Chapter Text
PROLOGUE
It was dark.
That was the first thing you had realized when your senses started to come back. The faint ringing in your ears was incessant and made it feel like a knife was being driven into your skull. Trying to take in a breath of air, your lungs clenched tightly in pain, the muscles surrounding your ribs cramping and making you cough. It was a difficult feat to clear your lungs, the coughing fit you had was wet and sounded garbled, like something was blocking your airway.
And there was.
You tried to move to the side, but your shoulders and arms were tightly tied to the chair you were sitting in, making it impossible to move. You ended up coughing all over yourself, a mixture of blood and spit trickling out of the corner of your mouth.
The sound of a heavy lock being opened made you lift your head back up. One of your eyes was pretty swollen along with your cheek, the dull ache of what would become a nasty bruise made you flinch ever so slightly. You relaxed against the restraints that were digging into your skin as the door opened to reveal two men on the other side. You had no idea who they were, just that they had been visiting you fairly frequently since you’d been locked in the damp room.
One was tall, with broad shoulders and an almost lifeless look in his eyes. The other, shorter and skinnier but still having a menacing air about him, did most of the talking whenever they came.
“Ah, the princess has finally decided to wake up. Did you have a nice nap?” The shorter one cooed in a condescending tone as he approached you, his partner closing the door behind them.
“I am a queen, you f-”
The feeling of a calloused hand wrapping around your neck tightly cut off the words you tried to speak. You felt the squeezing of your airway, the muscles constricting against one another as your lungs began to burn. The hand of the man moved, his fingers clenching tightly - painfully - against your jaw and making you look up at him.
“You are no queen,” He spat. “Just some whore who married the first would-be ruler that looked her way.”
He let go of your face with a rough shove, making you jerk to the side harshly. The crude laughter that filled the space made the anger inside of you boil over. You looked to the man in front of you, eyes squinted and face forming the best glare you could. Your tongue shifted around in your dry mouth, jaw flexing to ease some of the discomfort. You looked at the men laughing at you and reared your head back, spitting a sizable wad of saliva and blood in their direction, watching as it landed on the cheek of the shorter of the two in a disgusting splatter.
His eyes flashed with a rage and his hand reared back. The sound of flesh hitting flesh echoed in the small, damp room. Your eyes were unfocused for a moment, the ringing in your ears getting louder in time with the pounding of your head. When you turned your face back to look at the men before you, you knew you had struck a nerve.
You snorted out a laugh, confusing the men for a moment. Shaking your head back and forth you gave them each a pointed stare before tilting your head back to rest against the chair.
“You are so fucked when he finds out what you did to me,” You said to the ceiling, watching the light flicker.
“Your king will have to find you first,” The taller of the two sneered from where he stood by the door. You looked at him with a dark glint in your eyes, fixing your posture against your bindings and mentally preparing yourself for another blow that was sure to come.
“He will.” You said, confidently. “And when he does, you’ll wish you had never laid your filthy hands on me.”