Page 3

"Consider it done," she said.

She pressed her mouth to his ear and began to hum.

The sound moved through him before he could track it. He closed his eyes. When he opened them the room had changed. The air was warmer and it carried a scent he recognized from the ballroom. Asharin’s perfume, something floral and light, mixed with the wine on her breath. He looked at the bed.

Her hair was gold now, the same shade and loose curls as Asharin’s. Her eyes were gold. The scent matched exactly. It was not Asharin. He knew it was not Asharin.

He looked anyway.

She slowly pulled her gown over her head, then reached for him and pulled him down. Her legs wrapped around his hips. He pushed inside her, and she took him at once. He started moving, holding her wrists flat against the bed.

"Fuck me harder, Majesty," she said in Asharin's voice.

He did.

She lifted her hips to meet each thrust and made sounds he recognized from the ball, from a laugh that had carried across a crowded room and lodged somewhere it had no business being. He kept going, close enough that the edge was right there, close enough that one more⁠—

She slid off him.

He ached with it, the loss immediate. She knew it. The knowing was in every line of her as she stood and looked down at him with those gold eyes, entirely unbothered. He was still breathing hard. She was not.

“Beg, Your Highness.”

He got to his knees on the floor. The want of it had only gotten worse and she knew that too.

She stood over him with Asharin's hair falling over her shoulder and tilted her head. "You were such a disappointment tonight, Tamal. I was hoping for a better dance partner." She circled him slowly, her bare feet silent on the wood. "Someone funnier. More clever." She stopped behind him. "I am a great beauty. I do not want a prince. You could never compare to King Sevrin. Did you know he wants me too?"

She picked up the belt from the chair where he had draped his jacket and wrapped it slowly around his throat. Her hand closed around him at the same time and began to stroke, slow and certain, and he exhaled hard through his nose.

"Will he fuck you better than me?" he managed.

"Yes," she said. "Because you are worthless."

He moaned.

Her hand kept moving. He pressed into it, the pressure building fast. He hated himself for it but did not stop.

Then she leaned down close to his ear, Asharin's scent still on her skin, Asharin's hair brushing his cheek.

"There are rumors below the sea," she said softly, "that this golden-eyed Asharin shares sibling blood with you. Did you know that?"

He didn’t move. Her hand kept working.

She tightened the belt another fraction.

"I think you do know that," she whispered. "And I think it changes nothing. Does it, Highness?"

He was still hard. He hated that he was still hard.

She released the belt and stepped back.

"Down on all fours."

He went down.

She leaned close and hummed something different into his ear and the room opened, expanded. He felt like he was flying, nothing above him but open dark, the song ringing in places he could not name. Pleasure built through him in a wave he could not control, cresting until he moaned against his own arm, the sound muffled, his whole body shaking with it.

Then the room turned cold. Pressure pulling inward rather than down. Then everything went black.