Prologue
The fury was a drumbeat in my veins, a hot, humiliating rhythm that mocked every ounce of my discipline. It was infuriating. She was infuriating. But most of all, I was infuriating. No matter how I armoured myself in resolve, no matter how I rehearsed my cold indifference in the mirror of my quarters, the universe, or some malicious trickster god, conspired to place us alone together. And in that aloneness… it just happened. My will dissolved like sugar in hot tea.
What was it? A scent on the air, something primal and sweet that bypassed all reason? Pheromones that whispered directly to my blood? It felt like a physical force, a magnetic chemistry that pulled at the very iron in my soul. Stars above, had someone slipped me a love potion? Was this some archaic, forgotten magic woven into the very stones of the Hubs Palace? The only answer was the heavy traction of my boots on the marble stairs, carrying me, against every silent oath, upward.
To the fiftieth floor. To her.
The two Royal Sortém Guards at the ornate doors to her private chambers didn’t even twitch as I approached. Their polished silver breastplates, etched with the royal crest, reflected my own grim expression back at me. They knew my face. They knew my routine. Their impassive stares, looking straight ahead, were a deeper condemnation than any challenge. They were witnesses to my defeat, day after day.
I didn’t break stride; the doors swung inward on silent hinges, and I crossed the threshold into my own personal paradise of weakness.
The chamber’s magnificence was a slap in the face. This was my sixth consecutive day seeing it, and yet, as always, it stole the air from my lungs. It wasn’t just wealth; it was a perfectly curated atmosphere of seduction. Sleek, white Thasian marble floors, cool underfoot, flowed into vast expanses of soft, dove-grey sofas that looked like clouds. The air was warm, heated by a dozen glass-fronted fireplaces where flames danced behind crystal, their light a companion to the room’s true marvel: the light itself.
Here, in the princess’s chambers, all the electricity worked flawlessly. Tiny, crystalline lamps were embedded in walls and ceiling, responding to a mere uttered command, bathing everything in a glow that could be as bright as noon or as dim as a secret.
And the windows. Gods, the windows. The entire perimeter of the floor was a continuous sweep of floor-to-ceiling shadow-glass, during the day tinted against the sun, but now, at night, perfectly clear. They presented the kingdom like a spilled treasure chest of stars below and above.
She was standing beside one of them, a silhouette against the infinite dark. Princess Anja. She wore a devastating confection of brilliant white silk, the dress a study in strategic omission. It draped from her shoulders in a huge, open V that plunged down her back, revealing the elegant, dark line of her spine, a perfect, unbroken trail my eyes had memorized, all the way down to the tantalizing summit of her buttocks. I didn’t need to see the front, or how the fabric clung to the rest of her like a second skin, to know from brutal, breathtaking experience that she wore nothing underneath. Her bare legs, pale and shapely, tapered down to her bare feet, which were buried in the pristine, curling wool of a white lambskin rug.
She hadn’t turned. She was a statue of contemplation, gazing out at her dominion.
We were not, however, truly alone. Her world hummed around her. To the left, by a low table strewn with datasheets and sea charts, her two advisers murmured to each other, their rich robes a splash of colour against the monochrome room. Closer to the centre stood two more Royal Sortém Guards, mirror images of the ones outside, their presence a formality that felt suddenly absurd. And then there was Sona.
My equal. Another of Princess Anja’s personal guards. She stood at a precise, respectful distance from the princess, her own lean frame clad in the same practical, dark leathers I wore. Her dark hair was shorn close to her skull, a stark contrast to the princess’s waterfall of deep chestnut brown. Sona’s eyes, sharp as daggers, met mine the moment I entered. There was no judgment in them, only a flat, professional acknowledgment. And perhaps, deep down, a flicker of shared, helpless understanding. She gave the faintest, almost imperceptible nod. She had been expecting me. They all had.
The princess still hadn’t moved. But a subtle shift in the air, a tightening in the line of her shoulders, told me she was now aware of my presence. The silent audience, advisers, guards, Sona, waited. The promise I had made to myself on the stairs, not again, never again, curled into nothing, blown away by the warm, perfumed air of the chamber. My feet, traitors that they were, carried me forward.
The silence that had settled after my entrance was a fragile thing, broken only by the crackle of the fire. Princess Anja finally turned from the window, her movement a slow, deliberate swivel. Her eyes, the colour of dark polished wood, didn’t immediately find mine. They swept over the room, over her advisers and her guards, as if taking inventory.
