Patron Story: The Elimination Harem

A patron reward story done over a couple months. A sadistic prince recruits for his harem by forcing his suitors to work together before pitting them against each other in a savage fight to the death!

Prince Valor was a powerful and eccentric leader. He had an eye for women and a fascination with sadistic manipulations. He saw several suitors at once, maintaining a steady harem of lovers while keeping them baited in with all the wealth and power one would hypothetically get from marrying him. Of course, he played indecisive, keeping the assortment of beautiful and greedy women competing to impress him.

He never had enough, either. He had his men scouting all over the land, reporting back with beauties that were suitably shallow to match his particular tastes. He perused their reports and found three that suited his tastes this time. He sent messengers to bring them to him, each of them arriving in their finest dresses to look worthy of the prince’s harem.

Valor had them sent in to meet him in one of his war rooms. It only felt appropriate, given what he was going to put them through. They were as lovely as his scouts had described, but he was just as interested in their motives. His position naturally attracted the greedy and entitled, and he loved seeing the surface-level smiles they put on to act like they were in love with him and not his wallet. It made putting them through their trials so much more interesting; punishing them every bit as much as they’d be rewarded.

“Lovely to see you,” the handsome prince greeted them.

Their eyes and smiles lit up a little more at his praise. His men had brought him a decent variety from the neighboring towns and kingdoms, which he always appreciated. It made it easier for him to tell the petty bitches apart. They even wore the same sort of dress, all doing their best to mimic the popular fashions among the nobility.

Lora was a tall woman with regal posture befitting of her lineage. She had long red hair kept straight and down to her middle back. She was slim in the delicately maintained way of a woman who spent all of her time being tended to by servants. Valor could feel the ice running through her veins from here as the type used to looking down on others.

Hana was a pale woman with short black curls. It marked her as clearly from a more exotic bloodline; presumably family that came overseas ages ago. She had apparently worked at her father’s print shop, doing light but tedious work that kept her bored and busy. Despite her middle class station, Valor saw much of Lora’s ways in her. Hana didn’t come from a position where she could look down on people, but she wished she had. She felt entitled and hated her lot in life, and this was her way out of it. He knew the look of a woman who would do anything to get what she felt like she deserved.

Beatrice was a tan blonde woman with a bountiful bust behind her dress. She was from the farmlands of Valor’s kingdom, but an exceptionally notable beauty among the locals. The young locals wrote songs about her, and Valor’s  keen eye picked up all the clues he needed to know about her. Her dress hid her tanlines, but it was natural nonetheless. Barely a scratch or a callous on the farmer’s daughter, but not a wealthy family either. She spent her days being charming instead of actually working, conning neighbors into doing her chores for a flirty smile or a wink. She was used to seducing her way through her problems and this felt like just another way to exercise her shallow methods.

“I’d like to start out by saying that I only have the space for one of you in my harem,” Valor went on.

That was a lie. He could afford plenty more, but what was the point if not making them compete over it? The women tried to stay focused on him but they couldn’t help but glance towards each other, sizing each other up.

“I’m going to need you to prove yourselves worthy of being among my suitors. But before all that, I’ll need you to prepare each other for the competition.”

“Prepare… each other?” Lora asked, raising a neatly trimmed eyebrow. Her mind was already racing with ideas, and Prince Valor knew it.

“You’ll be escorted to a changing room where you should find all manner of clothing, makeup, accessories and the like. The rule is that you must groom and choose the clothes for each other and not yourselves.”

The women flashed understanding smiles, even if he knew they didn’t. That level of sabotage would have been too easy.

“I’ll have a guard present to ensure you stick to these rules. When you’re through, you’ll report back to me and if I find any of you to be ugly or so much as unattractive, you’ll all be disqualified and sent home with nothing.”

their smug expressions dropped on the spot. The idea of knowing that they were going up against each other but also having to make their competition look good left a bad taste in their mouths. Their confusion and disappointment made the prince crack a smile.

“Is that a problem for any of you?”

“Of course not, sire,” Beatrice answered.

The others echoed a similar agreement.

“Lovely. Then I expect to see you in a half hour. Let the guards know if you’ll need anything longer to make your opponents look decent.”

---

Beatrice, Lora and Hana were shown to the dressing room, finding it worthy of a princess. Several, even, given how many mirrors, makeup kits and wardrobes full of clothes that were made available to them. They traded sour glares before they committed themselves to giving their hated rivals makeovers.

