I Became Friends with the Second Cutest Girl in My Class (WN) - Chapter 8: Chapter 8 – The Second Time

[WARNING: MATURE CONTENT]

Corinne was never the princess, just her stand-in, sent to marry Alpha Barrett Locke and end a war.The crown was fake, the vows were lies, but the mate bond that snapped into place the night he marked her was brutally real. He knew she wasn’t the real bride. He claimed her anyway.When the true princess returned, he locked Corinne away to bury the scandal. She escaped carrying his child.Six years later, she returns, not as a decoy, but a self-made powerhouse with an empire of her own and a five-year-old son who has Barrett's eyes. She came for revenge.He sees his mate, his heir, and the bond that never died.This time, he’ll destroy anything to keep them both.One deception started the war between them. One child will finish it.

A thousand years have passed since the Variants first appeared from the Rifts. God answered the prayers of the human race and gave them a chance to fight back.He bestowed special marks called crests upon twelve who were worthy, granting them unfathomable power to fend off the wave of attacks.Well… that's what the church wants us to think.Man, being man, found a way. And in the present day, large numbers of the population have crests, and those that don't are treated as second-rate.This was the case with Marcus, who spent most of his life doing odd jobs—until one of those jobs led to his demise.At the hands of whom??The son of a major crest-bearing house.Marcus is reincarnated into the body of his killer and soon finds that despite being from a major house, the boy did not have a crest.At least, not one that was bestowed upon him by God.

The Principality of Atall lies between two great powers: the Kingdom of Allion to the west, and the Holy Dytiann Alliance to the east. Leo Attiel, the second-born prince, was sent to Allion as little more than a hostage, where he studied and trained in the military arts under a frontier general. And now, the times have reached a turning point.

Relations between Allion and Conscon Temple, a neutral land adjoining Atall, have worsened. Percy, sent from Atall as reinforcement; Camus, a warrior monk; and Kuon, a mercenary from a remote region, join forces to resist the looming threat of Allion’s army.

At the centre of the fighting, the three of them and Leo are about to have their fated encounter.