“I think we are done here,” she announced, her voice cool and clear, a bell cutting through the air. Her gaze finally landed on me, and in it, I saw a flicker of something that wasn’t quite command, but collusion.
“I need to discuss this with Katlin, my security adviser.”
My title in her mouth felt heavier than any armour. I could already feel the shift in the room’s atmosphere, a ripple of animosity so potent it seemed to chill the warm air. The two advisers stiffened, their scholarly composure cracking to reveal raw, unvarnished resentment. Count Barlin’s jaw tightened, the parchment in his hand crinkling under his grip. Lady Veya’s lips thinned into a bloodless line. Their hatred was a physical pressure, a silent condemnation of my intrusion into their rarefied sphere of policy and influence. To them, I was a blunt instrument, a necessary but unsightly tool, now being given precedence over their counsel. It was a tension I wore like a second skin in these rooms.
“Everyone out,” the Princess said, the command leaving no room for debate.
The advisers moved automatically, a well-trained retreat. They gathered their sea charts and data-sheets with practiced efficiency, yet they stretched the moments, allowing themselves the petty rebellion of icy, sidelong glances aimed my way. Barlin’s look was one of pure aristocratic disdain; Veya’s was sharper, more calculating, as if already drafting a memorandum on the dangers of over-familiar guards. They didn’t bow, merely inclined their heads in a gesture that was more insult than respect, and swept from the room, their robes whispering accusations against the marble.
Then it was just the three of us: the Princess, a celestial vision in white; Sona, a statue of disciplined shadow; and me, the cause of the rupture, and, of course, the two Royal Sortém Guards, as much a part of the furniture as the sofas.
The Princess’s eyes shifted to Sona. Her expression didn’t soften; if anything, it became more imperious, a queen reclaiming her absolute domain.
“You too, Sona. Katlin can protect me.”
The words were a knife, expertly wielded. They weren’t just a dismissal; they were a demotion. A public, humiliating reassessment of capability and trust. Sona’s face, usually an unreadable mask of professional composure, betrayed the barest flinch, a slight tightening around her eyes, a minuscule freeze in her posture. To be ordered to stand out in the cold, public hallway with the other guards, reduced to just another sentry, while I, her equal in rank and duty, remained inside in the intimate warmth, discussing the princess’s security… it was a violation of protocol so profound it bordered on insult.
For a long, charged second, Sona stood perfectly still, her gaze locked on some middle distance between the Princess and me. The unspoken words hung in the air, thick as smoke. Then, with a stiffness that spoke volumes, she turned to leave. Her path to the door took her directly past me. As she drew abreast, her shoulder deliberately slammed into mine. It wasn’t an accidental bump; it was a solid, forceful impact of leather-clad muscle against my arm, a burst of controlled violence meant to be felt, not seen. The contact was brief but electric, a message transmitted through bone and sinew.
Then she was past, the door opening and closing behind her with a soft, final click. The sound echoed in the sudden, profound solitude. The magnificent chamber, with its star-dusted windows and dancing fires, felt surreal. The air, once warm, now felt close, filled with the scent of her perfume and the deafening silence of our aloneness. She had cleared the room with ruthless efficiency. The audience was gone.
“Katlin.”
The name didn’t leave her lips; it purred from them, a low, intimate vibration that seemed to bypass my ears and resonate directly in my chest. The final thread of my resolve snapped. In that moment, with the door sealed and her gaze holding mine, I was already hers. All the promises, all the fury, were just a cold wind.
She didn’t walk; she drifted, a phantom in white silk, closing the distance between us until the space evaporated. Suddenly, she was there, her body not touching mine but her presence overwhelming it. Our eyes were mere centimetres apart. In the depths of her dark wood irises, I saw my own reflection, a captive, a fool. This was the woman I had sworn, in the deepest, most secret vault of my soul, to one day kill. The thought was a dark, cold stone in my gut. And yet, her sweet, spiced breath now caressed my cheeks, a warm, tantalizing counterpoint to the chill of my oath.
Her fingers, long and elegant as a pianist’s, came up. They didn’t grab, not at first. They brushed, a whisper of a touch, against the scar that crossed my biceps, a souvenir from a real fight for life. The contrast was obscene. Then, her hand slid down, and her fingers closed around my wrist. Her grip was surprisingly strong, a claim more than a request.
