Chapter 8

VICTORIA'S POV

If someone had told me a week ago that I would be grateful for a piece of stale bread, I would have laughed in their face. But after spending four days in the dungeon, I had learned that hunger could make a person forget many things, including their pride.

The guards only fed me once a day, and even that depended on their mood. Sometimes, they brought me bread so hard that I had to soak it in water before I could eat it. Other times, they deliberately dropped my food onto the dirty floor and laughed as I struggled to pick it up. I hated giving them the satisfaction of watching me eat from the floor, but what choice did I have? Refusing to eat wouldn't hurt them. It would only make me weaker, and I was already struggling to stay on my feet.

The guards made no effort to hide how much they hated me. They called me a murderer whenever they passed my cell, and some deliberately stopped to remind me of what I had supposedly done to their Queen. One of them was particularly cruel. Every time he brought my food, he made sure to tell me how much he wished the King had allowed me to burn to death on those coals.

"I hope His Majesty fucks you to death," he told me one evening, laughing as he pushed my plate through the bars. "It would serve you right for killing our Queen and her unborn child."

The other guard laughed along with him, but I simply lowered my head and waited for them to leave. There was no point in defending myself. I had tried that enough times to know they wouldn't listen. Besides, I had already wasted enough tears begging people to believe me, and I wasn't about to give these men another reason to laugh at me.

My feet were another problem entirely. The burns I had suffered while walking across those burning coals had barely healed, and the pain became worse whenever I tried to stand or walk. Under normal circumstances, my wolf would have helped my body recover within days, but the black choker around my neck had made that impossible. I had tried removing it several times, of course, but the cursed thing wouldn't budge. All I had managed to achieve was making my neck sore, as if I didn't already have enough injuries to worry about.

The worst part of being locked up wasn't even the hunger or the pain. It was not knowing what King Lennox intended to do with me. He had promised to make me his breeder if I survived the trial, and I had done exactly that. Yet four days had passed without a single word from him. I couldn't tell whether he had forgotten about me or was deliberately making me wait. Knowing what little I did about him, I suspected the latter.

By the fourth evening, I had stopped expecting anything to change. I was sitting against the wall, trying to stretch my injured legs without putting pressure on my burned feet, when I heard footsteps approaching. I didn't bother looking up at first. The guards often came down the corridor just to insult me, and I wasn't in the mood to entertain them.

But this time, the footsteps stopped directly outside my cell, followed by the sound of keys.

I looked up and found two guards standing on the other side of the bars. One was the same man who had spent the past four days telling me how much he wanted me dead. The other was already unlocking the door.

"Get up."

I stared at them, confused. They had never opened my cell at this hour before, and neither of them was carrying food.

"Where are you taking me?" I asked as I struggled to my feet.

"His Majesty wants to see you."

For a moment, I couldn't decide whether to feel relieved or terrified. Four days ago, Lennox had promised to spare my life, but the last thing he had told me was that I would soon wish I had died during the trial.

"The King?" I asked, hoping I had misunderstood.

The guard gave me an impatient look. "Do you know another His Majesty?"

Before I could say anything else, he grabbed my arm and dragged me out of the cell. I stumbled when I tried to put weight on my burned feet, and a sharp pain shot through my soles.

"Please, my feet—"

"Then walk faster," he snapped, tightening his grip.

I pressed my lips together and forced myself to keep moving. The other guard followed behind us, and I could hear him laughing whenever I struggled to keep up.

We climbed the dungeon staircase and entered the palace through a narrow passageway. After spending four days surrounded by damp walls and filthy floors, the clean corridors almost seemed unfamiliar. I tried to guess where they were taking me, but the guards refused to answer any more questions.

At one point, we passed a corridor that led toward the royal courtyard, and I remembered the burning coals I had been forced to walk across during the trial. I had survived that night because I had refused to die for a crime I hadn't committed. But as the guards continued dragging me through the palace, I couldn't help wondering whether Lennox had finally decided that sparing my life had been a mistake.

I had expected them to take me straight to him, but they stopped outside a room where two maids were waiting.

"Get her ready," one of the guards instructed.

The older maid looked me over, and judging by the expression on her face, she wasn't particularly pleased with what she saw. I couldn't blame her. My dress was covered in dirt and dried blood, my hair was tangled, and I probably smelled terrible. Still, she didn't have to wrinkle her nose quite so dramatically.

"Come with us," she said.

I glanced at the guards, but they had already turned to leave. Whatever Lennox had planned for me, it seemed I was expected to find out without asking any more questions.

I followed the maids into a bathroom that was larger than the bedroom I had occupied back at Blood Moon Pack. A beautiful marble bathtub stood near the wall, already filled with steaming water. Clean towels and several bottles of scented oil had been arranged on a nearby table. For a moment, I forgot about everything else. After four days in the dungeon, I couldn't remember the last time something as ordinary as a warm bath had looked so wonderful.

"Well?" the older maid asked impatiently. "Are you going to stand there all evening?"

I quickly turned toward her. "Sorry."

"Remove those clothes."

I obeyed, carefully pulling off my torn dress. My feet were still badly burned, and I had to move slowly to avoid putting too much pressure on them. The younger maid watched me with a look of disgust.

"Hurry up," she snapped. "His Majesty doesn't have all night."

I wanted to remind her that I was injured and not deliberately wasting her time, but I kept my mouth shut. After everything I had endured in the dungeon, arguing with a maid over how quickly I could undress seemed pointless.

Once I was done, I carefully stepped into the bathtub without saying anything. The warm water stung the burns on my feet and the cuts on my body, but I was so relieved to finally be clean that I barely cared. I washed away four days' worth of dirt and dried blood, then spent several minutes trying to untangle my hair.

For the first time since my arrest, I almost felt human again. Unfortunately, that feeling didn't last.

When I finished bathing, the older maid handed me a white silk robe.

"Put this on."

I stared at it for a moment. There was no dress waiting for me, only the robe she was holding out. It was beautiful, certainly, but I couldn't understand why the King would summon me from the dungeon only to have me bathed and dressed in something meant for sleeping.

"His Majesty specifically requested it," she added when I hesitated.

I looked at the robe again, and suddenly, I understood.

I had spent four days wondering whether Lennox would change his mind and order my execution. Somehow, in all that time, I had barely allowed myself to think about the agreement that had saved my life in the first place.

I had offered to become his breeder, but was it really happening tonight?