Rosaline sat alone in the royal chambers, the fire in the hearth crackling low and indifferent to the storm raging inside her. The morning's breakfast still lingered in her memory like a bitter aftertaste, Lucian's restless posture, the way he stared at Simon as he served.
She had seen it all, and she had smiled through it all, the perfect wife, the dutiful queen-to-be, but inside something had snapped. The disgust she had felt since the first night of their marriage, the way the common squire kept stealing her husband's attention, his presence a constant reminder of what Lucian had given up for duty—had curdled into something sharper, colder. Resentment, determination, and a need so fierce it felt like hunger.
