Finally, Nathan reached out. He snatched the bread from the dirt and shoved it into his maw, devouring it with the desperate intensity of a starving cur. The coarse, dry grain—fodder he wouldn't have fed to a stray in his past life—now tasted like the sweetest nectar.
"Hehe... I thought you said you wouldn't touch it?"
"Guess it wasn't so 'dirty' after all, eh?"
"Look at him! The prestigious young Alpha, groveling like a beggar for a scrap of floor-bread."
"What a disgrace. He eats just like a dog."
Cruel laughter erupted from every corner of the cell, striking Nathan’s face like a barrage of slaps. His skin burned with a hot, shameful flush, but his heart felt as if it had been tossed into a glacial abyss. He was no longer a King; he was the pariah on the bridge, mocked by the passin
