​Rebecca’s POV (in Stephanie’s body)

​I lined up with the other maids in the center of the hall. Everyone was whispering, their voices filled with fear. Nobody knew why the Alpha King was summoning all the servants this early. It was just four in the morning, and the dark sky outside the high windows was still black as ink.

​Suddenly, the whispering stopped.

​Heavy, slow footsteps echoed through the room. Kaden walked in, and my breath caught in my throat. He was only dressed in loose black pants, leaving his broad chest completely bare. I don’t know if it was just because I was looking through Stephanie’s human eyes, but he looked completely different to me.

​He looked exhausted. Deep dark circles lined his eyes, his hair was messy, and he looked incredibly tired. But there was something else in his face, too—something raw and heavy that I couldn’t quite pinpoint.

​He stood before us, locking his hands behind his back. The silence in the room was so thick you could hear a pin drop.

​"As you all know," Kaden began, his deep voice scraping through the quiet room like sandpaper, "my breeder is in a coma."

​I swallowed hard, a strange chill running down my spine. My breeder. He was talking about me.

​He paused, his green eyes scanning our faces, making every single maid lower her head in terror. "I think I need to make some things clear to everyone in this house."

​He stepped closer, his boots clicking sharply against the floor. Suddenly, he stopped right in front of a maid named Laura, who was standing just a few feet away from me.

​Kaden tilted his head, his eyes turning cold and deadly. "I got information that you walked into my breeder’s room yesterday, and you spit on her unconscious body."

​The room went completely dead silent. My eyes widened in shock.

​"How dare you?" Kaden roared, the sudden blast of his voice making the walls shake.

​Laura’s face went completely white. She fell straight to her knees, her body shaking as she sobbed. "I-I’m sorry, Alpha King! Please, forgive me! I didn’t mean to, I swear!"

​As she wept on the floor, Laura suddenly glanced up and shot a hateful, burning look directly at me. She stared at me as if I was the one who had snitched on her to the King.

​Oops, I thought, a realization hitting me. It seemed the real Stephanie had been the one who saw it and reported it before she fell asleep.

​Kaden didn’t even look down at the crying maid. He kept his hard, unreadable gaze fixed on the rest of the crowd, looking over all of us.

​"Let me make something very clear to every single one of you," Kaden said, his angry voice resounding over the room. "Rebecca might be a slave. She might be a breeder. But she belongs to me. Every piece of her flesh, every drop of her blood, and every breath left in her body is my property."

​He took a slow step forward, his shadow falling over me. I kept my head down, forcing Stephanie’s body to look small and weak, but my heart was slamming against my ribs.

​"If anyone else touches her, speaks ill of her, or even looks at her body with disrespect while she is in that bed, I will personally rip your throat out," Kaden growled, his Alpha aura flaring so heavy that several maids gasped for air. "She is under my absolute protection. If she dies, it will be because I decided it. But until then, you will treat her body like it belongs to your King. Do I make myself clear?"

​"Yes, Alpha King," the maids chanted back in a terrified chorus.

​I kept my eyes on the floor, but inside, my mind was spinning. He was protecting my body. He was threatening his own pack members just because someone spit on me. Was it just his toxic obsession with his ’property,’ or was Helen right? Was there actually a piece of his soul that was breaking because I was gone?

​"Logan," Kaden called out, not looking back.

​Logan stepped out from the shadows near the door, his face serious. "Yes, Alpha King?"

​"Take her out. Ten lashes for disrespecting my breeder."

​"No! Please, Alpha King! Have mercy!" Laura screamed as two large guards grabbed her arms, dragging her kicking and screaming out of the grand hall.

​Kaden didn’t even blink. He turned his back on us, his bare shoulders tight with tension as he prepared to leave, but then he suddenly stopped.

​"Stephanie. Come with me."

​My eyes widened in pure fear. My heart skipped a beat, slamming hard against my ribs inside Stephanie’s chest. Why did he need me? Did he figure it out? Did the magic leak? Panic rushed through my veins as the other maids quickly stepped away from me, leaving me standing completely alone.

​I forced myself to swallow the lump in my throat, keeping my head bowed low just like Stephanie would. "Yes, Alpha King," I whispered, my voice trembling naturally from the raw fear shaking my new body.

​I stepped out of the line and followed him. We walked out of the grand hall and down the long corridors. I expected him to turn toward his private quarters, but we didn’t go to his chambers. Instead, we headed down the familiar hallway leading to my old room where my real body was being kept.

​The guards outside the door instantly straightened up and bowed as Kaden approached. He didn’t even look at them. He pushed the doors open and walked inside, and I quietly stepped in behind him, closing the door softly.

​The heavy smell of herbs and my own dried blood hit my senses instantly.

​We walked deeper into the dim room, and my breath caught in my throat as my eyes landed on the bed. There I was. I saw my own body lying completely lifeless on the mattress. A thick, clean blanket covered my body up to my chest. My skin looked unnaturally pale, almost blue under the faint moonlight, and my long chocolate brown hair was spread out across the white pillow.

​It was a surreal, terrifying thing to look at myself from the outside. I looked dead.

​Kaden stood perfectly still by the side of the bed. He just stood there, staring down at my body with a dark, unreadable look in his green eyes. His hands were clenched into tight fists at his sides, and the muscles in his bare back were tense, jumping with every heavy breath he took.

​I swallowed hard, my mind spinning as I stood a few feet behind him. I didn’t know what to feel about it. Seeing the monster who had broken me now standing over my empty shell, looking so lost and exhausted, made a strange, confusing knot form in my chest.

​For a long time, the room was completely silent except for the steady, shallow sound of my comatose body breathing.

​Then, he spoke. His voice didn’t have that loud, angry Alpha King tone anymore. It was incredibly quiet, sounding raw and hollow in the empty room.

​"Do you think she will ever wake up?"

​I swallowed hard but didn’t speak right away. I kept my eyes glued to the floor. Left to me, I don’t ever want to wake up, I thought bitterly. Waking up meant going back into that broken body, back into the chains, and back to being his slave. Why would I ever want to come back to this hell?

​When I didn’t answer, Kaden slowly turned around and faced me.

​His green eyes locked onto Stephanie’s face, searching my eyes with a desperate, heavy intensity that made me want to shrink back. Up close, the exhaustion on his face was even worse. He looked like a man whose world was crumbling, even if his pride wouldn’t let him admit it.

​"I am asking you a question, maid," Kaden murmured, stepping closer until his tall, bare shadow completely covered me. "You were the closest one to her. You took care of her. So tell me the truth..." he paused and grabbed my arms, making me flinch. "How do I make her come back to me?"