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A few minutes later we’re exiting the back door and heading down a stone path that leads away from the house toward a cottage nestled at the edge of the forest.

“What is that?” I ask, trying to keep up. Everything in the past few days seems to be moving fast.

“A bathhouse,” she replies. “Used by the monks before the Barons took over. Historically, it’s common for women to have a place of their own, particularly when surrounded by so many men. The King made this for the Baronesses as a way to have rest and rejuvenation.”

The air is cold enough to sting my ankles as we walk, dew gathering on my skin. The robe brushes my thighs, and I clutch it tighter around me, trying not to shiver. Regina doesn’t look backonce. She walks with her shoulders back, her heels sharp on the stone and her presence even sharper.

No wonder the King admires her. I bet he never had to lock her in the cage.

Inside the cottage, the heat hits me–humid, floral. I don’t recognize any of the faces in the room. The women are of varying ages, too old to be crypt chasers, but still aging gracefully. There’s a maturity I can’t comprehend, not after growing up in a house full of children. There’s a sureness and they seem to understand their roles more than I understand mine.

They’re quiet as they whisper to one another and arrange small bowls and silver trays across a long wooden table. A woman smiles when she sees me and beckons me toward a bench near the center of the room. Her critical eye skims down to my dirty feet.

“Sit, honey. We’ve got a lot to do.”

Regina nods at them once and then disappears through a door at the back, leaving me alone. I lower myself onto the bench as two of the girls begin loosening the robe from my shoulders. The room spins in rose-petal steam and perfume. I feel like I’ve been dropped into a different world–one without feral cats, locked cages, and dark secrets. Like the Gilded Rose, this is a hush-hush place just for women.

“Arms up,” one of the women says softly.

They strip me slowly and even though I try not to flinch, I do. It’s not that I’m shy–it’s that I still feel sore. Inside and out. Last night is a raw edge in my brain, the sound of my uncle’s voice, the King’s hands, the soft tremble of my thighs as they were forced apart. I remind myself that this isn’t a violation. It’s a celebration, and because of that I don’t resist. I let them undress me. This is part of it.

They draw me toward a sunken marble tub steaming with milky water. Rose petals float at the surface. I step in carefully, and the heat burns at my skin.

They pile my hair into a bonnet, my braids still neat from the day before. The stylist had taken hours, but I’d asked for them, wanting the same, sleek look Regina had when she stood by the king. With them safely out of the way, the women bathe me, scrubbing away the old Arianette and transforming her into something new.

Dried off and smelling of flowers, they stretch me on a table, and wax me top to bottom, murmuring small apologies when I wince. I stare at the ceiling beams and try not to cry.

Good girls don’t cry.

It isn’t pain that gets to me, anyway. It’s the fact that I feel removed from everything, like I’ve already left my body and someone else is preparing this one in my place.

For once in my life, I don’t want to lose myself. I want to remember this.

“I know it’s painful, but it’s important that you be ready for him,” one of the women says, assessing her work. “Even under the circumstances, the King deserves a proper bride.”

Another pipes up, “Not just proper. Obedient.”

“Soft.”

“Good,” I say before I can stop myself. I’ve never been any of those things with the King. I killed his Baron. I stole from his room. I fought against his punishment. I’m not good and he knows it.

“You’re the Baroness, so I’m sure you know your way around a man’s body,” my cheeks heat at her knowing look, “but a man like the King will be different. You’re there to meet his needs, however wicked they may seem.”

Wicked.

The word rolls about my brain. That sounds much more like me than ‘good.’ I’m still tasting the word on my tongue, their firm fingertips slathering me with lotion, when Regina returns. Her eyes rest on my nipples, at the healing silver bars that have started to feel better instead of worse.

“Those are new.”

“Damon gave them to me,” I explain, happily accepting a clean robe.

“As part of his Claiming?”

“Later,” I say, sitting in a chair that swivels, “after the ceremony.”

If she has any opinion, she keeps it to herself, coming up behind me with a silver tin. She removes the bonnet, letting my hair fall, and begins working jojoba oil into my scalp. She’s careful, methodical, part caretaker and part priestess.

At my feet, a woman crouches, painting my toes with a glossy black polish.