MY BREATH BELONGS TO THE CROWN. I was the daughter of the stables. I knew the scent of earth and the rhythm of the wild. Then King Reggie Wynette looked at me. He did not ask. He did not court. He simply took. Now I am a prisoner in a palace of gold and iron. The maids scrub the dirt from my skin until I am raw. They lace me into bone-stayed corsets that steal the air from my lungs. I am being molded into a royal vessel. I am being broken to fit a throne that hates my very existence. The King views me as his most precious property. He claims my body with a dark, relentless hunger. He demands my silence and my total surrender. I am a commoner lost in a den of vipers. Every touch is a brand. Every look is a command. He does not want my heart. He wants an heir to secure his bloodline. I am the gilded cage that will hold his legacy. My freedom is a memory. My future is his shadow. I am eternally possessed by the man who crushed my soul to wear his crown.