Chapter 5 The Stolen Voice

Chapter 5

Mila’s POV

Two strong hands grabbed me by the arms and yanked me up from the cold marble floor. My knees scraped against it, leaving a faint line of blood. The grand hall that had been crowded with voices moments ago was now empty, eerily silent except for the echo of boots and my own shallow breathing.

Every one had scurried round Rosa and they had hurried her out of the palace with Jax.

The guards didn’t look at me. Their faces were made of stone, their eyes straight ahead as though I wasn’t even human.

Rosa had done it. She had played them, no, she had played me. Or maybe this was part of the plan too. Maybe they all wanted me gone before I could speak a single truth.

I tried to open my mouth.

Nothing.

Not a sound.

The air caught in my throat like a broken string.

A sharp pain burned in my chest as realization hit me. Silencium-9?

That cursed drug.

They had spiked it in the water. I remembered the guard who’d given it to me, the woman with kind eyes and deep voice like a frog. How could I have trusted her?

“How stupid could I be?” I whispered in my head. My lips moved, but no sound escaped. Like hot summer sand mixed with hot coal.

The image of that small jug and the cup flashed in my mind. The way the light had glimmered on the rim.

Her utterance too. Very weighty.

“ Is it for drinking or bathing?”

That utterance stuck to me . Like a plague.

If only I had sensed it. If I had waited a bit.

If only I had fought the thirst.

Now my voice is gone. The voice that could have defended me. The voice that could have shouted the truth into Jax’s ears before the lies buried me forever.

I wanted to scream, to tell him I was innocent. That Rosa, Lady Sarah, elder Vexhood and rest had spun a web around his heart, whispering poison into his mind.

But all I could do was breathe and stare.

“Get this filthy thing out of here!”

The words sliced through the silence.

Lady Sarah’s voice.

Her heels clicked on the floor as she stormed toward us. Her perfume filled the air, a familiar scent that made me sick to my stomach. She stood before me, her chin high, her eyes cold as frost.

“Don’t come and mess things up for us, Mila,” she spat. Her gaze swept from my tangled hair to my bare, dusty feet. “You’ve done enough damage already.”

Her words burned more than any wound could.

I stared at her, hoping she would see the pain in my eyes, the disbelief. She didn’t even flinch.

This was the same Lady Sarah whose mate had been dying in my father’s clinic just last month. The same woman who had clung to my hand, begging me to save him.

I saw her again in my mind that night, her tears, her shaking voice. “Please, Mila. Please, he’s all I have.”

And I did. I saved him.

Damien, my medical partner, and two of my colleagues whom I had called upon had worked all night. We fought death itself, and we won.

And now… she looked at me like I was dirt.

I wanted to ask her why. I wanted to remind her what I did for her family. But my voice, my only weapon, had been stolen from me.

So I just looked at her, silently. My lips trembling. I shook my head in pity. Slightly moved tears. None of them moved me anymore.

Since Rosa, my blood, was the main act in all of this.

Her expression flickered for half a second, almost like guilt, but then she straightened and barked, “Take her away!”

The guards didn’t hesitate. One of them gripped my arm tighter, his fingers digging into my skin. Another pulled a rough sack over my head. Darkness swallowed me whole.

“Move,” one of them ordered.

Their boots thudded against the marble floor. My bare feet stumbled to keep up, each step burning with shame.

They dragged me through the back corridors of the ones that smelled of dust and secrets.

Somewhere behind me, I heard Lady Sarah’s voice again, softer this time.

“Make sure

she doesn’t see daylight again. Till night comes when justice would be unleashed on her.”