Riona
The usurper didn't glorify in the power of having a hundred pairs of knees bent their will to hers. Not like a trueborn queen would have.
Not like she would have.
Her every visible mark, a slap to the face, a wound to her bruised ego, reminding her of what she lost.
And they lapped it up like the hungry dogs that they were. Every drop.
The girl was like a wounded deer, dropped into a court full of slavering dogs, wearing Belstram's savagery like precious pearls.
Daring anyone to look away.
Pathetic.
Magnificent.
Both true in this gilded, savage court..
It would make them love her.
She leaned in then, stopping short of the dais, catching notes of their mingled scent; wildflowers,honey and Belstram's unique potent signature of musk and amber, scent of s*x and shattered dreams.
They were watching.
Always watching.
Waiting for a sign of weakness.
Good.
Let them watch and remember who set the standard for queens in this realm. Let them compare the carefully crafted ice to the raw fire.
Let them see who he gave up when he chose… this.
"Feral thing," she said, soft enough to cut glass, pitching her voice just right, measuring her poison. "Untamed. Unworthy of this court.
"Unworthy of you, My king."
A pause, flicker of reaction from him on the throne, a tightening of his knuckles on the arms of the throne. Fangs descending. And the girl's reaction was priceless too.
Good.
The court drank it in, every kneeling figure hungry for the theater of her carefully curated cruelty, for the court, the dismantling of their new queen.
But she was not acting.
She saw too much in that girl. Not just her raw beauty, though even she could admit the raw unexpectedness of it; stunning. The kind that could unmade a kingdom.
She was a wild spark, thrown right into a seething powder keg of Belstram's loins. He would not kneel for her, had made that brutally clear.
But he would burn the world for the girl. That was intolerable. And so she sharpened her words;
" A temporary distraction, no doubt," she said, "you can deck a mutt in jewels, but you'll never wash out the filth," she finished, smiling cattily.
That set the court ablaze.
He smiled too then—slow and cold, a wolf''s smile, sharp fangs displayed, promising swift, brutal death to any who dared believe her words.
That should have clued her in about the devastation heading her way.
"And yet," he said, voice cutting through the air like cold steel against bone, silencing the whispers instantly.
"She wears more honor on her skin, more truth in her bruises than any wh*re who bent the knee and opened her legs to a Charming."
The court gasped, a collective intake of horrified breath. Riona's smile vanished, eyes glittering like sapphires, blue-hot rage, promising immediate violence, then instantly simmering down into something colder.
She realised her mistake too late. Knew the only way to satisfy the beast was her graceful surrender. Her limbs folded under her gracefully, head bowed , slender neck exposed. Just like he liked.
And she knew how to bleed pretty better than most. She always did.
His words still ricocheted in her skull. Laced with the dark satisfaction of having wounded her most severely.
Charming was just a fling, something to make him territorial and claim her. But instead it backfired in the worst way.
She thought if he had competition that it would make him come begging to have her back. But he did the unexpected and broke things off. She underestimated him.
Never again.
Let him stake his hard-won future on a slip of a girl wrapped in borrowed silk and his claim.
Let him crown her queen of his kingdom.
She would welcome with one hand and gut her with the other. Serve her fire to the court on an icy silver platter before the year is through.
Because the game had changed. She hadn't survived a century thriving in a pit of vipers without learning precisely how to poison the pieces before they could be played against her.
Let her stand beside him now, wearing her little crown of seasons.
Let her smile her wild, unbroken smile.
Soon enough, she would kneel.
Or choke on the power she was too naive to wield.
Layla
Every bone in her body ached with the brutal aftermath.
Every brand stark against her skin. First the eyes, then being guided through and to the throne.
Then Belstram lashing out at them. It was so surreal, like watching a historical drama unfolding on netflix. Watched as they obeyed.
That was when she realised why he was so used to getting his way, he was like a force of nature. Indomitable. And he was King.
And then that devastating creature, beautiful until she parted her lips. There was history there, between her and Belstram, bitter and icy.
She looked at Layla as if dissecting a bug under a microscope,the f**king b*tch. She had received that look before, throughout the years in foster care, and never took it sitting down, even then.
His touch was the only thing keeping her on the seat, and not down the dais, to show her how feral she could be.
She met their scorn, their loathing, their twisted, predatory longing head-on.
And she smiled as Belstram brought the woman to her knees with carefully selected words. He was even more animalistic when he tried to act civilized.
Not sweet, not shameless. No this was a bearing of her soul as she dug deep into her rage.
All fire and teeth.
It was the kind of smile a dying wolf wears, blood-slicked and defiant, pushed into a corner, still defiant, daring the very stars themselves to come down and finish her.
And God help her, she knew with a chilling certainty that settled deep in her bones.
This wasn't the end.
This was just the beginning.
A savage, terrifying beginning.