I AM THE KING'S SACRIFICE. I was a girl of the soot and the shadows. I spent my days stitching shrouds for the dead in the East End. Then the Royal Advisor arrived with a summons that ended my life. Now I am a prisoner of the Penrose Estate. The whalebone corset crushes my ribs and steals my breath. It forces me into a posture of constant submission. I am being scrubbed clean of my past to serve a purpose I never chose. King Ginuwine Shakur is a mountain of cold authority. His gaze is a physical weight that pins me to the floor. Beside him stands Prince Kanye Baker. He is a predator with a volatile hunger in his eyes. They do not ask for my heart. They demand my body to secure their bloodline. I am the virgin vessel required for the crown. The Night of Defloration is my ritual sacrifice. I am bathed in oils and dressed in gossamer for their pleasure. My body betrays me with a traitorous heat I cannot ignore. I fear their dominance but I ache for their touch. They claim me together in a storm of duty and desire. There is no escape from the gilded cage they have built around me. The aristocracy whispers my name in spite. They call me a gutter-bird and wait for my ruin. The King does not care for the gossip of the ton. He only cares for the seed he has planted within me.