-HER-

I had no control over myself or my body in the next couple of hours. Those women were doing everything for me. It was so overwhelming for me. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs at one point.

"She is just a pup," a woman frowned as she rubbed something in my hair that instantly turned my hair smoother, "She still smells like a pup. I didn't know the King was picking girls so young," I heard one of the women comment. While they were fiddling with me, I was sitting there in shock and thinking if he really slept with every woman present there.

Whenever I thought that he couldn't be any worse, he went further and showed me an uglier side of him.

"Whatever it is, I think he picked her up because of the way she looks," One of the women commented as she eyed me with a very judgemental look, making me feel even more self-conscious.

I wanted to get out of there and I even tried to escape a few moments ago but these women... they don't seem to be just any ordinary women. I was sure that they were not humane but they weren't lycans either.

They were some magical creatures who knew how to lure and control anyone. I was so tempted to fight and throw a tantrum there as they fiddled with me but instead, I was sitting there very calmly. I was sure it had something to do with their powers rather than my own. I was feeling very oddly calm when they surrounded me.

"I want to go home," I told them.

"Where's your home?" Asked one of the blonds filing my nails.

"Zaeris,"

"Forget about it," she told me with a shrug, bringing tears to my eyes.

"No... I want to go back. Ezekiel cannot keep me here for long. My father would send wolves looking for me," I told her, trying to sound confident but I rather sounded more anxious.

"Seems like she was born yesterday," A woman commented with a giggle.

The blonde filing my nails spoke to me this time, "First, don't call him by his name. He is the King, so respect him and second, I don't know who your father is but I know this much that the King wouldn't return you so easily,"

"What is he going to do with me then? I don't want to stay here! I am not a whore! I am the future general of Zaer-" Before I could finish speaking, someone clutched my hair a bit too painfully before yanking my head back and making me look at them. I blinked back the tears in my eyes from the pain before my eyes focused on the face of one of the beautiful women there.

She had black hair and black eyes.

"We are not whores," she hissed at me and yanked my head again. I was about to fight back but someone came to my rescue, "Heera, leave her. She is just an innocent girl. She doesn't know anything properly," the woman named Heera let go of my hair. I looked at the woman who saved me. She was the same woman who brought me here.

"Celeste, don't speak that word again here. This is not a brothel. There's a huge difference between the King's prostitutes and us-"

"Ezekiel has prostitutes?" I asked, straightening up. The woman with black hair hissed at me again and I glared at her. I wasn't going to sit back if she laid another hand on me. I would attack her back and show her what I was really made up of.

"Don't call him by his name. Call him King or His Majesty," The woman corrected me before she returned to the previous topic, "The King has us- his women and then he has the prostitutes,

"What's the difference?" I asked.

"Respect. He respects us," The woman told me, "Not all of us warm his bed. Most of us are expected to keep him entertained and make sure he has a good time," The woman told me but still, I saw no difference between them and the prostitutes.

"Ezekiel doesn't respect women," I told her.

"HIS MAJESTY," she corrected me a bit too firmly this time before she added, "He doesn't respect all women but there are some, he does. We are that handful of women. We earned his respect," she told me.

"How?" I asked her. I still wasn't buying whatever bullshit they were feeding me. This didn't make any sense to me.

"By making sure he has a good time," she explained while the others continued to prepare me.

"So what do you think I am expected to do tonight?" I asked her.

"We'll look into that. Do you know how to sing? How to dance?" She enquired.

"I know how to break someone's nose," I informed, eyeing Heera who was just leaning by the mirror, looking at me with the same judgmental look. I wasn't liking her a bit and I could tell that the feeling was mutual. Heera instantly hissed at me before the woman who was tending to me hurled her away from the dressing room.

"She's one of the prostitutes. No one likes her here," One of the girls whispered to me. Just thinking of Heera sleeping with Ezekiel plagued my chest with jealousy. "His majesty prefers her the most tho," One of them commented, fuelling my jealousy.

"Now, now, I don't think breaking someone's nose would give anyone a great time," the woman came back and spoke to me. "What else could you do?" She asked me with hope. I further disappointed her with my answer, "Fight,"

She frowned at this but I shrugged and told her, "I'm the daughter of Zaeris' General. That's all I have learned to do,"

"I'll see what else could be done with you," She grumbled more to herself before walking away until I was left with a couple of girls who were relatively younger. I eyed each one of them and asked, "Are you here willingly?"

"Of course," One of them answered. "You don't know how hard it is to be part of the harem. Lyra, the mother of the harem, she chooses us and she is very strict with whom she picks," I realized that the woman who brought me here was Lyra.

"And not only that, once you're chosen you have to continue giving your best otherwise she eliminates you from here. You're very lucky to have been chosen by the King himself,"

That's because I'm his mate and he's playing with me.

"Have you slept with the king?" I asked her.

"No, I wouldn't choose him," She told me with a shrug. This bewildered me.

"You have a choice here?" I asked her.

"Of course. We still have control over our bodies," She told me. The more I listened to them talk, the more confused I got. This place seemed like an entirely different place that revolved around Ezekiel but still, somehow maintained its own independence.

"If you didn't want to sleep with the king then why did you join the harem?" I couldn't help but ask.

"Why shouldn't one join? You wouldn't believe it if I tell you that we get more respect, safety, and independence here than anywhere else in this kingdom," she told me.

"None of this makes sense to me," I told her. This made them throw their head back and laugh before the girl speaking to me before told me, "Don't worry. You'll soon get used to all of this,"

She told me this as if I was going to stay there forever but she didn't know how wrong she was. None of them knew a thing about me except for my name. I wondered how they'd react to finding out that I was Ezekiel's mate.

If I ever rule this place in the future then the first thing I'd do is get rid of this bullshit. I stared at the girl while she continued to do my hair. She smiled at me in the reflection when she caught me staring at her. She was really beautiful and had a charm to herself.

"My name is Noora," she introduced herself, "And I'm mostly in charge of doing everyone's makeup and hair here. They do the same work as me," she told me while nodding at the other girls who were sitting by the corner and chatting away.

"Would you stay here forever?" I asked Noora.

"We retire from here after a certain age," she told me.

"What after that?" I asked her.

"We could choose to stay here and train the newcomers or get mated to one of the lycans in the court," she told me. I didn't miss how she spoke with a glint in her eyes. She already seemed to have chosen someone.

"You get to choose mates here?" I asked her.

"Yes, the women choose the men here. We have more control and influence than you could imagine," she told me.

"Whom have you chosen?" I asked her. She turned a deep red before telling me in a whisper, "Oh, it's actually the king's third in command," I remembered the brute from earlier today. I hated him but she seemed to be deeply in love.

"What if someone else chose him?" I asked her. "Is it possible to have multiple mates here?"

"Oh, I don't have to worry about someone else choosing him. As far as I know, no one else here is interested in him and a lycan is allowed to take only one mate, except for the King, of course," she told me and I instantly felt a pang in my chest but I hid it.

I wondered if Ezekiel wasn't accepting me because he already had someone else in his mind.

_

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