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I manage a nod, even though all I want to do is cry.

Reginald frowns. “And Your Grace, you will never be able to save everyone. Sometimes people have to save themselves.”

I want to puke after hearing that. If my uncle hadn’t succeeded in ending the war and been able to save me, I’d still be in that prison cell, only released to slave away in the camp, and worse…

Reginald lowers the barrier, and Violette looks up, hope filling her gaze. The words taste like ash and are equally difficult to swallow.

“Miss Lark, I…”

Holding his breath, Reginald watches me, and I’m pretty sure his eye twitches.

“I’m afraid I can’t provide a loan to you.”

Violette’s expression crumples and then hardens, shaking her head at me as she tosses her gaze around at the palace. “Of course you can’t. Look at this monstrosity you live in. How elsewill you afford to continue living in the lap of luxury if it’s not on the backs of those beneath you?”

I am… speechless.

And yet, I can see how she might think that, even if it is quite the opposite. My heart shatters, and before I can muster a worthy reply, Reginald begins barking orders for her to be thrown out of the palace, as tears swell that I refuse to let fall.

The guards haul her off, and I feel panic spike inside me. My mind scrambles for something to say, and for someAkash-forsaken reason, the most inept words fathomable rush out of me in a shout.

“It’s for the greater good!”

WINNOW

BELLORUM REALM

“Alittle to the left.” The male whose face is currently buried between my thighs gives a muffled grunt in acknowledgement as he shifts to my right. My eyes slide shut, and I draw in a deep breath to muster patience.“The other left.”

Relief suffuses me as Lord Evermere slides to my left and reaches my clit, but my hope is quickly dashed as he simply passes over it in favor of suckling my left labia. He gives another inquisitive hum to which I reply by fisting his hair and manually moving his mouth directly onto my clit. He seems to realize in the same moment that he’s finally found the treasure we sought and doubles his efforts. His soft, slender fingers stroke in and out of me as his tongue continues to work.

My eyes stare blankly at the ceiling.

There’s a yawning cavern in my chest, and despite Evermere’s efforts, he only makes me all the more aware of it. And while I am little more than an adolescent by godly standards, I’m still too old—38 years—to muster the desire to offer him feigned cries and moans of sexual gratification.

Thisjobas Duchess Paramount has slowly been draining the life out of me, and I’ve taken to seeking my happiness in bedfellows.

It isn’t working.

I have to glamour my horns and tail to make myself more palatable, and most of the time, I’m certain they only want to share my company in the hopes of gaining royal favor and coin.

Little do they know, there is no coin.

Even years later, rebuilding after the war has proven to be an endless expense. One that I will happily pay for to provide my people with what they need. Even if it means cutting corners and selling family heirlooms to overseas royalty.

So now, to share my bed with yet another male, who not only does not know how to pleasure me, but his only motive is to gain whatever status or wealth he thinks I can give him…

Again, Lorne’s words return to me.

““Your royal blood means nothing if that’s all you have to give. So what else do you have to offer me, girl? A pretty cunt?”

Something inside me snaps like the trunk of a tree finally giving way after being hacked away by a persistent axe.

“Stop.”

Evermere releases my clit with a squeaking pop. Other than his lips, his face is bone dry when it should be drenched with my arousal. If I were actually aroused.

When he lifts his head from between my legs, with his mussed hair and pinched eyebrows, he looks so very much like a lost puppy. It is then that he falls from an ‘I-guess-you’ll-do-for-now-lover’ to a palm-sized beast.