The curtains swept open with a theatrical flourish, releasing a cascade of morning sunlight that flooded Morgana's bedroom like molten honey. Golden rays stretched across polished hardwood floors, illuminating dust motes that danced in lazy spirals through the suddenly bright air. The warmth kissed her cheeks through the thin cotton sheets, but instead of comfort, it brought only the promise of a day she wasn't ready to face.
Morgana groaned, pulling her quilt over her head in a futile attempt to block out both light and reality. The familiar weight of Egyptian cotton felt like armor against the world beyond her sanctuary. "Mama, it's Saturday. No classes, no obligations. Why are you determined to torture me at this ungodly hour?"
Her voice emerged muffled and thick with sleep, carrying the petulant edge of someone who'd spent too many nights tossing restlessly, haunted by dreams she couldn't quite remember but couldn't fully forget.
Amara's laughter rippled through the room—warm, melodious, and utterly devastating in its innocence. The sound should have wrapped around Morgana like a maternal embrace, but instead it twisted something sharp and cold in her stomach. The distinctive click of designer heels against hardwood announced her stepmother's approach, accompanied by the subtle fragrance of French lavender and expensive perfume.
"What's the special occasion?" Morgana's fingers clutched the quilt's edge, knuckles white with tension she couldn't explain. Something in Amara's tone—too bright, too eager—set every nerve ending on high alert.
Peeking cautiously over the blanket's protective barrier, Morgana caught sight of Amara's radiant smile. It was the kind of expression that could power a small city, all gleaming teeth and sparkling eyes, but underneath lurked something that made Morgana's pulse quicken with instinctive dread.
"Majesty is coming home today."
The words detonated in the quiet room like a grenade.
Every muscle in Morgana's body locked rigid, transforming her into a statue beneath the covers. Her breath caught painfully in her throat, and for a moment, the world tilted dangerously off its axis. The name—that cursed, beautiful name—crashed through five years of carefully constructed defenses like a wrecking ball through paper walls.
"What did you just say?" The question scraped past her lips, barely audible, as if speaking too loudly might make the nightmare real.
Amara's enthusiasm bubbled over like champagne from an uncorked bottle. "You heard correctly, darling. My son returns today after all this time. We need to visit the market for fresh flowers, polish the silver, prepare his favorite meals—" She paused, eyes gleaming with maternal joy so pure it was almost painful to witness. "Everything must be perfect for his homecoming."
Morgana's heart hammered against her ribcage with bruising force, each beat echoing in her ears like thunder. Majesty. After five blessed years of silence, of healing, of learning to breathe without fear—he was coming back. The name alone unlocked Pandora's box of memories she'd spent half a decade trying to bury.
"Why didn't you warn me?" Her voice cracked like thin ice under pressure, revealing the raw panic beneath her composed facade.
Amara waved a dismissive hand, the gesture as casual as swatting away a bothersome fly. "I thought it would be a delightful surprise. You always seemed so fond of him when you were younger."
Fond. The word lodged in Morgana's throat like a shard of glass. If only Amara knew the truth—that her 'fondness' had been teenage infatuation that ended in public humiliation and five years of self-imposed exile from her own heart.
"Go freshen up, sweetheart. The maids will help you select something appropriate." Amara moved toward the door, then paused, her expression softening with maternal tenderness. "You're accompanying me to greet him, of course. I've waited so long to see my boy again."
She glided from the room humming Mozart under her breath, leaving Morgana alone with her thundering pulse and the weight of impending doom settling over her shoulders like a lead blanket.
Outside her window, the entire estate buzzed with preparation. Servants hurried across manicured lawns carrying armfuls of white roses, their voices bright with anticipation. The town beyond would be equally alive with excitement—banners unfurling, shop windows gleaming, everyone eager to welcome home their prince. The prodigal son. The future king.
But inside Morgana's chest, arctic dread spread through her veins like poison.
*Why is he coming back now?*
For five years, she'd rebuilt herself piece by painstaking piece. Every morning brought small victories—moments when she forgot to flinch at unexpected sounds, days when she managed genuine laughter, nights when sleep came without nightmares. She'd whispered affirmations to her reflection like prayers: *You are worthy. You are safe. You are enough.*
Now those fragile achievements crumbled like sandcastles before an incoming tide.
A traitorous voice whispered from the depths of her mind: *Maybe he's changed. Maybe time has softened his edges, taught him compassion.*
The thought lasted exactly three seconds before bitter laughter erupted from her throat.
