Chapter 10 · Prey in the Palace

“Get your hands off me!”

I shrieked, twisting my wrist. The guard didn't even flinch. He just tightened his grip and shoved me forward, my boots skidding across the polished black marble.

“Quiet, little stray,” he sneered. “You’re lucky the King’s in a mood to let you breathe. Most things that end up here don’t last the hour.”

I glared at the back of his neck. My heart was a trapped bird, slamming against my ribs. “I’m not a thing. And I’m not staying here.”

“Wrong.”

A woman in a sharp, midnight-blue uniform stepped into my path. Her eyes scanned me with pure disgust—from my frayed clothes to the smudge of dirt on my cheek. I was a leak in the ceiling. A stain.

“You’re exactly what the King ordered,” she said. “A toy. A sedative. A piece of meat that happens to have the right blood.”

I stopped fighting. I looked her dead in the eye. “Is that all I am to him? A bottle of medicine?”

She laughed. Cold. Dry. “Don’t flatter yourself. You’re a tool. Tools get replaced once they break. Now move.”

They dragged me toward the East Wing.