Chapter 7

‘Let us see if another servant will dare to share a room with the princess again,’ the guard laughed before taking his place outside her room again, just in time before the other guard returned from a bathroom break.
The next morning the guard came running into the princess room when she screamed her head off after discovering the dead servant.
“Her lies must have killed her during the night,” the guard laughed, swinging her lifeless body over his shoulder and carrying her away as if she meant nothing.
Iris stayed in her room all day, crying.
“What made you cry this time,” King Evander asked walking into her room.
“The servant girl died last night, right here in my room,” Iris sobbed.
“How?” King Evander asked.
“I don’t know, I found her blue this morning,” Iris said, pointing at where the servant girl slept, her made shift bed still on the floor.
“Maybe she froze to death,” King Evander said, hooking her chain to his cuff, “come.”
“Please let me stay. I wish to mourn her death, someone should,” Iris protested.
“Do you even know what her name was?” King Evander asked, raising his one brow.
Iris sucks her bottom lip again and shakes her head, ‘no,’ before sobbing again.
“You have mourned her all day and it is dinner time,” King Evander said, yanking the chain, making her find her feet.
“I am not hungry,” Iris protested.
“I say you are,” King Evander said, walking out of the room, forcing Iris to walk with him.
After a lavish dinner that Iris hardly touched the king excused her from the table, “you can go to your room, your face ruined my dinner for me.” King Evander unhooked the chain from his cuff.
“I, um, I am hungry after all,” Iris said, putting a mouth full of food into her mouth, not wanting to go back to her room where she knows the guards will be waiting for her.
“Very well then,” King Evander said, before standing up. Marchelle also stood up and hooked her hand around the king's arm and together they left for his room.
Iris sneaked a knife into the folds of her gown before standing up and leaving for her own room, thinking, ‘I will be damned if I will let that filthy guard have his way with me.’
Iris laid that night in bed with a candle burning next to her, not willing to blow it out, ready to kill a guard if need be.
She heard the guards chatting outside her bedroom door and struggled to keep herself awake.
Iris fell asleep during the night, holding on to her knife and the next morning was angry at herself for falling asleep.
A new servant girl came to her room to get her ready and over the next few days, Iris pended her days chained to the King's cuff.
One night while waiting for sleep to come, laying in her bed, filled with fear, wondering if tonight will be the night that the guard will try his luck, Iris heard her bedroom door open. Her eyes flung open, and she immediately regretted not leaving the candle on that night.
Iris felt her bedsheets being pulled off her and spoke up, "I have a weapon and I will use it."
"What a silly thing to do; to give yourself away," she heard the guard laughing voice.
Iris jumped up and immediately stabbed towards where she heard the guard's voice.
"Ah!" The guard cried out. Iris stabbed him in his right eye.
The cry was the last from the guard before he fell down on her bed. Iris did not know where she stabbed the guard and did not wait to find out. She immediately ran towards the light of her open bedroom door, screaming for help.
“What the hell did you do?!” The guard that was waiting outside for his turn with the princess shouted at her when he sees the blood splatter across her face and white nightgown. Iris realized that she is going to get no help from the guard and made a run for it. Iris does not know why but she felt the only place she will be safe right now is with the king so she ran as fast as she could to the King’s room, the guard close on her heals but when she storms into the king’s room the guard stops. The two guards at the king’s bedroom door were too slow to stop her and now, along with the guard that was chasing her waited to hear the king shout at them but no word came from the king. Iris catches her breath behind the shut door and sank to the floor, silent tears ran down her face.
“She killed one of us,” the guard said before turning away to clean up the mess.
The next morning King Evander woke up before the servants came to wake him up and on his way to the wash area of his room, he noticed the princess curled up on the floor at his bedroom door. After emptying his bladder, he picked her up from the floor and laid her down on his bed, but then he noticed the blood on her and for a moment he thought she is dead since she did not wake up when he picked her up.
“Princess Cerena?!” he shook her.
“King Evander,” Iris exclaims when she looked up at the giant of a man towering over her.
“What happened to you? Are you hurt?” King Evander asked concerned.
“I think I killed one of your guards,” Iris whispered in fear.
“Are you ok? Did he hurt you?” King Evander inspected her body.
“It is his blood, not mine,” Iris said.
“Guards?!” King Evander roars, giving Iris a fright.
‘He is going to hand me over to them,’ Iris panicked.
“Your majesty,” the guards said at the same time after opening the doors.
“Who did this to her?” King Evander demanded to know.
“She threw herself at one of the guards at her door and when he rejected her, she pulled out a knife and stabbed him in the eye,” the one guard answered.
“What?! That is not true!” Iris protested.
“It is true,” the other guard said.
King Evander walked over and grabbed them both by their throats, “you take me for a fool?! If you know it to be true, then that means you were both away from your post! Standing in line, waiting your turn to have your way with my future queen?!”
They try to respond but King Evander increased his hold on their throats, crushing them to death.
Iris placed her hands over her mouth, tears in her eyes.
“I cannot have anyone know that you are a whore that throws yourself at my f*cking guards,” King Evander said.
“But I,” Iris started to explain but King Evander grabbed her by her hair and pulls her to his face.
With his free hand, he touches the tears that are falling from her right eye and licks the tears off her left cheek, “I will make an obedient queen out of you.”
King Evander pushed her down to his manhood and Iris gathers up his nightshirt that was hanging just under his knees so that she can access his penis, thinking, ‘there is no use fighting this, the sooner I learn to please him the better.’
“You are so eager this time, so before you just pretended to be innocent?” King Evander shoves her away from him, making her fall to the ground.
Iris stayed where she is as the servants enter the King’s room, sidestepping the guards as if they did not matter.
After the king was dressed for the day and about to leave his room he paused and turned to look at Iris, “you are nothing but a sex-crazy whore.”
The king left his room, “get her washed up and dressed in her finest gowns, perhaps I am better off selling her to another kingdom.”
“Yes, your majesty,” the servants said before running over to Iris and helping her to her feet.
The king scolds under his breath before making his way to the breakfast room to have his breakfast before his guest arrived; Kings from neighboring Kingdoms that wish to sign treaties with him, now that he is the new King of this land.
By the time King Evander got to his Throne room, Iris was already waiting there wearing an elegant blue dress that showed off her full bust and tiny waist.
“Put her in something more revealing, something sheer so that my guest can see what she looks like,” the king ordered, sitting on his throne.
‘Did the former King and Queen have good relationships with the neighboring kingdoms? Did they like each other? Will one of them save me from this monster?’ Iris wondered as she left the throne room, following the servant girls back to her room.