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“The necklace was used up by the spell… so what did you get out of it? Nothing.” A tentative smile plays across her lips. “Face it, you were being kind and generous.”
“Doesn’t sound like me.” I open the door a crack and cast a sight-veil for a few seconds so the guard halfway down the hall won’t see me emerge from the cell. I slip back into the hall, press my palm to the round mirror on the door, and vanish my doppelganger. I’ll be able to activate the mirror again as many times as necessary until it cracks at midnight.
The veil falls from the guard’s sight a moment later, and I stride past him, with a muttered explanation that I’m off to fetch food for the King’s concubine.
The word concubine lingers sourly on my tongue and spawns a vision of the big, brutal King prying Juliette’s thighs apart with both his coarse hands—shoving his dick inside her, rutting hard while she winces with pain.
Hot rage boils in my chest, in my head.
That will not happen. I will die first.
But once the King sees the roomful of gold, he’s bound to want to test Juliette’s other attributes. He’ll call her to bed tomorrow night, I have no doubt.
Which means I need to begin thinking of a way to stop that from happening... or if I can’t stop it, at least to ensure that Juliette isn’t forced to submit to attentions she doesn’t want.
It’ll be a challenge. But this is the sort of challenge I like… helping a gorgeous woman, and putting an asshole in his place.
8
The spindle stands bare and silent, all traces of light and magic gone.
Instead of the piles of straw, bobbins stand in neat rows, laden with precious metal. When I pick up a bobbin and try to unwind its contents, I can’t. The malleable thread solidified once it was wound around the bobbins, creating a shining lump of gold.
“Straw into gold,” I murmur in wonder.
I’m not sure exactly what time it is, but I have a feeling we worked for several hours. I desperately need to use the privy, but Rupert told me not to contact any of the guards until he got back, so I wait. By the time he returns with a covered cart of food, I’m doing a little dance of desperation.
“Privy, now,” I tell him, and I push past the cart into the hallway.
Rupert shoves the cart the rest of the way into the room and closes the door swiftly so the guard down the hall can’t see inside.
He hustles me along, around the corner, and into a long, narrow room. There’s a trough with pipes and spigots branching over it… no toilets that I can see.
“What’s this?” I exclaim.
“The guards’ privy.”
“Where are the toilets?”
“There’s a pissing trough right there, which also serves as a sink.”
I cringe with horror. “But the female guards—surely they don’t have to use this.”
“I’m sure they do. I imagine they stand astride the corner of the trough and aim.”
“But what if someone has to—do something other than piss?”
He shrugs. “They sit on the edge, I suppose.”
“This is barbaric.”
“It’s the prison level, sweetheart. Did you expect the facilities to be elegant?”
My hands curl into fists. “It’s not just that. It’s the way the King is treating us… treating me. A fine gown when I appear before him, and yet I’m expected to relieve myself under these conditions? A lovely bedroom, and yet I’m stripped down, scrubbed, and shaved with no regard for my preferences or modesty?”
Rupert gives me a long look, his blue eyes glowing unnaturally bright. “To him, you girls are weapons, tools, pleasure toys, and breeders.”
“Exactly. It’s horrible.”
