Chapter 182: Seduction or Doom

Ivy’s POV

“Just hold on,” I repeated, and they all froze and turned to me.

“You mean y’all want me to go meet him?” I asked, letting disbelief lace each word. Daniel nodded, jaw set hard like he’d carved his decision into stone.

“Which means that I’ll be locked up in his chambers alone with him?! Dressed like a workaholic?!” I shrieked, the sound ricocheting off the dungeon stone, loud and ridiculous against the concerned expression of the others.

I jabbed a finger at my corporate pants and button-up…my office uniform that read ‘Just a simple office worker’ louder than anything else.

Daniel rolled his eyes and groaned. “Oh princess, for the love of God, this is a serious issue! Why are you trying to be funny?” He rubbed his hands through his hair like I’m not making sense, and I’m just being unreasonable.

He thinks I’m trying to be funny?

Around me faces shifted…the half-hardened masks of people who’d been stewing in fear too long: hope stretched thin, anger raw. They’d been arguing life-or-death and here I was, treating it like a lunch break. I couldn’t tell whether that made me brave or stupid.

“You don’t think it’s off?” I pressed, because the stupidness wasn’t the only thing nagging at the back of my teeth. “How can I go to him looking like this? Even if I make it out of this smelly prison, he’s going to rip my throat out the second I step foot into his room.” My voice was small against their casual dismissal.

They all rolled their eyes like I’d just suggested a picnic in the middle of a battlefield. Nyxara…my wolf…stirred restlessly, her voice curling around me, urging that we had to look our best for our first official meeting. Not mine, technically.

Everyone kept insisting I’d already dated him, like my past was common knowledge to everyone but me. But for Nyxara, this was different. This was the first time she’d face him one-on-one, without anyone in between. And she wanted it to be unforgettable.

From the corridor a female voice washed in, low and bright. “I think I can help with that.”

Light footsteps. Before she reached the cell the beta lunged to the bars, shoving his hands out like a child reaching for a cloak. “Ciara… baby,” he muttered when she grabbed his fingers, the tenderness absurd. Her lips left quick, frantic kisses on the back of his knuckles as if she could stitch him together with heat.

“My love… I’m so sorry this happened to you,” she breathed into him, then retired her softness and turned to the rest of us like a woman who’d been called upon for a particular miracle. After a brief nod, she resumed showering kisses all over the beta’s hand.

“We don’t have time for kisses and hugs,” Daniel snapped, restlessly, business overtaking whatever sweet moment the beta and his woman were sharing. “We need to know what we’re doing? We need to leave here. I need to leave here,” he said with frustration laced in his pace.

“So are my concerns about the outfits…”

“Just hold your horses, princess,” Daniel interrupted sharply. Then turning to Ciara, he asked in a gravely serious tone.

“You said you can help?” He asked.

“Yes!” She replied cheerfully, like she was handing out candy rather than solutions. She stepped close, eyes bright with a strange, eager confidence. “I can get her one of my suitable attires. We should be almost the same size so I think that could work.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, measuring her with a look that wanted the truth more than hope.

Daniel spoke immediately, not giving the girl a chance to answer me. “Just stay still and let us handle this, princess. Your job when you get to the king will be to dance or twerk or whatever your instincts say in order to seduce him and break the magic,” he said, voice still threaded with a frustrated sigh that made something in my chest ache.

Twerk? Seduce? Me? Haaa!

The thought made my ribs tighten with equal parts horror and absurdity. I pressed my lips together until the taste of metal filled my mouth.

They were serious. My head spun with images I wanted to fling into the darkest corner…a ridiculous, humiliating vision of myself trying to sway a man who might slice me in half for looking at him wrong.

If their salvation truly rests on me seducing the king, then we’re all doomed. Because I’m still a virgin! Literally.

I thought of the diary I’d once read in my closet…a pale promise inked by a hand that was obviously mine, and felt the strange steadiness of it like a talisman. I could not remember my past, but I remembered the vow, the private thing I’d promised myself.

I’d promised myself I wouldn’t lose my virginity until I was married, and since I’m still unmarried, it only makes sense I’m still a virgin. Right?

“Just stay out of the way, human, and I’ll handle the rest,” Nyxara purred, all teeth and silk. Her voice made heat crawl the back of my neck. I let myself melt into that dangerous companionship because it felt safer than trusting everyone around.

What do you know about seducing?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. Nyxara purred in response, sharp and playful, and I could already picture her…striking impossible, teasing poses in my mind. The image was so ridiculous it almost made me laugh out loud.

I found myself zoning…something I’d done to survive…slipping into the back-and-forth with my wolf until the cell chatter blurred into white noise. Ciara fussed with her thoughts on the perfect fabric. Daniel rattled off about outsmarting Lila. The others murmured about guards and timing and routes like they were laying down feathers as a map.

Then Daniel’s voice cut through like a bell. “Princess?” he called, urgency narrowing the syllables. “It’s time.”

“Time for?” I asked, genuinely blank. My focus snapped back to the room like a band suddenly pulled taut.

“Oh my Gosh you weren’t listening?!” he barked, half-livid, half-exhausted. The edge in his voice was the kind that meant every second counted.

I smiled…slight, involuntary…the kind that hides a ruin behind polite teeth. It did something to the room; Daniel’s shoulders relaxed a fraction, the beta’s grin softened. The smile was small armor…not bravery exactly, just the kind of deception that kept people from panicking right then and there.

“Good,” the beta said briskly, his tone all steel and urgency. “We’ve only got an hour to sneak you in. Ciara, fetch the dress and be quick about it. And for the love of the Goddess, please be careful.”

She nodded, offered him a sweet smile, then hurried back the way she came.

“Cole,” the beta snapped next, eyes narrowing. “Clear the way. Keep that impersonator busy…stack her with so many distractions she won’t have a second to think. Can you do that?”

Cole’s mouth curled into a sharp smirk. “Oh, I know just the thing,” he drawled, already slipping into the shadows of the corridor.

“Perfect.” The beta’s gaze finally swung back to me, steady and unyielding. “Everything is in place. The last move…the final piece…depends on you, Luna.”

My throat tightened, the weight of his words pressing down like chains. The air felt thinner, heavier.

So the fate of their entire kingdom is resting on my shoulders?

And in that heartbeat, I wasn’t sure if I was walking into salvation…or straight into a trap.