"Your Majesty..."
Kaio dragged his broken pride across the floor, crawling like a wounded cur until he reached the hem of her silk gown. He clung to the fabric with trembling, grease-stained fingers, his touch a defilement she noted with a twitch of her jaw. "Mercy... I beg of you... Mercy!"
"Oh, darling," Evangeline cooed, though her eyes remained as cold as a crypt. She looked down at him, her lips curling into a jagged, mocking line. "You truly are entertaining. Tell me, did you think of mercy when you were tearing that girl apart? Did you offer her a shred of pity while you defiled her body with your filthy, wretched hands?"
"Please, Your Majesty! I won't do it again! I promise... I swear!"
His face was a pathetic mask of leaking fluids—tears and bile mixing with the snot that ran down his lip as he sobbed for a life he didn't deserve.
"Guards!" Evangeline's voice shattered the air like a thunderclap, sharp and echoing.
