The Crown Thief and Her Alpha Prince

Amelia Cooper’s Point of View The castle silhouette stood high in the mountains in the dim light of the almost full, waning moon. Amelia Cooper sighed, replacing a long strand of red hair behind her ear. She had finally almost reached the gaudy, ostentatious home of the Harrow’s, the royal family.  It was as disgustingly pretentious as she had imagined. It was beautiful, sure. But it seemed that it was mocking the impoverished villages around, flaunting the wealth of the royal family while the population was starving.  The Harrows were a clan of powerful wolf shifters. The king, Leopold Harrow, was an Alpha wolf shifter that had seized power almost three decades ago. He was a skilled general with a pragmatic mind that was not afraid to send one army to its death in order to win on another front. His wit had helped him win the war - and his status as the leader of the biggest clan in all the kingdom of Onyx also helped. However, King Leopold had had another advantage on his side. The Golden Crown of Skavon.  No one truly knew what the crown truly did and what was the true extent of its powers, but the legend surrounding it was bigger than life. It was said that it had been given by the gods themselves to the land of Onyx, so the people could see their true ruler. It was lost for centuries, before the Harrows found it again Whoever wore it could control the minds of people around it and create powerful illusions so convincing that it was said that an entire enemy army once jumped off a cliff because they were convinced there was a bridge. The only one who could unleash its complete potential was the true Alpha leader of the kingdom of Onyx. Leopold had made great use of it in battle. Magic was quite rare in the kingdom of Onyx, and nothing was near as potent as the Golden Crown of the Skavon. King Leopold had two sons and a daughter. He also had a trolley of unimportant relatives that obeyed them. The queen, the Luna, had been dead for many years now - Amelia did not know nor care what happened to her. Amelia had heard that the sons were both quite handsome - and as arrogant as their father. Not that it mattered or that it changed why she was here in the first place. One of her few friends she had back home had visited the palace once and had seen one of them, the youngest, Prince Edmund Harrow. She had gushed for weeks about how stunning and tall and sexy he was, annoying Amelia to no end.  She never held a peculiar love for the royal family, and hearing that they were supposedly good-looking did not change her opinion of them. Besides, how sexy could a spoiled prince be?  The Harrows protected the region against other packs of wolves, but took heavy taxes in exchange for that service  - which no human ever asked for. Sure, some wolf packs could be violent and barbaric, hunting humans just for sports, and the fact that the kingdom of Onyx was safe from them was a nice perk. But what the king wolf asked for that protection was too much. Amelia had never met the royal family (had never met a shifter really), but she was familiar with the effects of their reign. The village she had grown up in was two weeks away by foot. In it, everyone was struggling to get by and to put food on the table everyday, as taxes had grown more and more to fund the king’s extravagances.  The castle was one of those extravagances. It was imposing, way bigger than Amelia had imagined. It looked like it could house more than a thousand people. It was perched on the ridge of a tall mountain, surrounded by deep woods. The castle’s architecture was scary in a way, with tall dark towers disappearing in the cold and dense mist of the night, the only way in being a long drawbridge.  Despite that, Amelia felt lighter and more confident then she had in weeks.  Tomorrow, she would enter the grounds and offer her help as a staff member. She knew they would hire her, even though she was a frail, undernourished, unimpressive human.  The royal family preferred to hire wolves shifters like themselves - something about building a loyal pack - but good help was hard to find these days. Not that Amelia was good help. She was clumsy, impatient, and could not hold her tongue or follow good manners.  However, she had great contacts within the hidden world of criminals. Being an orphan and having to rely on petty theft to survive did not have many perks, but this was one of them.  By pulling a few strings and asking for a few favors, Amelia had acquired forged reference letters from imaginary, far-off nobles. All of them said that she was the best, most respectable maid there was (although she had never even worked as one). Few workers actually managed to stay long at the palace, no matter how attractive living in the palace sounded. The lucky ones ran off to form their own rogue packs far away, driven off by the capricious whims of the royals. The less fortunate ones well…  The king had little patience for anything he deemed incompetency. He also had an enormous dungeon and a tendency to send anyone who displeased him there, when he did not execute them right away.  Either way, few lasted more than a few months with the Harrow’s.   Amelia had no intention of staying that long. Once she was hired, the royal family would offer her a lumpy bed, some meager wages and tasteless meals. She would accept with fake gratitude. It would be more than she had in weeks on the road. She would spend a few days getting familiar with the hustle and bustle of the servants, guards and royal family.  She would learn everything about the castle grounds. She would find good spots to hide, secret passageways, and discrete ways out.  Then, she would steal the Golden Crown of Skavon. She had no partner in crime, no help. She had been backstabbed too many times to risk trusting anyone with a prize this big. Amelia strongly doubted she could actually use the Golden Crown of Skavon. She would try - she would be crazy not to - but she did not hold much hope. Only King Leopold, and maybe his sons William and Edmund, could be counted as true heirs of the Onyx Kingdom. The real goal would be to sell it. Amelia could either ransom it back to the Harrows or sell it on the black market. She had not decided yet. All she knew is that she would never go back to a life on the street, committing small thefts that never seemed to be enough to find herself a place to live. An unmarried woman alone was uncommon and led to everything being more complicated for her. The only way out of her crappy life was by marrying (which Amelia would never do - even if someone did want an orphan with a bad attitude as a wife) or by being filthy rich. The Golden Crown of Skavon was her ticket out.  Amelia would live a comfortable life, alone, on an island far, far away from the gloomy castle and its vicious beasts of a royal family.  Her belly would always be full and her heart would feel content knowing that the bastard king, Leopold Harrow, would be fuming - and weaker than ever before. Wolf shifters had had the power for too long. Without the crown, maybe a human rebellion could have a chance. Then, the royal family would finally pay for what they had done to the kingdom of Onyx.  To what they had done to her. Amelia herself would not participate in an uprising of course, of course. She was stealing the Golden Crown of Skavon to buy herself some peace, not to get into more trouble. But if the humans did win... It would be better for her, and it would be better for the kingdom of Onyx too. Good riddance.  A gust of cool wind made Amelia shiver. Judging by the position of the stars, it was well past midnight. She had walked a long way tonight in order to make sure she would be able to reach the castle grounds early in the morning.  She was exhausted and was considering setting camp for the night somewhere in the woods bordering the road. A wolf howl echoed from the forest, not too far from her, as if to dissuade her. Amelia sighed. Better walk a few more minutes. She could see the dim lights of the village nearest to the castle. She had no coin to pay for a night at an inn, but she could probably sneak in a barn.  Some place warm and safe for the night. Suddenly, a loud voice slurred behind her, pulling her out of her thoughts and making her insides twist with fear. “Hey, sweetheart! Are you lost?”