Chapter 183

The next morning, as I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, dreading another day of doing nothing, I hear a swishing sound near my door. Sitting up, I look at the door and find a slip of paper laying near it on the ground. Did someone slide that underneath?

Curious, I pull myself out of bed and walk over to it. Picking it up, I unfurl the letter and begin to read it.

You vicious, conniving bitch –

No one wants you here, not even Caleb. He’s just too nice to make you leave. He feels responsible for you, else you would have been out long ago.

Get out. Leave the palace and don’t come back. If you don’t, you’ll soon find yourself with a knife in the back.

So many people want you dead, no one will even look at me twice. I’ll get away free and you’ll be six feet under in the dirt.

Be smart. Get the hell out.

The letter is not signed. The handwriting is messy chicken-scratch, likely written purposefully messy as to hide the writer’s identity.

This wasn’t the first time I’ve been threatened. In fact, since coming to the palace and becoming Caleb’s favored consort, I’ve been threatened tons of times. This isn’t even the vilest of the bunch.

However, given the timing, I find this one particularly disturbing. These are tumultuous times, and if I were to go missing now, Caleb would likely blame the rebellion. He might not think to look inward.

Yet, more than all this, more than fear and worry, I feel anger.

I am so tired of being shoved around, threatened and mocked. What have I ever done to anyone? It’s not my fault that Caleb took a liking to me, or that I could keep him calm where Annabelle could not.

Annabelle. This has to be her handiwork, doesn’t it? It wouldn’t be the first time she threatened me. As the date of the wedding draws near, maybe she’s getting more and more desperate.

Well, I’m tired of it, and I’m not going to continue to let her treat me this way.

If she is going to be Caleb’s wife, which seems very likely at this point, then she needs to learn to deal with me and vice versa.

I’m done fighting and being threatened. It’s time to speak to her directly and clear the air.

When Bethany arrives, she’s confused why I’m so fired up. I hand her the letter while I rush into my closet to change. When I return, Bethany is as fired up as I am.

“Who sent this?”

“Annabelle, I’m guessing,” I say. “Come on. I’m going to talk to her.”

Bethany hesitates. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? Maybe you should just show Caleb.”

“I can’t run to him with all of my problems. He’s got far more important things to do. I can handle this.”

Ready to go with or without her, I head for the door.

“Wait!” she calls and hurries along behind me.

I find Annabelle in one of the closet rooms being fitted by a tailor. She’s wearing an elaborate white gown with a lengthy train, her wedding dress.

Seeing her in it stops me at the door, the fire sucking straight out of my body. All at once, my conviction vanishes and hurt fills me instead.

It should be me, I think bitterly, even though I have no reason to think so. I’m no regal lady. I’m a slave turned consort, not someone Caleb could actually marry.

But I love him. That alone should be enough to make him mine.

In a different world, if we were people other than who we are, maybe it would be. As it is, we are doomed to never fully connect in a way two people in love should.

Not that Caleb himself loves me. He’s found of me, sure, but I honestly question if he even knows what love is.

None of that matters now.

Annabelle looks at me sharply. “What are you doing here?”

I step into the room, Bethany following along, my silent support. Glancing away from her in my dream gown, I try to stoke my rage again. Remembering the letter, I retrieve it from my pocket.

“I’m tired of being threatened by you, Annabelle,” I tell her. “It’s time for us to bury this hostility between us once and for all.”

“What are you talking about?” she snaps.

That does help my anger return. I hate liars more than I hate being threatened.

“You can threaten me all you like but I’m not going anywhere. The sooner you realize that, the better this will be for everyone – you, me, and King Caleb.”

Annabelle lifts her chin. “I might have said certain words to you in the past that could have been misconstrued as threats if twisted a certain way, but I assure you I have bigger problems than you now, Harper. I’ve won. Caleb is going to marry me. You will never be anything more than a girl on the side. I have nothing to worry about with you.”

Her eye twitches with obvious annoyance. I don’t know how much of what she says is true, but I know there’s some lies in there.

Still… With the way she’s acting, all high and mighty… I’m starting to wonder if she didn’t really slip the letter under my door after all.

“So you didn’t give me this,” I say, shaking the letter open and holding it out for her.

She glances at it without touching it. “I have more important things to worry about than threatening pebbles in my shoe.”

She turns away from me. When the tailor still gapes at me, she snaps at him. “Don’t pay attention to her.”

Bethany and I exchange a look. Together we step back out into the hallway.

“What do you think?” Bethany asks.

“I don’t know,” I admit. “She seems… genuine. At least, in some ways.”

Bethany frowns as she nods. “I thought so too. But if not her, then who slipped that note under your door?”

“What are you doing here?” snaps a female voice. Bethany and I turn to see Kira, Caleb’s mother and the former Luna, storming toward us. “I trust you aren’t bothering my future daughter-in-law.”

I’m still holding the letter. Kira glances at it. She’s close enough to read some of the words – the threats.

“Oh, good, I’m glad I’m not the only one who feels that you are stepping out of your place,” Kira says. “You are a member of the harem, girl, not someone worthy of Caleb’s time. If you care for him at all, you will back all the way off and crawl back to the corners you crawled out of.”

I clutch the paper tighter, crumpling it in my hand. “I am a woman worthy of respect,” I say.

“Are you? Is that why you are bothering my son’s actual fiancé? Or are you simply hoping to live outside of your station. You are a whore in a harem, girl. Your only duty is to spread your legs when my son wants to slum. That is your place, and all you will ever be. I should know. I saw my ex-husband do the same.”

I don’t believe that. Caleb sees more in me than that.

“Soon, building his own family, he’ll lose interest in you and whatever magic you think you hold between your thighs. You’ll never be more than a tight wet hole to him.” Kira snorts. “If you think he’ll ever want you for more than a quick bang, you are kidding yourself.”

Her words play on my insecurities. Embarrassed, I lower my head and don’t lift it again.