The guards marched Lauretta through the palace’s marble halls, their grips bruising her arms.
“Wash up quickly,” one muttered, nose wrinkling.
“You smell like the gutter.
The king won’t want a street rat stinking up his chambers.” She knew she didn’t smell bad, she had her shower before the ceremony.
The other smirked.
“Weak little thing.
No mark, no strength.
Bet he breaks you in fast.” Lauretta’s face burned, but she stayed silent.
Finely dressed nobles and servants wrinkled their noses as she passed.
A cluster of women whispered loudly enough for her to hear.
“Pathetic.
Look at those rags.” “Disgusting.
How did someone like her catch his eye?” One man’s low comment made her stomach turn.
“Blackfur does love breaking the low ones…” By the time the guards shoved her into the opulent guest chamber and locked the door, she was shaking with rage.
The room was lavish — black silks, golden chandeliers, thick rugs that cushioned her footsteps.
A tray of roasted meats, fruit, and wine waited on a low table, but the rich smells only turned her stomach further.
She headed straight for the bathroom.
The hot water loosened the worst of the tension in her muscles and washed away the arena’s grime.
For a few precious minutes she simply stood under the spray, eyes closed, trying to steady her breathing.
When she finally stepped out and wrapped herself in a thick towel, she felt marginally more human.
Water dripped from her hair down her back.
She reached to pull back the velvet curtain covering the mirror.
STAY AWAY.
The words were scrawled in thick, dripping red across the glass.
It looked like blood.
Lauretta’s heart slammed against her ribs.
She touched the letters without thinking.
The red smeared on her fingertips — sticky, metallic.
Real.
Who left this?
For her?
For the last woman dragged into this room?
She spun around, clutching the towel tighter, eyes darting into every shadow.
Nothing.
But someone had been here recently.
Heart pounding, she searched the bedroom drawers for anything she could use.
Silk garments, oils, combs… and then her fingers closed around something small and cold in the bottom drawer: a delicate gold hairpin shaped like a winding vine with tiny emerald leaves.
Beautiful.
Expensive.
Probably forgotten by someone who had stayed here.
She gripped it tightly.
Thin, but strong enough to stab or scratch if needed.
A spark of defiance flared in her chest.
She couldn’t leave that warning staring at her.
Grabbing a cloth, she rushed back to the bathroom to wet the cloth and scrubbed furiously.
The red smeared worse, turning the mirror into a gruesome haze.
Her towel slipped as she worked.
Red stained her fingers and dripped onto the marble.
“Come on…” she muttered through gritted teeth.
The sound of the bedroom door unlocking froze her mid-scrub.
Heavy footsteps entered the room.
Lauretta whipped around.
Still clutching the stained cloth, red dripping from her hands.
Her towel hung precariously off one shoulder, wet hair wild around her face, the gold hairpin hidden behind her back like a lifeline.
She quickly pulled the curtains closed covering the ugly red smaers.
Malachi Blackfur stood in the center of the room, his powerful frame dominating the space.
His sharp grey eyes swept over Lauretta once — the wet hair, the trembling posture, the way she kept her hands carefully concealed.
If he noticed anything amiss, he gave no sign.
“Clean at last,” he observed, voice low and commanding.
“Good.
We have much to discuss.” She almost rolled her eyes at his commentary, like as if she hadn’t been clean before.
Lauretta swallowed hard.
“There’s nothing to discuss.
I won’t—” The door opened again before she could finish.
Two guards escorted a woman inside.
Lauretta’s breath caught.
It was her mother — thinner, dressed in finer clothes than she had ever seen her wear, but unmistakably her.
Two more of Malachi’s men lingered just inside the doorway, watching with folded arms.
“Mom?” The word came out small, hopeful despite everything.
Maybe this was the way out.
Maybe she would stand with her.
Lauretta took a step forward, hands still behind her back, gripping the hairpin like a lifeline.
“Mom, please listen.
They dragged me here like some prize from the arena.
The guards mocked me.
The nobles whispered about how pathetic I looked.
I don’t want this life.
I won’t marry him.
We can run.
We can find another way, like we always have.” The slap came without warning.
The crack echoed through the lavish chamber.
Lauretta’s head snapped to the side, fire blooming hot across her cheek.
She caught herself on the edge of the velvet chair, one hand instinctively flying forward before she remembered and tucked it behind her back again.
The sting on her face was sharp.
Low snickers rose from the two guards near the door.
One muttered something under his breath that sounded like “street rat,” and the other chuckled.
“Selfish girl,” her mother spat, voice thick with bitterness.
“After everything I sacrificed for you?
The hunger, the fear, the nights wondering if we’d survive another winter?
You would spit on the alphas gift like this?” Lauretta touched her burning cheek, stunned.
The embarrassment burned deeper than the physical pain.
Her own mother — in front of Malachi and his men — humiliating her like this.
“Mom… how can you—” “You think the world bends to what you want?” She stepped closer, eyes flashing.
“You ought to have been dead by now thanks to your wolflessness, You have been given a chance to live but no,you’d rather cling to your stubborn pride and condemn us both.
Selfish.
Just like your father — always dreaming instead of doing what needed to be done.” The words landed like stones.
Lauretta’s face burned with humiliation.
She could feel the guards’ amused stares boring into her.
One of them snickered again, louder this time.
“Stop complaining, Lauretta,” her mother continued sharply.
“Stop acting like a spoiled child.
Life is not fair.
It never was for us.
You think I enjoyed the things I had to do to keep us alive?
But I did them.
And now you stand here, given everything on a silver platter, and all you can do is whine about what you don’t want.
Grow up.” Lauretta’s throat tightened.
The embarrassment of being scolded like a child in front of the conqueror and his men made her want to disappear.
“Mom, please,” she whispered, voice breaking.
Her mother’s expression didn’t soften.
If anything, it grew harder.
“Everything you are?
What are you, Lauretta?
A foolish child.
What do you know about how things work?
you want to throw away everything I fought for.
I won’t let you drag us back down because you’re too proud to bend.” Lauretta’s face flushed deeper with shame.
She wanted the floor to open and swallow her whole.
The woman who had once protected her was now stripping away her dignity piece by piece in the enemy’s chamber.
Malachi watched the entire exchange in silence, his lips curled slightly in a victorious grin.