All Chapters of THE DRAGON KING'S LITTLE BUNNY : Chapter 1 - Chapter 6

LUCY'S POV The money was real.That was the first thing I checked when I woke.I sat on the edge of the unfamiliar bed with the thick bundle of notes in my lap, counting them for the third time. My fingers kept slipping, not from carelessness but from a tremor I couldn't quite master. Two hundred thousand. Exactly as promised.For a long moment, I couldn't move.Molly would get her treatment.That was all that mattered. That was the only thing that was ever going to matter.Pale morning light slid through the gap in the heavy curtains and laid a thin gold line across the sheets. I dressed quickly, in the careful, mechanical way of someone who has decided not to feel anything yet, and I refused to look at the empty side of the bed. The man who had paid me was gone. He had left behind the faint scent of expensive cologne, and a glass of water on the bedside table, placed there as though someone had thought about what I might need when I woke.I didn't even know his name.I knew he had

LUCY'S POV "Her?"Lady Evelisse Thornwood's voice carried across the throne room. She looked at me as though the prince had just announced his intention to marry a rat."Your Highness, surely you cannot be serious."I wished she would stop talking. I wished everyone would stop looking at me. Most of all, I wished the prince would take back his decision and choose someone else.He appeared to have no intention of doing so. He stood before me with his golden eyes fixed on my face, and he hadn't spoken since choosing me. Somehow his silence was more terrifying than every insult in the room.The queen rose from her throne. "As tradition requires, three additional women must accompany my son's first choice into the final trial. Lady Evelisse Thornwood,Lady Crystal Faynn. And Lady Celestine Ashbourne."Evelisse straightened, victory curling across her mouth. Celestine stepped forward in a gown of shimmering silver, and her eyes travelled from the prince to me with open displeasure. I under

~~LUCY'S POV~~ The royal physician arrived before I had finished convincing myself that none of this was real. He was an elderly man with silver hair and a neatly trimmed beard, and he carried himself like someone who had delivered bad news to kings and lived to tell of it. A leather case hung from one hand. In the other, a small crystal vial caught the firelight and scattered it across the ceiling. Elara took her place beside the door, eyes fixed on the floor. She had the look of a woman who suspected something I didn't. "Good morning, Miss Lucy." "Good morning." "I've been instructed to examine you after your collapse on the Moon Bridge." I nodded. Nobody in this palace seemed to need my permission for anything. He took my wrist first, two cool fingers pressed against my pulse, his gaze drifting somewhere over my shoulder as he counted. Then came the questions. Had I slept? Did my head ache? Had I eaten anything since the trials began? Ordinary questions. Harmless