front door creaked open, and Gideon slumped inside.

He didn't look like the victorious, arrogant Alpha heir I knew. He looked like a man who had just been marched to the gallows.

"Gideon?" I whispered, rushing to his side and clutching his arm. "What happened? What did the King say?"

He sank heavily into a leather chair, running a trembling hand over his pale face. "He granted it," he said, his voice hollow and exhausted. "The betrothal is dissolved."

A wave of relief so powerful it made me dizzy washed over me. "He did?" I cried out, throwing my arms around his neck, a triumphant smile breaking across my face. "Oh, Gideon, we're free! We finally won!"

But he didn't hug me back. His arms remained limp at his sides. "Not exactly," he rasped, his voice rough like sandpaper.

I pulled back, my smile faltering as my joy instantly turned to ash. "What do you mean?"

He told me everything. The King's explosive fury. The sudden, unexpected appearance of a Prince Damian.

"Prince Damian?" I repeated, my brow furrowing in confusion. "I've never even heard of him."

"He's the King's youngest son. Sickly. Spends most of his time away from court," Gideon explained distractedly, staring blankly at the floor. "He's the one who proposed the... solution. He decreed that... that you can never be my Pack Luna."

The words hung in the air, disjointed and absurd. "Never be... Luna?" I stammered, my voice trembling. This time, the tears welling in my eyes weren't a calculated performance. "But... I'm carrying your heir. I'm to be your wife!"

"You can be my wife," he said bitterly, finally looking up at me with defeated eyes. "But you will never have the title. You will never have the formal power. It is a public, permanent dishonor."

The room started to spin violently, the floor dropping out from beneath my feet. What? My mind screamed in absolute, horrifying disbelief. What is the point of being his wife if I am not the Luna?! I didn't endure the scorn, the secret meetings, and the risk of carrying a child out of wedlock just to be some ordinary housewife! I clawed my way into this family, into his bed, for one reason and one reason only: the power, the respect, the title! That was the whole point! What is this sick joke?!

To be a wife, but not the Luna... I would be nothing more than a glorified breeding mare. My child would be the Alpha heir, but its mother would be a woman of no official rank, a permanent outcast in her own home. The noble ladies I couldn't wait to crush beneath my heel would whisper and laugh at me for the rest of my life.

"No," I whispered, shaking my head frantically in denial. "No, he can't do that. It's not fair!"

"It is the King's decree. It is done," Gideon said, his voice flat and lifeless.

A hot, ugly jealousy flared in my chest. "And Seraphina?" I asked, my voice laced with pure venom. "What happens to the precious Lady Seraphina?"

"That's the worst part," Gideon said, a muscle working furiously in his jaw. "The Prince... he said she had to be compensated for the insult. He suggested the King grant her a title of her own. A barony. Land. Wealth."

I stared at him, my jaw dropping. "She gets rewarded? For being cast aside?" The injustice of it was a physical blow, knocking the wind out of me. "She gets to be a Baroness, while I am forbidden from being a Luna?!"

"It's a humiliation!" I shrieked, my carefully crafted sweet facade finally snapping into a million pieces. "She wins! After everything we did, that plain, wolfless bitch wins!"

Gideon flinched at my tone but didn't disagree. He just stared at the dying embers in the fireplace. We both knew the bitter truth. We hadn't won. We had been utterly outmaneuvered.

SERAPHINA POV:

Meanwhile, in the quiet sanctuary of my own chambers, I was receiving the royal decree via Jasper Price, the King's emissary. I accepted the heavy parchment scroll with a steady hand, my face a mask of polite neutrality.

I read about the annulment. I read about Livia being permanently denied the Luna title—a detail that brought a small, sharp smile to my lips.

And then, I read about myself.

I had been named Baroness of Sunstone Coast. I stared at the elegant ink, genuinely shocked. The annulment had gone exactly as I planned, but this... this was beyond anything I had orchestrated. The smoothness of it all, the sheer scale of this reward, felt wrong. It was too easy. A powerful, unseen hand was moving the pieces on the board, and for the first time, I felt like a pawn in someone else's game.

Who was helping me, and why?