They forced themselves through a group bath, using the spacious tub clearly made to be used by several women at once. The plentiful variety of soaps and oils had them rubbing each other down, finding and hating every crevice of their enemies. It took all their willpower not to try and sabotage them on the other two on the spot. They wanted to claw up Lora’s slim figure and silky hair. To bite into Beatrice’s large, tan breasts. To leave bruises and scratches all over Hana’s pearly pale skin. They had to settle for grumbling about it the whole time they cleaned each other up, dried the bodies they envied and hated so much, and returned naked to the dressing room to get dressed in their new clothes.

“Would you sit still, damn you?” Lora growled as she dragged a brush through Beatrice’s hair.

The busty blonde sat in front of one of the vanity’s mirrors, wincing at the rough brushing. Like the others, she had dressed down to her underclothes, her corset pushing up her impressive bosom. Lora did her best not to stare at it in case she lost her temper and tried to jab a hairpin into her.

“Then stop being so damn rough with it! You’re combing hair, not brushing a mule,” the country woman snarled back at her.

“Oh, really? She must have got confused from looking at your face.”

Hana was behind Lora, holding up dresses to see what matched her hair and eyes. She frowned and set a deep blue one aside before stepping up to the redhead. She gripped the chords at the back of Lora’s corset and pulled tighter. The tall woman gasped and arched her back as the closed tightened around her chest and midsection.

“What the fuck!?” she gagged as she scowled back at her enemy turned unwilling stylist.

“It’s not my fault you’ve got such tiny tits. It’s my job to make it look good and I need to make sure this thing will fit you.”

“At least you’re not stuck cleaning this hick’s stringy hair and finding something that’ll keep all this fat in check,” the redhead grumbled as she fluffed up hair.

“I am not fat! You two are starved and titless freaks of nature,” Beatrice snapped.

Lora growed and clenched her fingers, fighting the urge to just start tearing up her frustrating fashion victim’s hair so that there was nothing left to fix. She hated them both between their differences in class and tastes on top of them being the way of her and her imminent riches. She wanted them gone, but the prince had been very clear about the rules. All but the most subtle undercutting wouldn’t be tolerated, and his one female guard in the corner of the room was keeping a bored eye on them. She hadn’t said a thing about them bickering and insulting each other, but the three had assumed she’d be quick to step in if they started something. Or at least let them beat the crap out of each other before politely forcing them to leave.

“Would you just stop it?” Hana cut in over their squabbling.

“This is obviously a test. We’re being pitted against each other but being forced to cooperate. The prince is clearly trying to make sure we can play nice with the rest of his pet whores.”

Beatrice and Lora went quiet at that. They didn’t like the group they were all hoping to join being called pet whores, but it felt easy to call everyone else that when they knew that THEY alone were different. Still, Hana had enough of a point for them to hear her out.

“So? What are we going to do about it?” Beatrice asked as she waved Lora over to her.

She picked up a bottle of eyeliner and held it up, causing her to shut her eyes while exchanging as few words as possible with the other skank. Beatrice resisted the urge to jab the tiny brush right into her eye and gently stroked the flattering color over it instead.

“We have to make each other look good. As irresistible as possible so he can’t say no to either of it. It’s the only way we can guarantee our entry,” Hana explained.

“Speak for yourself,” Lora huffed.

“I’m from actual nobility and the most beautiful person in the castle. I could win this with or without your help.”

The redhead pursed her lips as she realized what she’d said. She was already at the mercy of Beatrice and her sense of style, hoping she had enough taste to make her look good. She literally couldn’t succeed at their first test without her help. Even with Hana helping her out, she wasn’t sure she liked the idea of further crossing her rivals and teammates.

“But… I’d rather not risk upsetting the prince. What’s the plan?”

The girls remained tense, but the worry about the others stabbing them in the back faded a little. They recognized the same sense of unease in each other and were at least willing to trust that fear and desperation to outweigh their hate for the time being. Hana saw she had their attention and went on with her plan.

“It’s simple. The prince is the most eligible and powerful bachelor in the land, but he is still a man. Not a eunuch. He still has his base urges, and I think I know just the thing to appeal to his lesser instincts.”

Beatrice picked up and uncapped a stick of lipstick while she listened. Hana held up a hand to stop her.

“I wouldn’t apply that just yet.”

---

The ladies returned to the prince in his meeting room right on schedule. They got through their makeovers with their plan in place, and three beautiful, smiling women met back in the appointed room. They wore the finest dresses with clingy fits and low-cut necklines, making themselves as enticing as possible. They had even coordinated with one another, double checking the other woman’s work and adding their own input rather than trudging through one rival and calling it a day. Prince Valor smiled at the sight of them, which seemed like a good sign.