"Changed?" She spoke to the empty room, her voice sharp with self-directed mockery. "Devils don't change, Morgana. They just get better at hiding their horns."
With that admission, the floodgates burst.
---
**Ten Years Ago**
The garden bloomed in riotous color, prize-winning roses heavy with morning dew that caught sunlight like scattered diamonds. Ancient oak trees provided pools of shade where butterflies danced lazy circles, and the air hung thick with the perfume of jasmine and honeysuckle. It should have been paradise.
Instead, it became the stage for Morgana's destruction.
Her bare feet slipped on dew-slicked flagstones as she sprinted after Nalani, her heart hammering with panic and desperate hope. The envelope—that damning piece of cream-colored stationary containing her most vulnerable thoughts—fluttered in her best friend's grasp like a captured bird.
"Nalani, please!" The words tore from her throat, raw with desperation. "Give it back!"
But Nalani danced just beyond reach, dark curls bouncing with mischievous determination. "If you won't deliver it yourself, then someone has to! You can't keep pining in silence forever!"
*Yes, I can,* Morgana thought desperately. *I can pine forever if it means avoiding this mortification.*
Too late.
There he stood beneath the ancient willow tree—Majesty Reginald, seventeen years old and already devastatingly beautiful in the way that aristocratic boys often were. His dark hair fell across his forehead in calculated disorder, and his ice-blue eyes held the kind of cold intelligence that made grown men nervous. Even at seventeen, power clung to him like expensive cologne.
"Don't!" Morgana's scream shattered the garden's tranquility, but the moment had already slipped beyond her control.
Nalani pressed the letter into Majesty's hands with a theatrical ceremony. "A secret admirer," she announced, shooting Morgana an encouraging wink that felt more like a death sentence.
Time crystallized into excruciatingly slow motion. Morgana watched, paralyzed with horror, as elegant fingers unfolded her letter. Those ice-chip eyes scanned her carefully crafted words—every vulnerable confession, every teenage dream, every desperate declaration of love written in her own trembling handwriting.
Heat flooded her cheeks as other students began gathering, drawn by the commotion like sharks to blood. Whispers rippled through the crowd, and Morgana felt herself shrinking, becoming smaller with each passing second.
Majesty's lips curved slowly upward—not in pleasure, but in something far more predatory.
"The little omega thinks she can reach above her station," he said, his voice carrying clearly across the suddenly silent garden. Each word felt like a physical blow. "How... amusing."
The letter—her heart laid bare in blue ink—became confetti in his hands. Paper fragments drifted to the ground like snow, each piece another small death.
But he wasn't finished.
With deliberate ceremony, Majesty lifted his crystal water glass and poured its contents over Morgana's head. Ice-cold water soaked through her hair and uniform, plastering the white cotton to her skin and sending rivulets down her neck.
The laughter started immediately—cruel, delighted, multiplying as word spread through the watching crowd. Paper balls materialized from nowhere, pelting her shoulders and back. Someone threw a half-eaten apple that splattered against her shoe.
"Teach the omega her place," Majesty commanded with casual cruelty, his voice cutting through the chaos like a blade.
Morgana stood frozen in the center of the storm, water dripping from her hair, surrounded by laughter that felt like physical wounds. Her legs trembled with the effort of remaining upright when everything inside her screamed to run, to hide, to disappear entirely.
Through the haze of humiliation, she caught sight of Nalani's face—pale with horror, tears streaming down her cheeks as she realized what she'd unleashed.
Too little, too late.
---
Later, when the garden had emptied and the sun had dried the worst of the water from her hair, Nalani found her sitting beneath the willow tree where it all began.
"I'm so sorry," Nalani whispered, her voice thick with guilt. "I thought... I hoped he might surprise us. I never imagined he could be so cruel."
Morgana stared at the scattered fragments of her letter, now trampled into the earth by dozens of feet. "You did me a favor," she said quietly, surprised by how steady her voice sounded. "You showed me who he really is. Who am I to people like him?"
"Don't say that. You're worth a hundred of him."
Morgana almost smiled. "Maybe. But not to him. Never to him."
As they walked back toward the house in silence, Morgana made herself a promise: Never again. Never again would she make herself vulnerable to someone who saw her as entertainment, as prey, as less than human.
It was a promise she intended to keep.
Until today.