Page 8 of Knotted By the Triad

I’d stared at those damn pictures enough while reading the book to know exactly who I was looking at. The green-haired man was Zhen Kai of the Zhen family’s Iron Clan. The long-haired one was Wu Daemin of the Wu family’s Assassin Clan. And the one with the buzz cut was Hao Zian of the Hao family’s Shadow Clan.

Kai, Daemin, and Zian. The three leaders of the Triad who were related to the new king, making them royals now. They were the three dragon-shifter alphas from the first book in Realm of Fantasies.

But how were they standing before me right now? This had to be a dream or a hallucination. Maybe I was unconscious in the hospital, and my brain had decided to entertain itself. That made more sense than believing that three fictional men were truly standing in front of me.

“Are you listening to me?” Kai, the green-haired guy, asked, his tone laced with fury.

I frowned at him. His voice sounded exactly as I’d imagined while reading the book. Deep, commanding, and a little too used to people doing whatever the hell he told them to do.

“I don’t know what your father told you before sending you here,” he continued. “But this marriage changes nothing.”

My father?

What father?

I didn’t have a father.

I had three best friends, the woman who’d raised us at the orphanage, an online boutique, a wig business, and soon a hospital bill waiting for me somewhere in the real world. What I didn’t have was a father, and I definitely wasn’t married.

Kai kept talking, but I could barely concentrate on what he was saying. My head felt too heavy, and the ringing in my ears had returned. I blinked, my vision starting to blur again. Then he said something that made my heart almost stop beating.

“Zuri Bane of the Poison Clan, do you hear me?” he roared.

My stomach dropped.

Poison Clan?

Zuri Bane of the fucking Poison Clan!

I looked down at myself. I wasn’t wearing the black dress I’d put on for my girls’ night celebration. Instead, red silk covered me from my chest to my ankles. Layers of it. Gold thread decorated the fabric in elaborate patterns.

I managed to lift one sluggish hand. Gold-painted nails stared back at me. My nails were supposed to be medium-length, pale pink, and French-tipped. These were long, like claws. And sharp. They were the nails of Zuri Bane of the Poison Clan.

“No,” I mumbled, the word coming out as a breathless whisper.

I looked around the room again, then back at the men.

Noooo!

My heart started beating so hard that I could hear it pounding in my ears. This could not be happening. I could not be that Zuri Bane. There had to be another explanation. Please, let there be another explanation.

“Daveah was the omega promised to us,” Kai continued, seemingly oblivious to the fact that I was seconds away from having a complete breakdown. “Your father replacing her with you at the last minute does not change the agreement between our families.”

Daveah?

I knew that name too. Daveah Bane was Zuri’s younger sister. She was the daughter Orion had originally arranged to marry the three new leaders of the Triad. Except Daveah had been in love with a scholar and wanted nothing to do with her father’s arrangement.

She ran away with her lover before the wedding. That was how Zuri ended up here. Orion couldn’t break the marriage pact without bringing the King’s wrath down on the Bane family, so he’d ordered his oldest daughter back home from the countryside to take her sister’s place.

I looked down at the red silk covering me again. This was a traditional wedding dress. My gaze moved back to the three men standing beside the bed. And those were the new leaders of the Triad.

Each one came from one of the three founding families. Together, they ruled over their territories with iron fists. And they destroyed anyone who got in their way.

“Oh. My. God,” I whispered.

I was in CiCi’s book. And this was Zuri Bane’s wedding night. And if I was Zuri Bane, that meant the three men standing in front of me were my husbands. My stomach rolled, and I suddenly felt nauseous.

No. I refused to believe this was really happening to me. Although I couldn’t think of one, there had to be a logical explanation for why I was lying in Zuri Bane’s bed, wearing her wedding clothes, with her husbands standing over me.