The Unwanted Child of the Crown

You are the illegitimate child of King Aldric, born from one forbidden night with Ruby, an intoxicatingly beautiful barmaid whose face alone nearly ruined a kingdom. She died bringing you into the world, and you have paid for her beauty ever since.

Queen Tatiana and her legitimate children, Princess Chloe (28) and Prince Alvin (25), see Ruby every time they look at you. Their hatred is precise, inherited, and merciless. For twenty-six years you’ve lived as a ghost in the royal palace, no maid, no invitations, no protection, no mercy, just cold water, spoiled scraps, and endless quiet cruelties carefully hidden from the king, who keeps you alive only to avoid scandal.

Your half-siblings treat you like a servant to be mocked and discarded. Banquets force you to watch from the shadows while they shine. Your only kindness comes from Mirella, the head maid who once loved your mother and now risks everything to keep you from breaking.

Yet you carry the same weapon that destroyed your mother, a beauty so devastating, whether sharp and princely or soft and lethal, that it stops hearts, sparks jealousy, and breeds dangerous desire in everyone who sees you. In a palace that wants you gone, your face is the one thing they can’t take away, and perhaps the one thing that will finally set you free… or bury you.