“Very good. I’m glad to see you’re getting along,” the prince praised them.

“Absolutely! We’ve been getting along wonderfully. Haven’t we, ladies?”

Lora smiled and turned towards Hana and Beatrice. She could hardly have asked for a better setup to their plan. The redhead took a step closer to her rivals, pressing her chest up against Beatrice’s. The thin figure let her dress cling tightly to her body and have a slit down the front so low that it nearly reached her navel. The pressure of her sleek body made the blonde’s breast squash out against her chest, showing off their softness.

“Getting along is one way to put it,” Hana chuckled as she came in from the other side, grinding against Beatrice’s other breast.

Their positioning made the busty blonde’s tits squash together, shown off even better than her corset was capable of. The country beauty wrapped her arms around Hana and Lora’s waists, hugging them against her and leaning in to kiss the redhead firmly on the mouth. Beatrice’s lips smacked as they brushed against Lora’s, kissing her noisily and putting on a particular show of it. The slim noblewoman stroked her face, putting on seductive intimacy that she’d been expecting to use on the prince rather than another of his potential lovers. They put on a show of kissing deeply for a few seconds before she turned to do the same with Hana. The brunette already had her mouth open and head tilted to press into her mouth, leaving their lips apart just enough to show their tongues in the open air for the prince to see. Their kiss was for his pleasure rather than their own, after all.

Their teamwork reached its peak as they shifted around enough to allow a three-way kiss between them. They opened their mouths wide as they triangulated, rubbing their tongues and lips all over each other. They sucked and licked anything they could reach, brushing their mouths against both other women as best they could manage. They let their eyes drift mostly shut as they continued their pornographic display of cooperation, rubbing their hands across each other’s bodies. They made sure to emphasize each other’s curves, squeezing Hana’s shapely ass and caressing Beatrice’s tanned cleavage.

They finally broke the kiss with their mixed saliva dribbling down their lips. Their lipstick remained perfectly in place, specially prepared for such an interaction during their prep work. They looked back seductively towards the prince, who smiled back at them.

“Impressive. I appreciate your commitment,” Prince Valor praised.

His suitors smile, barely containing their pride about their scheme.

“It should serve you well in the last part of your tryout.”

The prince flicked a switch on the table beside him. A large trap door fell out from under them, dropping them to the floor below. They fell in a shrieking panic, immediately losing their cool as their plan and bodies fell through. They landed on a rough patch of floor lined with narrow slits in a dark room. They looked around in frantic confusion until Valor’s voice came out through a nearby speaking tube.

“Now that you’re dressed for the occasion, you’ll need to prove yourselves. Show me that you’re motivated enough to fight for me. You’ll need to defeat the other two competitors before you reach the end of the line.”

“The end of what?” Hana asked.

She got her answer as the floor started moving underneath them. They had to brace themselves against the stony wall to stay standing as they found themselves rolling out of the room they’d landed in. They felt a dully growing heat until they were moved into a much larger and better-lit room. They realized that they were on a huge conveyor belt over steaming hot water. Small, sharp-toothed fish swam just beneath the surface, seeming to react to the sound of the clunky machinery carrying them along. The conveyor belt was long, but the room was lit up well enough that they could see it come to an abrupt end somewhere down the line.

“What the hell!? This is insane!” Lora shrieked.

She ran back towards the start of the conveyor belt, hoping to find a switch or something to hold onto. Even after running as fast as she could in her heels to outpace the machine, the red-haired noble found no such thing. The entryway they’d come through slammed shut behind them, locking them in the steamy room. Lora pounded on the wall for a moment before realizing that she was only wasting her precious time and energy. She looked back at Hana and Beatrice, who were also eying each other cagily.

“Well, we tried. Time to die,” Hana said curtly.

She shoved Beatrice in the tits, pushing the tanned farmgirl back towards the edge of the conveyor belt. It was still the size of a small room, so it wasn’t that easy to send her toppling over the edge. It was still a very real threat if they got close enough, so the blonde still panicked and grabbed at her. She caught the strap of Hana’s dress as a handhold, so her falling momentum tore a chunk of the garment off of her. The brunette gasped as she grabbed at the missing piece, but that part of her dress fell to bare most of her breast.

“My dress!” she yelped.

