My Husband Was Replaced By An Impostor — And I Just Found Out Where They Hid The Real One
Part 1
The blade sliced across the King’s arm, and the illusion instantly shattered.
His regal features rippled like water, melting away to reveal the unremarkable face of a stranger.
The broad shoulders slumped as he clutched his bleeding arm in shock.
I stood there with my chest heaving, my grip tightening on my weapon.
For seven agonizing years, I believed my mate had abandoned me.
I thought Craig had chosen another woman, casting me and our children out into the cold.
Now, the truth hit me with the force of a physical blow.
The man on the throne was a changeling.
“Dan,” the woman beside him gasped, all the color draining from her face.
She was the fake Queen, the woman who had stolen my face and my life.
My daughter, Megan, rushed into the hall right behind me, her chest rising and falling rapidly.
“We figured it out,” Megan said, her voice echoing in the sudden silence of the grand hall.
“Causing them pain makes them switch back to their true forms.”
I glared at the two impostors shivering before me.
“Not very good shifters, if you ask me,” I spat, my voice laced with venom.
The royal guards stood frozen in shock, their hands hovering over the hilts of their swords.
They had no idea who to point their weapons at.
“These two are changelings,” I told the guards, my voice shaking with a barely contained fury.
“They’ve been impersonating your Alpha King and his Luna for years.”
I turned my attention back to the impostors, letting my aura flare out to pin them in place.
I dropped my tone to a deadly whisper and demanded, “Where is Craig?”
The fake Queen, whose real name was Heather, turned to her brother in a panic.
“Yes, Dan, where is he?” she pleaded, tears welling in her eyes.
Dan snatched a sword from one of the stunned guards, his unremarkable face twisting with pure desperation.
“They won’t find him,” Dan sneered, backing toward the dais.
“I can take his place forever, and no one ever has to know.”
Heather grabbed his arm, shaking her head frantically.
Dan’s eyes went wide with madness as he shouted, “We don’t need him, Heather!”
“Don’t you see that we can have the throne and the power all to ourselves?”
Heather let out a piercing scream.
“I don’t care about the throne!” she sobbed, dropping to her knees.
I took a step closer to Dan and roared, “Where is Craig?”
“I’m not telling you anything,” Dan flatly replied, lifting his stolen sword.
Heather looked up at me with absolute terror in her eyes.
“If we don’t give him the antidote, he won’t ever wake up,” she confessed desperately.
Dan let out a cruel, humorless laugh.
“I know,” Dan said, the finality in his voice hanging in the air like a death sentence.
I didn’t bother arguing anymore.
I moved faster than humanly possible, snatching a blade from another guard.
Before Dan could even blink, I had the cold steel pressed firmly against Heather’s throat.
My voice was terrifyingly calm as I asked, “Where is he?”
It was the kind of quiet that always preceded absolute violence.
Dan stared at me defiantly, pressing his lips together in stubborn silence.
Heather, however, completely broke down.
Real tears streamed down her cheeks, smudging the dirt on her face.
“All I wanted was for Craig and me to be happy,” she sobbed pathetically.
“That was all I ever wanted.”
One of the veteran guards shook his head in disgust.
“Everyone knew the King was never over the real Luna,” the guard muttered.
Those simple words seemed to shatter whatever resolve Heather had left.
Her shoulders slumped in absolute defeat.
“I can track him,” Megan announced suddenly, stepping up beside me.
“Tyler and I can track our father’s scent.”
I kept the blade pressed against Heather’s skin.
“That is worth a try,” I agreed, my eyes locked on the weeping woman.
“But we need that antidote first.”
I dug the edge of the sword just a fraction deeper.
I growled at her, “Where is the antidote, Heather?”
She squeezed her eyes shut.
“In my chambers, the blue vial on my dressing table,” she whispered.
I nodded to one of the guards, who immediately sprinted out of the hall to retrieve it.
My son, Tyler, shifted instantly into his wolf form.
His small, furry body quivered with intense concentration as he pressed his nose to the stone floor.
Within moments, he was trotting toward the heavy oak doors, picking up a faint trail.
The scent led us entirely out of the main hall and down a forgotten, dusty corridor.
It was a neglected wing of the castle I had never even explored during my time here.
Megan ran right beside her brother, her eyes scanning the shadows for any threats.
I followed close behind them, flanked by two loyal guards.
We left a third guard behind to keep Dan and Heather restrained.
Tyler stopped abruptly in front of a solid stone wall, scratching at the baseboards.
There was a hidden door here, so perfectly concealed that I never would have noticed it.
Megan ran her hands expertly over the rough stone.
She found the hidden catch and pushed hard, revealing a narrow, pitch-black passageway.
A damp, musty smell wafted up from the darkness below.
The guards lit their torches, holding them high to illuminate the treacherous stone steps.
We descended carefully, the air growing colder with every step we took.
My pulse pounded in my ears, deafening me to everything except my own desperate prayers.
Please let him be alive.
We reached the bottom of the stairs, stepping into a small, freezing room.
I pushed open the heavy iron door to the cell, my breath catching at the sight of the motionless figure sitting in the dark.
