Nolan got Yena a glass of water and excused himself.

The bar was nearly empty. He paced away to a corner out of anyone’s earshot and glanced around to be sure he was quite alone.

He called his secretary and told him about the photograph.

The secretary confirmed, first, what Luna had already told the prince. That Adan had indeed returned home.

But the secretary had some even more interesting information, too.

Adan was supposedly beginning a new career in education.

And had just taken a position as a professor at the Werewolf Noble Academy.

Nolan looked at Yena from across the room.

She was patting her damp eyes dry with a bar napkin.

She was very sweet. And very naïve.

He had a bad feeling about all of this.

YENA

For whatever reason, Nolan went to the bar and threw back two shots of whiskey before we left the tavern.

We’d only gone in for a few drinks. Supposedly.

Back at the hotel, I took a long, hot shower. It was the last night of our honeymoon, and I wasn’t looking forward to the flight home in the morning.

I came out of bathroom to find Nolan lying in bed, fully dressed. With even his shoes still on.

“Prince Charming,” I said, “are you too drunk to get your clothes off?”

“I’m not drunk,” he insisted. He kicked his shoes off, flinging them across the room comically.

I stifled a laugh.

“Let me help you with that,” I said, and I went over to his side of the bed.

He smiled mischievously as I unbuttoned his shirt, then sat up to shrug it off.

He grabbed my hand.

“Let’s do it,” he said, his voice deep and serious.

“What?” I asked, arching an eyebrow at him.

“Fuck me, you gorgeous fat girl. Don’t you want to?”

He slid my hand into his lap and set it on top of his dick.

It was hard and throbbing.

“Have you forgotten about our wedding night?” I asked him.

“I promise not this time, baby,” he said.

He pulled me close and kissed me.

“Come on, Princess,” he whispered into my ear. “Let me fuck you until you cry.”

My jaw dropped.

A vibration went running down the center of my body, as if my spine were a guitar string and he’d just plucked it. Hard.

He was definitely drunk. He would never say something like that otherwise.

But I believed him.

That he wasn’t going to let me down this time.

He looked me in the eye with a calm, serious expression. Then pushed the straps of my silk night gown off my shoulders and started pulling it to the floor, feeling up my body as he went.

His hands were warm, but his touch made me shiver.

I reached out and touched his tight beard, scratching his face lightly with my fingernails. He snarled and bit playfully at my hand. I ran my fingers through his black hair, and he closed his eyes to let me stroke him, leaning his head into my hand.

I kissed his lips lightly.

He grabbed my ass and squeezed it hard. Then pulled me in close and jerked one of my legs up onto the bed, so I was halfway straddling him.

He was so fucking strong. I was like a rag doll in his hands. He could do anything he wanted with me.

He put his hand between my legs and felt that I was soaking wet.

In one fluid motion he moved back on the bed and pulled me on top of him. His total control over my body was a little scary.

Which made it even hotter.

I helped him get his pants off, then he grabbed my hair and pulled, jerking my head backwards and forcing me to arch my back.

He let me sit into his lap just enough to feel him start to slide inside me.

But then he pulled out, teasing me. He used his grip on my hair to pull my face to his and kissed me passionately.

I pulled back to look him in the eye.

A few of the candles in the room had melted down and burnt out, giving the dim room a faint smell of smoke.

His green eyes glimmered, reminding me of our first night together in the cave. The strobing lightning had lit up his eyes up like emeralds.

He rolled us over and topped me.

And was inside me within two seconds.

I gasped for breath. He was huge. He growled as he slowly pushed in deeper, till he filled me completely.

I could feel in every thrust how primal his hunger for me was.

I came hard and held onto him tight, wrapping my legs all the way around hips and dragging my nails down his back. He kissed me till I stopped shaking.

Then he kept fucking me hard, keeping me in ecstasy for hours.

I have no idea when we passed out, but I woke up before him. We were all tied up in each other’s limbs and our room was trashed.

My body felt at peace. More relaxed than ever before in my life.

But my mind kept replaying the scene from a few days before.

Nolan on the phone with his ex-girlfriend. Telling her he didn’t love me.

If what he’d said was true, then I needed to protect myself.

I couldn’t get caught up in this again. The games and the longing and the wondering.

It would be better if we were just friends.

I’d missed a lot of school, but I didn’t get kicked out.

One of the perks of being a princess, I guess.

But I was still nervous to go back there. Not about picking back up with my coursework. About the students.

My stomach was full of butterflies as I walked across campus.

People were noticing me. They’d try to look at me inconspicuously out of the corners of their eyes, but I felt them watching.

The second I entered the Arts building, though I saw that I had bigger problems.

We all had lockers on the ground floor, for keeping our supplies near the studio. They lined the back wall that faced the building’s front entrance.

I saw it the second I opened the door.

My locker had been broken into and vandalized.

I walked over slowly.

Down the length of the locker door, red spray paint letters read: WHORE.

The lock was busted. The door had been pulled off its hinges, then shoved back into the frame.

I stepped back and set my bag down against the wall, then went over and started trying to pry to door off.

After some tiresome pushing and pulling and punching at the damaged door, during which time I did ask myself if the fabric rolls I’d left in there were really worth all this effort, finally it came loose and I pulled it away.

The rotten, putrid stench fit me first.

Then a cloud of black flies spilled out of the locker, buzzing in circles.

The shelves had been ripped out.

All of my belongings were gone.

The only thing in the locker was a pile of dead rats.

And under the rats, a heap of dirty red fabric.

Little orbs of red light peeked out from between the carcasses. It looked like wet blood. Or the beady eyes of a night predator.

Finally it registered. It was Susan’s dress from the Full Moon Ball.

Then Caryn’s voice came out of nowhere, saying, “Well, well, well.”

I looked up to see her walking out from around a corner.

“If it isn’t the Princess,” she said, smiling. She was walking slowly in my direction. “Back at school to slum it with us lowly were-girls.”

“Caryn, what the fuck?” I shouted, a little surprised to hear the words coming out of my mouth. I gestured to my locker.

“Oh, my,” she said in mock surprise, turning her head dramatically as if she only just noticed the dead rats and swarming vermin in the locker and and the big, bent up, spray painted door at our feet.

“Well,” she continued, her tone cheerful and airy. “I guess at least now you won’t have any trouble telling which locker is yours.”

She beamed at me and batted her fake eyelashes.

“Where are your lackeys, Caryn?” I asked. “You send them to go kill some more rodents for you? Seriously, this is disgusting, how could you even—”

Caryn snapped her fingers, and out from the studio came the girls.

Not just the two dummies I’d always seen glued to her side.

A third girl was with them.

It was Susan. And she did not look happy to see me.

I picked up my bag. I wasn’t afraid of their bullying, so much, as I was afraid that they might actually become violent.

Four to one is bad odds.

They could beat the shit out of me. Tie me up and force me to eat one of the rats. Or worse.

Caryn and her entourage had already tried to kill me once before.

And Susan thought I was her mortal enemy.

I decided not to stick around.

I headed for the door, but to reach it I had to pass by all four of them. I walked at a regular pace, trying not to let on that I was afraid.

I was almost out the door when Caryn called out, “Wait!”

I turned around.

“You forgot something,” she said sweetly.

She pointed at the WHORE door.

“Your name tag. Don’t you need that?”

And then all four of them, in unison, shouted, “WHORE!”