“What about my LIFE, you stupid cow!” Beatrice shouted back at her.

Any notions of an alliance quickly melted in the oppressive heat. Their cutthroat natures quickly resurfaced as Beatrice charged back at Hana like a sharply-dressed hellbeast. She tried to claw at the brunette’s face, but she caught her by the wrists to hold her at bay. The blonde settled for grabbing and pulling at her hair as they both shrieked and shouted.

The prince settled into his seat as the situation escalated into a proper brawl. Valor’s view from his high-mounted window let him watch as Lora entered the fray. She could have let the two tire themselves out, if not eliminate one or the other, but her desperation made her impatient. Prince Valor had seen it plenty of times in previous shallow competitors. She threw all the weight in her slender body into Beatrice, knocking her away from the clumsy grapple. The tackle tore her down to the conveyor belt, crashing down on top of her. Their breasts collided in between them, squashing out of shape and place until they swelled out above their low-cut tops.

“You meddling bitch,” Beatrice seethed, thrashing around beneath her.

She clawed frantically at her nearest rival. Between her being pinned beneath Lora and remaining afraid to get too near the edges, her mobility was extremely limited. The blonde blindly scratched at her clothes and skin, quickly undoing the work they’d just put into prettying each other up. Lora slapped her across the face, entirely unfamiliar with any other means of fighting.

“Stop resisting, you countryside hick!”

Even with her country upbringing, Beatrice was better used to manipulating others than doing any actual work. Lora delivered a few more smacks to her head before Hana intervened. She gripped and ripped at her hair, pulling her backward. The brunette’s back arched as she shrieked in pain, clawing at her hands to try and make her let go. She pulled wildly at the freshly groomed black hair, turning it into a tangle in seconds.

“I’ll hurl you both off, you unworthy cunts!” Hana seethed.

She stepped back and managed to pull Lora off of Beatrice. It was no act of mercy so much as her eagerness to eliminate the competition. She yanked her up to her knees and spiked a short, sharp punch into the redhead’s ribs. Lora grunted and jerked as her breasts bounced around from the body blows. Hana gave a sharp pull, throwing the noble bitch towards the dooming edge of the belt.

Lora shrieked and flailed, managing to stay tangled enough with Hana. It unintentionally helped root her in place, tripping over each other so that she didn’t get too far from her initial spot. Hana sneered bitterly, giving an extra shove to bang her head off the hard, moving floor.

The pale brunette stalked after her and gave her a harsh kick to the breast. Lora huffed and cupped her aching boob, but it had already popped out of her top. Her sweaty tit slapped down on the belt, the ridges leaving irritating little pinches as it chugged along.

“Just die and make things easy!” Hana growled.

She wound up for another kick, but that left her off-balance for Beatrice to trip her up. She grabbed the brunette’s ankle and pulled hard, sending her flopping forward. She landed near Lora, the sudden smack of her tits between her chest and the conveyor belt popping them out of her dress.

“Don’t you turn your back on me,” Beatrice snarled, a furious look on her face.

She crawled up Hana’s body like she was a prone, curvy cliffside. She dragged herself up her legs and mounted her back, pulling her hair to force her head off the belt. The girls were rapidly exhausting themselves, their sweat soaking into their hair and clothes. It made it cling to their skin as the panting brunette tried to overcome the shock and winding pain of her fall.

“At least you’ll make a lovely corpse,” Beatrice fumed as she reached around Hana’s torso.

She buried her nails into the other girl’s tits, lifting and gouging at the pale orbs. Hana howled and thrashed around, clawing at the belt to try and drag herself away. She didn’t notice or immediately care in the throes of pain, just trying to escape the piercing pain being inflicted on her breasts.

“Get off! You jealous bitch!” Hana screamed as she bucked around.

“I’m not jealous! I’m surviving!” Beatrice shouted back at her, going with her shallow excuse for her violence and greed.

She pinched her nails around Hana’s nipples while her nails clawed up the rest of the curves. Her sweaty skin made them sting even worse, but she had momentary relief when Lora threw a kick right into Beatrice’s face without getting off the ground herself. She grunted and toppled over backward, tumbling close to the edge. She rolled clumsily in a daze before realizing where she was, hastily scrambling to try and draw herself away from her certain doom in the waters below.

