From Slave to Savior of the Lycan King

The whip came down before Luna could brace for it. She had learned, over the years, that bracing did nothing. The pain arrived the same either way. So she stood in the mud at the center of the market square, hands bound in front of her, and let her body take it without giving them the sound they wanted. "Again," said the overseer. His name was Brant, and he liked an audience. There was one today. A crowd had gathered near the grain carts, the way crowds always gathered when someone was being punished. Children peered out from behind their mothers' skirts. A few of the older wolves watched with the flat, bored eyes of people who had seen this a hundred times and would see it a hundred more. Luna had not stolen the bread. She had picked it up off the ground after another slave dropped it, meaning to hand it back. It did not matter. Nothing she said in the moment mattered, so she had stopped saying anything at all. The whip came down a second time. She swayed but did not fall. "Look at her," someone muttered. "Won't even cry." "Cursed blood," said another. "They don't feel things right." She had heard that one before too. Cursed blood. It was what people called her kind, the wolves born without a pack, without a name that meant anything, sold from household to household since before she could remember. Her mother used to tell her it was not a curse, it was just bad luck and worse men, but her mother had been dead six years and could not tell her anything now. Brant raised the whip a third time. It never came down. A hand caught his wrist from behind, and the market square went silent so fast that Luna heard her own pulse in her ears. She knew who it was before she turned her head. Everyone knew. The air itself seemed to change around him, heavier, colder, like the moment before a storm breaks. King Kael Draven did not often walk through the lower market. He did not need to. But he was here now, in a plain grey coat with no crown, no guard at his back that Luna could see, and his eyes were fixed on Brant's arm like he was considering whether to break it. "Whose slave is this," Kael said. His voice was quiet. Quiet was worse than shouting, Luna would learn later. Shouting men lost control. This man never did. Brant's mouth opened and closed twice before words came out. "Palace kitchens, my lord. She stole" "I did not ask what she did." Kael let go of his wrist like he was dropping something unclean. "I asked whose she is." "The kitchens, my lord. Under Mistress Yara." Kael looked at Luna for the first time. She had been told never to meet his eyes. Everyone in the palace said the same thing about the king, that his stare could stop a man's heart, that servants who looked too long into his face were never seen again. Luna did not believe most of what people said in whispers. But she had also never had a king standing three feet from her with blood running down her back, so she kept her gaze on the mud and said nothing. "Look at me," he said. She did. His eyes were pale gold, the color of a wolf's eyes and not a man's, and for one strange second something moved behind them, a flicker of surprise he did not seem to expect from himself. It was gone as fast as it came. His jaw tightened like he had bitten down on something. "Take her to the palace," he said, to no one in particular, already turning away. "She serves in my chambers now." Brant sputtered something about kitchen staffing. Kael did not stop walking. That was how Luna found herself, an hour later, standing in a hallway of the royal wing with her wrists still raw from the rope, waiting to be told what she had done to deserve either punishment or promotion, because in the palace those two things were never far apart. Mistress Yara walked her up the stairs herself, muttering the whole way about how she did not have girls to spare, about how the last servant assigned to the king's private chambers had lasted eleven days before requesting a transfer to the stables, about how Luna had better learn to keep her eyes down and her mouth shut if she wanted to see a twelfth day. "Why me," Luna asked, when Yara paused to catch her breath at the top of the stairs. Yara looked at her like the question itself was foolish. "Because he pointed at you, girl. Kings don't explain themselves." "He didn't even know my name." "Neither do I," Yara said, not unkindly, and pushed open a set of tall double doors. The king's chambers were larger than any room Luna had ever stood in, all dark wood and cold stone, a fire burning low in a hearth big enough to roast a whole boar. Kael was not there. A woman near the wardrobe handed Luna a plain grey dress and told her to change quickly, that the king did not like to wait, that she should have his evening meal laid out before he returned from the council chamber. Luna changed. Her hands were shaking, though she told herself it was only the cold. She had the table set when the doors opened again and Kael walked in alone, already pulling his coat from his shoulders. He did not look at her at first. He dropped into the chair at the head of the table like a man who had been carrying something heavy all day and had finally set it down. Then his eyes found her, standing near the wall with her hands folded, and he frowned. "You're still bleeding," he said. Luna glanced down at her sleeve. A dark patch had soaked through near her shoulder where the whip had caught skin under her collar. She had not noticed it in the rush to get dressed. "It's nothing, my lord." "It's not nothing. Come here." She did not want to. Every instinct told her to stay against the wall where it was safe, where she was invisible, but a king's command was not a request, so she crossed the room and stood in front of him. He reached out, and his fingers brushed the torn fabric near her shoulder to move it aside. The moment his skin touched hers, the room seemed to tilt. It was not pain. It was something closer to memory, though none of what flashed behind her eyes belonged to her. A burning hall. A woman screaming a name that was not Luna's. A crown resting on dark hair, and then blood, so much blood, spreading across white stone. She gasped and pulled back so fast she stumbled. Kael was already on his feet, one hand braced against the table, his whole body rigid. His breathing had gone ragged, and for a moment his eyes were not gold anymore but something closer to burning amber, an animal light with no man behind it at all. "What did you do to me," he said, and his voice had changed too, lower, rougher, barely his own. Before Luna could answer, he collapsed.