Chapter One

Vicious snarls echoed down the halls, armored men dragging a filth-covered female over blood-red tiles. At the end of this hall waited a male with skin the color of pale moonlight, neatly combed hair as dark as a raven's feathers. Along the walls, stationed at each stained-glass window, stood a guard, ready to defend their king.

Not that the female could do much. Starvation and dehydration makes one a very, very unintimidating threat.

The armored men stopped before their king, the female held between two of them. Thrashing in their grip, maw dripping with saliva, she snapped at the males at her sides. Some inhuman words tore from her throat, proving her to be Fae.

Shoving her to her knees, the female turned her vicious gaze to the male, her animosity shifting toward him as well.

Well. Rude.

"The common tongue, if you'd please," the king said, even as something clicked in his chest, some piece of knowledge he'd think over later.

The female didn't switch over, but the king knew enough of the language of the Fae to know that she snarled threats.

"The common tongue," he repeated, almost demanded, his blood red eyes narrowing.

So she switched over, a slew of curses spilling from her mouth, accompanied by quite a few threats.

"Girl," he cut her off, "Have you any idea who you're talking to?"

"Have you any idea who you've imprisoned?" she snapped back, her accent thick, "I am a princess, and I will end you if you do not release me."

The king rolled his eyes.

They'd found the girl in one of their back alleys, scrounging for scraps, when she'd attacked one of the city guards. The city guard had to call in the Royal Guard to subdue the half-starved, panicked, and desperate Fae. They'd proceeded to bring her here, to him, so that he might decide to do with the delirious female.

Another batch of curses, this time in Fae, broke from the girl's snarling lips.

Princess indeed.

"Girl. You'd do well to watch what you say to me," he replied, reaching a hand for the female's throat, "I am the k- FUCKER!"

The female clamped her jaws around his wrist and tore, blue blood spilling across the tiles.

Yanking his arm away, his arms already healing thanks to his vampiric abilities, he stared, incredulous, at the female. Blood blood dripped from her maw, mixing with the saliva already pooling on the floor beneath her, and she grinned.

"You bitch," he snarled.

Her grin widened.

"Throw the mongrel in the darkest, most secure cell we have," the king snarled, "Do not let her see the light again until she's regained her senses."

Why in all lf hell did it feel wrong to say that?

The armored men, the guards that had brought her in, tugged her away. She snapped at one of them, and the king added, "And put a muzzle on her!"

One of the guards departed to retrieve one.

The female still thrashed, still snapped at whatever she could reach, still screamed her slew of curses until she was dragged out of the hall, the mighty dark oak doors slamming shut. A silence settled in, the king seething. Stalking off, he departed for a healer.

Yes, he could heal on his own, but no, he did not want to risk an infection from whatever filth was on that female's fangs.

He wasn't quite sure how he felt about that.

Not with that stupid little mating bond between them.

*

The swearing and thrashing did not end, not after the muzzle, not after the chains, not after the iron door had been shut and sealed. The threats didn't end either, until the female's voice failed, the dehydration finally showing through.

She continued to struggle against her iron chains, despite the weakness from having eaten nothing but scraps for weeks, despite the burning that hollowed her bones. Only when she could no longer lift her arms to yank at the chains did she give up, curling up in the farthest corner, monitoring the door.

Not a broken beast, no. If anything, a defiant monster, waiting for her chance to strike.

The guards ignored the female's movements. They had no need to monitor her. Not with the iron chains, the iron door, the iron that they would no doubt be mixing into her food.

As if the female had the strength to use her non existant magic anyway.

She didn't do much, just laid in the corner, her tail slowly sweeping back and forth over the dusty stone floor. Her yellow-orange eyes flickered from the door to the single barred window that let in only enough light for the guards to be able to see the female inside.

Eventually, the female drifted into the land of darkness, her eyes too heavy to stay open, her enegry spent. And she did not dream.