Chapter 3

Kiara Pov 

"We hardly see him. She's so lucky to make him come down here," some she-wolf in the crowd said.

Lucky. Right. I'd add it to the list, somewhere below virgin and feisty and human, all the words people had used about me today like they meant something good.

"I can't wait to see him. Still as handsome as ever," another said, craning for a better look, and someone near her actually giggled. A parade. This was a parade to them.

"I wonder what her crime was, to warrant the king himself."

"Who cares what she did. Even if she stole bread, they should know their place," someone else said, disgusted, and a ripple of nodding heads moved through the crowd, quick and ugly, the way people agree when it costs them absolutely nothing.

I knelt there in a puddle of my own blood and gravel dust, chained to the platform like I had anywhere left to run. Footsteps approached, slow, unhurried, the kind of walk that already knows it's won.

"It's Gamma Raphael," someone said, and the crowd leaned in as one, hungry for it now.

"You thought you could run from me, little slave?" His shadow swallowed mine before his voice did. I kept my head down. They could do whatever they wanted to me now. Might as well save my strength for the parts that mattered.

"You still got balls?" I said, lifting my head to look at him. Gasps rippled out. Someone laughed and choked it into a cough. "Because it's looking like I didn't kick hard enough the first time. Happy to fix that."

The hit came before I saw it coming. My head snapped sideways, ears ringing, my cheek on fire with the kind of force only something inhuman can throw. A woman somewhere in the crowd gasped and grabbed the arm next to her.

"How dare you speak to me that way," he said, stepping closer, close enough his shadow ate mine whole.

"And who the hell are you?" Blood filled my mouth, warm and metallic, and I spat it near his boot on principle. He actually flinched back a step, which small victories. "A weak man who couldn't stand a slave telling him no." His face twisted, ugly, coming apart at the seams. I was going to die today either way. Fear had officially clocked out. "A beast. That's all you are."

He laughed, sharp, humorless, circling me slow like he was picking a spot. "I know I'm a beast, slave. One of the strongest. Gamma of this whole kingdom."

"A gamma," I said, tracking him even as my neck screamed at the effort. "Who can't fight his own battles. Had to call in the king to finish what a human girl started."

"How *dare* you." His hand closed around my throat and hauled me half off my knees, air gone in an instant. The crowd's noise dropped out entirely, that fast lurch from entertained to uneasy, front rows shuffling back like distance might undo what they were watching. "You pathetic human, how dare you call me weak."

My hands clawed uselessly at his forearm. Black crept in at the edges of everything. Somewhere close a kid started crying and got hushed fast.

"Let her go, Raph." A new voice, bored, unbothered, footsteps crossing the platform with no urgency at all. "Wouldn't want to damage the merchandise before the king gets a look."

I'd nearly gone under when his grip loosened and I hit the wood hard. I dragged in air like it owed me money, coughing, curling around the ruin of my own throat, and he stepped back like none of it had happened.

"He's here," someone said, and the whole square turned at once, a single wave of heads.

"The king's here," another said, breathless, bodies pushing forward, boots and elbows and craned necks, the crowd tightening around us like a fist closing.

I didn't bother looking up. Whatever was coming, I just wanted it fast. Footsteps approached, slow, deliberate, the crowd's noise dying with every step until the whole square held one breath together. A pair of boots stopped in front of me. Good stitching. Expensive. Figures.

"Raise your head, slave," a voice said above me, deep, rough at the edges.

I thought about not obeying just to see what he'd do. Decided against it if I played nice maybe he'd make it quick, though I already knew better than to bet on mercy from a man built entirely out of its absence.

I raised my head and looked straight into eyes so dark blue they read almost black. I'd never been this close to him. The one other time I'd laid eyes on him at all, it had been a blur across a courtyard, years back, and he hadn't looked anything like this up close. Nobody warns you how much worse handsome makes a monster.

"Are you the human slave who kicked Raphael in the balls?" Amusement in his voice now, and somewhere behind him someone snorted, a hand clapping over a mouth in the front row.

"I suppose. Who's asking?" I said, before my brain could catch up to my mouth and stop it.

"She's funny," he said, and laughed, tilting his head at me like I was a puzzle he hadn't expected to enjoy solving.

Cold dropped straight through me. Nothing good ever followed a king finding you funny.

"Did he try to fuck you," he asked, all the amusement gone in one breath, black bleeding fully into his eyes, the question landing flat and merciless into a silence so complete I heard Raphael's whole body go rigid behind him.

I hadn't braced for that. Couldn't hold his stare anymore, my eyes dropping before I could stop them.

"He did not," I said.

"Good," the king said.

Good. That was it. One word, and I had absolutely no idea what it meant, or why it had come out of him sounding less like relief and more like a threat aimed at every man standing near me.

The crowd gasped as one, a single sharp sound tearing through the square, and behind me someone stumbled hard enough into someone else that I heard both of them go down.

I didn't understand what I'd just watched happen.

But everyone else clearly did.