“As I said, I was raped, and that doesn’t fully explain how I got these scars. To understand, I need to tell you my story from the beginning. My mother was one of the king’s human s*x slaves, young and beautiful. When she ended up pregnant with his child - me - he knew she had to escape before I was born because his mate and my wretched stepmother, Jane, hadn’t conceived by then. Desperate, she fled into the night, leaving everything behind to give me a chance at freedom and to save me from Jane’s inevitable wrath if I were born in the castle.
For five precious years, we had a small taste of happiness, though always glancing over our shoulders. Then Jane finally tracked us down. She threw us into a dank, lightless cell, more tomb than prison. Every day, she visited to rain blows upon my m
