The messenger’s words felt like shards of ice driving straight into my chest, even though I already knew this.
However, the title itself was vile, obscene even, twisting everything I thought I knew about her. And yet it aligned too neatly with the whispers Serene had poisoned my ears with earlier.
“She didn’t just fall into his favor, Dylan,” Serene had murmured, her voice soaked in venom. “A woman doesn’t stand so confidently by his side without earning her place. The King has always had an appetite for beauty—and she’s become his latest indulgence.”
That vile image refused to leave me.
At the same time, the thoughts of Chloe, tangled in the sheets of another man’s bed—a man whose power made my status pale in comparison seemed to be ingrained in my mind permanently.
On the contrary