“I have been in state all day and most of the night,” she sighed, the words a confession meant only for me. “Listening to petitions, signing decrees, smiling until my face ached. I must look and smell frightful.” She gave a slight, self-deprecating tug on my wrist, pulling me a fraction closer. “Help me take a bath. And help me unleash this nest I call hair.”
Without waiting for an answer, there never was one, not really, she turned, leading me by the captured wrist like a keeper with a tamed beast. She pulled me through an archway veiled by a curtain of living ferns, into her private bathing chambers.
The word ‘bath’ was a grotesque understatement. It was a subterranean grotto crafted from white and gold-veined marble, more akin to a private swimming pool. Steam rose in lazy, perfumed clouds from a vast expanse of turquoise water, lit from below by a soft, aquamarine glow. The air was filled with the scent of night-blooming jasmine and salt. A wide, crescent-shaped bank of tiered steps, also marble, descended gently into the shimmering depths.
She released my wrist only to gesture at the single, devastating fastening of her dress. “Help me take this off.”
My hands, which could disassemble a pulse-rifle in total darkness, felt suddenly clumsy and foreign. The clasp at the nape of her neck was a simple, cool pearl. As my fingers fumbled with it, my mind raced on a parallel, desperate track. This is it. The perfect moment. The clasp comes undone, my hand shifts five centimetres, finds the pressure point at the base of her skull. A sharp, precise strike. She’d be dead before she hit the floor. The guards in the outer chamber would hear nothing.
The thought was crystal clear, a tactical assessment. But it was followed immediately by another, colder reality. I might kill her. I might even take the two Sortém guards in the anteroom by surprise. But I would never get out. Not past Sona and the others in the hall. Not past the automated defence grids. My death would be swift if I was lucky, and her dynasty would continue, and this… this fever-dream would end in meaningless blood on marble.
The clasp gave way with a soft click. As if sensing the dark turn of my thoughts, she stepped forward, letting the brilliant white silk pool at her feet with a grace that stole my breath. Utterly unselfconscious, magnificently nude, she walked straight into the pool, the water kissing her ankles, then her calves. She poised on the first submerged step, the water swirling around her thighs. Then she turned, the steam wreathing her body in a tantalizing haze.
Her eyes found mine, holding a challenge that was both an order and an invitation. A slow, knowing smile touched her lips.
“Stop being such a prune, Katlin,” she said, her voice echoing softly in the cavernous space. “Take your clothes off. And join me.”
The command hung in the steamy air. The pristine leathers of my uniform, my armour, my identity, felt like a suffocating shell. Across the water, she waited, a siren on a marble shore, and the gulf between my oath and my desire had never seemed so wide, so deep, or so utterly impossible to bridge.
I unbelted my dagger that I should never have been allowed to bear in the princess’s presence on my night off and scrambled out of my leather armour, still unsure what the hell I was doing. I took a shallow dive into the pool and swam underwater, coming up just a hair’s breadth from her face, where I squirted a mouthful of water onto her.
“Your majesty,” I laughed.
“Katlin!” she shrieked, as she pulled me into a full embrace, her soft lips parting, her strong tongue wrestling mine for dominance. We were so entwined it would be hard for an onlooker to distinguish where one body started, and another ended.
She slowly pulled away, and the loss of her touch almost paralysed me. “Katlin, help me wash and brush my hair.”
I curled around her until I was straddling her from behind, sitting on a step, her arse pushed up against my womanhood. Every time she moved or talked, it vibrated through my clit. I unwound her hair and took a comb from a waiting tray beside the pool and began to brush her hair.
My mind drifted with each stroke, thinking back to another time and my first kiss, not soft and smooth but hard and hairy like a wire brush. That was five years ago, and I was a different person.
Anja moved her hips and neck. “Ouch, that hurt,” bringing me back to the present. She pulled me around her and the comb fell from my fingers as we started kissing again. I loved Ebb, and I have slept with a thousand men these last eight years, but never has a touch been so electrifying as the touch of Princess Anja.
In our passion we left the pool and headed for her own bedroom. As we went through the antechamber, we passed the Sortém guards. I broke my stride seeing them there, yet Anja just laughed and grabbed me by the hand, pulling me towards her room.
“They see nothing, and even if they did, they can´t do much with what they have,” she laughed, reminding me again how much I hated her.
