Shadow Pack

Alaya POV:

"My Lady, the kitchens sent the midday broth."

Breonna kept her voice so low it barely carried—and even then the last word shook.

"Please eat, lady, "she whispered. "If you starve, the Duke will not care. You will die in this cold, and no one will even think to open the door.” ​

She was my only loyal maid, an Omega bound to my mother's former household, risking daily floggings just to bring me scraps.

"This is not food, Breonna," I said, setting the bowl down with a sharp clatter. "This broth is laced with Corpse-Gorge blood parasites from the Western Wastes."

Breonna choked on her breath, slamming both hands over her mouth to swallow a scream.

I reached into my knotted hair and pulled out a crude, sharpened silver pin.Without hesitation, I plunged the metal point into the oily depths of the soup.

When I drew it out, a thread-thin, dark crimson worm wriggled violently against the pale metal.

Breonna's breath tore loose.

“It is her, is it not?" she gasped, her fingers knotting in her apron. "That woman. She means to kill you.” ​

"She means to ruin me first," I said.

Dian Simmons. The mistress who had usurped my mother's place in my father's bed — who wanted me gone without the inconvenience of a trial.

The parasite was a patient, obscene thing. It seeded an insatiable hunger, rotted the host's inner channels, and bloated the flesh until the woman wearing it became an unrecognizable freak for the court to laugh at.

She wanted me to eat myself into an unrecognizable freak before the court.

I grabbed an empty ceramic vial from the corner shelf, used the pin to flick the squirming worm inside, and slammed the wooden cork tight.

Breonna scrambled up, her teeth clicking together.

"We must go to Duke Arno! We must show him this poison!"

"Show him?" I met her terrified gaze, letting my voice drop to an icy whisper. "He gave Dian the run of the castle while my mother rots in an exile keep. Without absolute proof, he will only whip you for slandering his favorite whore."

I carried the bowl to the dark corner of the cell and dumped the tainted broth down a gaping rat hole.

Soft silk rustled in the corridor outside.Heavier footsteps followed, deliberate and arrogant.

I nudged Breonna toward the shadows, dropped to the edge of the cot, and slumped my shoulders into a trembling heap.

The heavy door was kicked open.

A wave of heavy rose oil swept through the stench of the cell.

Dian Simmons glided inside, her green velvet gown trailing across the grime.

Behind her stood Isabela Bradford, her daughter, preening before a handheld bronze mirror.

Dian glanced at the empty bowl on the table, her painted lips curving into a smirk as she raised a silk handkerchief to her nose.

"Look at that. Our sickly little pup managed to lick the bowl clean."

Isabela lowered her mirror, eyeing my hunched frame with open disgust.