Chapter Six
THE WOMEN DISAPPEARING INTO MY HOME below brought promises of death, sex, and more noise than I could cope with.
Yet another group.
Yet another attempt to make me breed.
I’d lost track of how many they’d sent here over the past two decades. How many I’d killed. How many hopefuls had tried to sneak into my bed.
It was a pity—for those imprisoning me—that they were slowly running out of women who were eager to rent out their wombs. Despite their careful screening to find me a lover, assassins crept through the cracks.
More and more little murderesses came to kill me, until each day became a matter of who could kill who first.
A smirk curled my lips as one of the women broke from the pack and bolted.
The wind was stronger on the roof of my palace.
No one could see me watching them.
I was like the God of Death himself—making notes of which ones I’d end first.
But that one?
The girl with long black hair and dressed like a penniless teenager seemed...different.
“Either she’s pathetically stupid or impressively smart.” The breeze snatched my whisper, shredding it into pieces so no one would hear.
For years on end, I had no one to talk to but myself. They gave me books and pre-approved entertainment, but human companionship wasn’t allowed.
Not unless I got them pregnant.
And even if I did, they’d be whisked away to have my bastard child, condemning my offspring to a fate worse than the hell I currently lived.
I would die before that ever happened.
As the girl fled across the gardens, arrowing toward the wall that she’d never be able to scale, I turned around.
I’d seen enough.
She was just another mouse caught in their trap.
Another morsel I had no intention of enjoying.
My black coat billowed around me.
A chill bit into my skin.
And as I descended the tower to the ballroom, I sighed.
I felt ancient and weary, burning alive with hate and revenge.
Yet now my home was infested with rats, and the games were about to begin.