Hana was out to hurt as many opponents as fast as she could, so she quickly descended on Lora next. She crawled onto the already downed redhead, who was busy nursing her breasts. The middle class brunette grabbed her by the neck, wrapping her sweaty hands around it and squeezing with all her spoiled might. Her weary grip shocked Lora to her senses, but their inexperience in actual violence showed once again. Lora coughed but kept wheezing air through her clumsy grip, raking her nails at Hana’s face. Her attempted strangling left the brunette with nowhere to dodge, trying to jerk her head out of the way of the catty scratches. A close call left a deep cut near her eye, making Hana shriek and let go to try and shield her face. She still wouldn’t relent on her attack, using her other hand to rain punches down on Lora.

They were weary and aimless swings, so they did little but sting and distract the redhead until Beatrice arrived and drove a knee into Hana’s belly. It noisily winded her, spraying shallow breaths, sweat and spit over the other ruthless women. As soon as Hana’s weight shifted off of Lora, the pinned redhead sat up sharply and swung at the first person she could see. She slapped Beatrice hard across the face before the brunette had a chance to strike down at her. Bea staggered back but she hastily jerked away from the sense of intense heat and steam behind her. She jerked right back towards the others, all of them too afraid of the fatal fall and too obsessed with hurting their carefully groomed rivals to bring themselves apart. Their fight quickly devolved into a messy tangle of shrieking, greedy and desperate women trying to tear each other limb from limb.

“I’ll kill you… I’ll kill all of you!” Lora wheezed.

She was caked in sweat and smeared with her and her rivals’ blood. The formal clothes weren’t built to take this kind of abuse, and their skimpy dresses were torn to little more than rags by now. The shreds of their dresses flew off into the water, baiting and exciting the carnivores in the water. Even their panties had been ripped off in the mayhem, little more than tattered handkerchiefs caught between the slots of the conveyor belt.

“You are fish food, you gutter whore!” Hana raged as she pulled on Beatrice’s leg.

She pulled it out from under her, holding it up and stabbing her nails into the blonde’s groin. Beatrice screamed savagely from the crotch claw, digging deep and cruelly into her sex like she was trying to eliminate her romantic competition directly.

“FUCK! GET OFF! YOU FUCKING, LYING SKANK!” the country girl ranted.

Her legs flailed around, blindly kicking at Lora and Hana. The panicked swings thudded against their aching bodies, but Nola managed to catch the other trashing limb. The two of them pulled them in opposite directions, unwittingly cooperating as they forced her thick thighs into a split. It spread her pussy out even wider, so Hana’s invasive clawing dug even deeper. Beatrice wailed and clutched at her hair, maddened by the pain.

Even with a mutual target, the others went after each other at the first sign of distraction. Lora smacked Hana in the head, and the country girl released her cunt attack to throw a punch at the redheaded noble’s jaw. Lora grunted and her head snapped away with the surprisingly painful strike, rubbing her chin before she leapt at the brunette. She tried to grab at her but she tripped over Beatrice’s thrashing legs. She fell face-first into Hana’s sweaty tits, and without wasting a second she gnashed her teeth and bit into anything her mouth could reach. Her teeth ended up clamping around Hana’s nipple, twisting her head and warping her breast with her mouth.

“AGHHH! STOP! YOU BITCH!”

The middle class scrapper shoved and slapped at Lora’s face, trying to force her off her aching tit. With one hand still clutching her pussy, Beatrice leapt onto Lora’s back. Their combined weight crushed down on top of Hana, making her gasp for the scarce air in the overly humid chamber. Beatrice couldn’t keep herself to a single target as the blonde reached over Lora and pulled the bottom brunette’s hair with her one free hand. Her tits rested on the back of Lora’s head, sandwiching her between their tits as she clawed and bit at anything she could find.

“RGGH! STUPID… UGLY THIEVES! THE PRINCE IS MINE!” she ranted between her angry mouthfuls of sweaty flesh.

Hana didn’t have much she could do while she was beneath both of her competitors. She shoved and thrashed, but she was left with her hair dangling just over the side of the conveyor belt. It bought her the moment of realization to look around her and see that they were dangerously close to the end of the line. She could see a chunk of dress that had been flung away go tipping over the conveyor belt just a few yards ahead. Her eyes went wide, her fear finally catching up to her bitter hatred.

Hana punched and squirmed, her main focus shifting to getting out of the dogpile and away from them. She swung her every limb at Lora and Beatrice, hitting them while pushing herself out from under them. The other two were too busy dealing as much pain as possible to notice their proximity to their final moments. Hana dug her fingers into the ridges of the belt, dragging herself sluggishly but steadily back towards the start. Even when Lora grabbed her by the hair, she resisted the urge to pay her back with a much more painful version of their earlier makeovers. She threw a kick back into the redhead’s face, knocking her back while pushing herself forward.  Hana realized she didn’t have to reach the start of their trial. She just had to be further up the chain than they were.

