CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR

“As I said, I was raped, and that doesn’t fully explain how I got these scars. To understand, I need to tell you my story from the beginning. My mother was one of the king’s human sex slaves, young and beautiful. When she ended up pregnant with his child - me - he knew she had to escape before I was born because his mate and my wretched stepmother, Jane, hadn’t conceived by then. Desperate, she fled into the night, leaving everything behind to give me a chance at freedom and to save me from Jane’s inevitable wrath if I were born in the castle.

For five precious years, we had a small taste of happiness, though always glancing over our shoulders. Then Jane finally tracked us down. She threw us into a dank, lightless cell, more tomb than prison. Every day, she visited to rain blows upon my mother’s wasting body, beating her till her once lovely face was mottled with bruises and blood. The guards took their turns with her as well, violating her