Thirty days.
That’s what he promised.
Thirty days in the palace. Thirty nights of submission. Thirty mornings waking up on silk sheets with his scent clinging to her thighs.
But on the thirty-first morning, she wasn’t told to pack.
She wasn’t told anything at all.
She sat at the edge of the bed, the collar still tight around her throat, her body aching in familiar places. Bruises dotted her hips, her inner thighs, her wrists. Not from abuse—but from pleasure she never asked to want.
The golden cuffs were still on her ankles. Loose, but constant. Like an unspoken message:
You may stand. But you’ll never walk away.
She waited for him, like she always did. But he didn’t come.
When the doors finally opened, it wasn’t him.
It was one of the silent maids. The one with almond eyes and s
