24 Getting By

**Annabel’s POV**

Three weeks drifted by, and somehow, I slipped into a rhythm—a routine that dulled the sharp edge of despair but didn’t erase it. 

Each day felt like I was trudging through mud, heavy and unyielding. Michelle, with her sly smirks and loaded comments, tried to hint that something had happened between her and Darius.

She wanted me to know, to provoke me. But I turned my back on her insinuations, locking my emotions behind a wall of indifference. 

He might have claimed me as his, but the truth I couldn’t escape was this: he didn’t belong to me. 

I was a possession, marked by the brand on my neck—a cruel reminder that my will, my life, wasn’t my own anymore.

Leah and I spoke when she had a spare moment, though even those were rare. She painted a picture of Darius that wasn’t surprising but still chilled me. 

“He’s cold,” she said, her voice heavy with resignation. “Stoic. I just sit next to him, smile, and play the part of a polite doll.” 

He never touched her. Never kissed her. Never offered a kind word. She was no more to him than an ornament, a silent escort meant to enhance his image. 

Hearing her words stung. Her misery mirrored my own, and it twisted something deep inside me. Neither of us could escape the silence of our suffering, each trapped in a different kind of prison.

The servants whispered in hushed voices when they thought we weren’t listening. 

They said we were only kept because no one more “pleasing” had been captured. If more attractive women were found, we’d be discarded like broken toys.

Until then, we were trapped, bound to serve the King like pawns on a board.

My wolf, Onyx, stirred uneasily within me. Her instincts whispered of escape, of freedom beyond the iron gates of this wretched place. But I knew better. 

Running wasn’t an option. Even with her strength, we wouldn’t make it far. The Black Gate wasn’t just a name—it was a sentence. A cage I couldn’t break.

In the fourth week, I was sent to gather tomatoes from the farm. The sun beat down relentlessly as I trudged through the rows of plants, my hands aching from the work. 

That’s when I saw her—Rebecca. At first, I didn’t recognize her. Her once-vibrant spirit seemed smothered under the grime on her face and the hollow look in her eyes. 

Her hair was unkempt, her clothes ragged. She looked like she hadn’t seen a moment’s peace in weeks. She told me she had been toiling in the fields, while Alfred had been sent to the mines. 

They were given the hardest, dirtiest jobs, with barely enough food to keep them going. My stomach twisted in guilt. 

Compared to them, Leah, Michelle, and I lived in relative ease, even if it didn’t feel that way.

I couldn’t bear it. Seeing Rebecca like that tore at something raw inside me. That night, I snuck extra food to her, careful not to get caught. 

She was grateful, but her gratitude was shadowed by hurt. 

“Michelle hasn’t even tried to see me or Alfred,” she admitted, her voice trembling with pain. 

She didn’t say the words, but I could feel her unspoken question: Why doesn’t she care?

I couldn’t tell her the truth. I couldn’t bring myself to say that Michelle had found comfort—if it could even be called that—in the King’s bed. 

It wasn’t my secret to share, and what good would it do? So I swallowed the words and held them back, though they burned my throat. 

Instead, I sat with Rebecca as long as I dared, sharing silence and what little comfort I could offer.

The weight of our lives pressed down on me, heavy and suffocating. We were all broken in our own ways, forced into roles we never chose, trapped in a nightmare with no end in sight. And yet, we endured. For what, I didn’t know. 

Maybe hope. Maybe survival. Or maybe it was simply because we didn’t have any other choice.

One quiet afternoon, during a rare break from the monotony of my days, I decided to wander into the garden. 

It was a simple choice, driven by a need to escape the heavy air inside the castle walls. The King wasn’t home—he had taken Leah to some grand function, leaving Michelle and me behind. 

Michelle was livid. Her irritation spilled over in incessant complaints as she paced the halls.

“I’m so tired of this!” she fumed. “I’m treated like some dirty little secret. He takes her out to these events, showing her off to the world, while I sit here and wait. It’s not fair. 

If he’s going to keep me around, he should let me have some fun, too.”

I listened in silence, knowing there was nothing I could say to soothe her. Michelle believed she was competing with Leah for the King’s attention, convinced they shared his affections. But I knew the truth. Leah had confided in me, and I believed her. 

She’d told me, with no trace of jealousy or pretense, that there was nothing between her and Darius beyond the performance. 

No kisses, no touches, no words of tenderness. Just silence and the empty smiles they shared for appearances’ sake. Still, I couldn’t blame Michelle for hoping. 

Hope, no matter how misguided, was sometimes all we had.

Eventually, I had to excuse myself. Her bitter words were too much to bear, and I needed air. The garden seemed like the perfect retreat—its quiet beauty a small comfort amidst the chaos of my life.

I strolled through the winding paths, letting the soft breeze and floral scents ease my mind. For a moment, I allowed myself to imagine I was somewhere else, someone else, free of the chains that bound me. 

But my reverie was short-lived. A man’s voice broke through the stillness, startling me.

“Hello,” he said, his tone warm and unthreatening. 

I turned, instinctively bowing my head as I took him in. His uniform marked him as someone of importance, and the way he carried himself confirmed it.

“My name is Declan. Gamma Declan,” he introduced himself, a smile playing on his lips. My suspicions were correct—he was the third in command, a high-ranking officer. 

His presence here puzzled me. 

Shouldn’t he be with the King and Beta at the function? I didn’t dare ask, of course. It wasn’t my place to question anything.

“Today seems to be a free day, doesn’t it?” he said casually, his tone light.

I nodded quickly, keeping my response polite. “I’ve completed all the tasks assigned to me.”

“Great,” he replied. “I was hoping for some company. It gets a bit lonely around here, and it’s not every day you see a beautiful lady like yourself wandering the garden alone.”

His words hung in the air, unexpectedly kind. Had this been a different time, a different life, they might have brought colour to my cheeks. 

Once, I might have smiled shyly, charmed by his attention. But now? Now, I was guarded. Flattery felt like a tool, a game I wasn’t prepared to play. Still, I knew better than to refuse him outright. I doubted I had a real choice in the matter.

Cautiously, I nodded. “I suppose I could sit for a while.”

His grin widened, and he gestured toward a bench nestled under a sprawling tree. I followed, my heart heavy with a mix of unease and curiosity. What could he possibly want from me? Or was this just a harmless moment of conversation in a world that rarely allowed for them? Only time would tell.