Jilted By Prince, Claimed By King

Edris Mcclure sucked in a breath so sharp it felt like swallowing broken glass. Her lungs expanded, screaming against the sudden influx of freezing air, expecting the suffocating burn of salt water. Her hands flew to her throat, clawing at the skin, anticipating the rough bite of a hemp rope, the finality of the weight dragging her down.

But there was no rope.

Her fingers met the soft, expensive weave of a cashmere scarf.

Edris's eyes snapped open. The world spun, a kaleidoscope of blurred lights and shadows, before snapping into a terrifyingly crisp focus.

She wasn't beneath the Golden Gate Bridge. The roar in her ears wasn't the ocean crashing against steel pylons; it was the muffled thrum of a bass line from a distant ballroom. And falling from the sky wasn't the mist of the bay, but fat, silent flakes of snow.

She looked down at her hands. They weren't swollen or blue. Her manicure was perfect-a soft, iridescent pearl shade she hadn't worn in years.

A wave of nausea rolled through her, so violent she stumbled, her hip colliding with the stone balustrade. The cold bite of the snow-covered stone against her palm was a shock, a physical tether to a reality that shouldn't exist.

Pain exploded in her temples. With it came the memories, not as a fade-in, but as a violent crash. The headlines. The viral videos. The sneer on Prince Clement's face. The signature on the disownment papers. The wind whipping her hair as she stepped off the ledge.

She gripped the railing, her knuckles turning white. She pulled her phone from her clutch with trembling fingers. The screen lit up, the brightness stabbing at her retinas.

December 12th.

Three years ago.

The date was branded into her soul. This was the night of the Winter Chalet Gala. The night her life had officially ended before she had even died.

A sudden, unnatural heat bloomed in her lower belly. It wasn't the warmth of life; it was an inferno, chemical and cloying, spreading through her veins like liquid fire. Her knees buckled. She gasped, the sound wet and desperate in the quiet night.

She knew this heat.

The champagne.

Bailee had handed it to her twenty minutes ago. "Just a sip for luck, big sister."

In her past life-or her future memory-Edris had stumbled back into the hallway, disoriented by the drug. There, a "homeless" man, planted by the tabloids and paid for by someone she trusted, had grabbed her. The photos of her disheveled, seemingly drunk and intimate with a stranger, had been the first nail in her coffin.

Edris bit down on the tip of her tongue. The sharp, copper taste of blood flooded her mouth, a grounding anchor against the drug threatening to dissolve her consciousness.

She whipped her head around toward the floor-to-ceiling glass doors leading back to the gala. Shadows moved behind the sheer curtains. She saw the glint of a camera lens. They were waiting. The vultures were