🔥Click to read all Chapters>>>
Clementine's POV In the dusty border town of Northford, tucked away in the northwest, I—Clementine Valencia—was being dragged back after my ninety-ninth failed escape. The sun scorched everything beneath it, and the wind hurled stinging sand into thick, choking clouds. I yanked my scarf higher, shielding my face and hair from the grit that clawed at every inch of exposed skin. A battered jeep rumbled toward us from the opposite direction and screeched to a halt right in front of the villagers and me. The window cranked down with a rusty gr0an. Through the gap I caught the driver’s sharp profile—long, fire-red hair tied back carelessly, a few wild strands slipping across his forehead. When he finally turned, I saw a face that looked battle-worn yet impossibly striking: clean jawline, refined features that screamed he didn’t belong in this godforsaken place. Even with my wrists bound, he didn’t spare me a single glance. He simply extended a thick stack of hundred-dollar bills and asked—in crisp Alvarian—where he could buy gas. The villagers only spoke the local dialect; his words meant nothing to them. But their eyes stayed locked on the money like starving dogs. My gaze drifted from the hand offering cash to the other one wrapped around the steering wheel—strong, veined, steady. Tomorrow morning I would be forced into marriage with Brett Ellison, the decrepit village chief who wanted me to breed him heirs. Twenty hours. That was all I had left. And then this stranger appeared. He and that jeep might be my only way out of this nightmare. He clearly didn’t understand a word the villagers were shouting. Just as he started to pull his hand back with a scowl, I spoke up in perfect Alvarian. “There’s a town about twenty kilometers that way. Look for the yellow house—they sell gas, but they’ll rob you blind.” That was the first time I ever spoke to Leopold Krause. The jeep roared off in a cloud of dust. I ignored the villagers crowing over their bribe an