“Get back here! That fortune is mine!” Lora screamed at her, even as Beatrice clung to her waist and punched the blonde with short, sharp kidney punches.

Hana winced and pushed harder with her foot, twisting her head trying to escape. She yelped as she pulled free, but only because the hairs in Lora’s grip were torn out. She struggled to ignore the pain in her scalp as she crawled away from the drop. She dripped sweat and breathed heavily, so exhausted and hot she could barely keep crawling.

“That’s it. You’re dead! You hear me, you ugly whore! I’m-”

Beatrice was still threatening Hana when she heard a piercing shriek in her ear. Lora went over the edge, feeling her weight give out beneath her. The redhead clawed at Beatrice, hurting her rival, dragging her down with her and trying to climb up her body to escape all at once.

“NO! STOP! LET GO OF ME, YOU LOSER!” Beatrice erupted at her.

“I WON’T LOSE! I DESERVE HIM MORE THAN YOU!” Hana screamed, jealous and spiteful to the end.

The two clawed and shoved each other, but it only accelerated things. The rolling belt tossed them uncaringly over the edge like common trash. Hana kept crawling, but she couldn’t abandon her hate of them so easily. She looked back to watch their final moments of rage and horror as they dropped out of sight. She heard their screams fade below her before splashing against the water. She even heard Lora and Beatrice shouting faint insults and accusations at each other, fighting through their final moments before she heard the snapping of many jaws around them.

---

“You fucking bitch! Don’t drag me down with you!” Lora screamed in midair.

“You’re the one weighing me down!” Beatrice shouted back.

Even as they fell to their doom, the two fought and bickered. Beatrice punched Lora across the mouth, bloodying her lip. Lora scratched at her face in return just before they hit the water. The long fall left them stunned, falling under the boiling hot water. It stung their many wounds and aching muscles, barely finding the energy to draw themselves back up to the surface. Their clumsy splashing and leaking blood had the pirana swarming after them in moments.

“I can’t believe you! You ruined me, you inbred idiot!” Beatrice still accused.

She shoved Lora’s bare breast splashing her about as the fish nipped curiously at her toes.

“Are you stupid!? I’m going to be fish food because of you! You were doomed already to be some poor hick who’d marry her cousin!”

She pulled Beatrice’s hair, slapping at her head in a bitter barrage of her final moments. The blonde snarled and slapped Nora, but the redhead bit her hand in return. Beatrice screamed in pain, but mostly because one of the fish took an unseen bite out of her ass. The tiny creatures went for any tender flesh they could, swarming them and ripping them to shreds. The two clung to each other like a bitter embrace, shaking and throttling each other before they descended into the water, too mutilated to fight at all.

--

The conveyor belt finally stopped, then shifted into reverse. Hana laid there, letting it carry her back out with the banged up brunette heaving with exhausted pain. When she reached the chamber she’d landed in, it rose back up like an elevator. The naked, bruised and bloodied printer’s daughter knelt there as she was presented to Prince Valor once again.

“Impressive work and quick thinking back there,” the prince praised with a warm smile.

“Welcome to my harem. I think you’re going to fit right in.”

Hana looked back at the sadistic prince, exhausted and with her makeup running heavily. She could only think to nod.

“Thank you, my prince. I’ll serve you well.”

One of his guards led her off to her chambers. She’d have her own bedroom but she’d share her main living quarters with the rest of the women. They were well-dressed in seductive outfits and dolled up with makeup, but at least they weren’t literally at each other’s throats… not currently, anyway. They still kept watchful eyes on each other, never fully trusting one another and never a fond look shared between them. Who knew what the prince did in his free time with them?

A lean, dark-skinned woman approached her wearing a silky red dress. She looked Hana over with a barely less venomous look than the others before nodding to the guard, who left them alone.

“First things first,” the stranger offered, guiding Hana over to a seat in front of a mirror and a dresser full of makeup. She brushed back some of her hair, and Hana spotted a pair of slightly discolored lines running near her temple. They looked a lot like the claw marks she’d gotten that were bleeding down her leg. The dark woman pushed her firmly into the chair; not painful, but far rougher than she needed to be to show there was no true kindness in her act.

“We all went through the same thing to get here, so we’re all experts at finding makeup that covers up old scars.”