The room was still when doors creaked open. Lara's movements were frozen, her dagger resting against her palm, her cloak weighing on her shoulders. The night was colder than it ever got—so still, so piercing—that even her breathing seemed loud enough to break the silence. She spun round, and there he was.
The Emperor.
For the first time ever, their eyes met.
Her heart skipped, pounding against her ribs, but she stiffened her face. For her, it was the first real meeting. But his eyes conveyed something else—knowledge, almost recognition. Like a man greeting someone he'd been watching for far too long.
The quiet grew, as if the air itself wished to hear. His eyes were black, unblinking, slicing through her like ice-tempered steel. He did not blink. Nor did she.
"Where are you headed from?" His tone was even, too even. The sort of even that preceded harm.".
Her fingers clenched tighter on the concealed dagger in her cloak. She smiled, hard, rehearsed. "From where else could I come, Your Majesty? I was upon the balcony, enjoying the air."
They both knew it was a falsehood. The air between them vibrated with it, electric and dense. But neither made it so.
He moved closer. The thud of his boots on the marble floor rang out like a drumbeat in the silence. Each step, the room felt smaller, the tension more than she could bear. Lara's throat closed up, her knuckles turning white around the dagger.
Closer.
Closer still.
Until finally, he faced her, his height looming, his shadow engulfing hers completely. She raised her head, covering her turmoil with a slight, almost mocking smile.
What brings you here, Your Majesty?" she inquired softly, her tone dripping with insincere courtesy. "It seems as though you've gone into the wrong rooms."
His gaze flashed—not with rage, but with something more sinister, more volatile. He leaned in, encroaching on her air, their noses almost touching.
"I am in my wife's chambers," he whispered, his tone low and rough and intimate. "Is it sinful for a husband to go to his wife when they have not even consummated their marriage?"
Her smile wavered. Her breathing grew rapid. Goosebumps chased down her arms, a shiver she could not control. His closeness was overwhelming—his smell, warm spice and cold steel, hitting her senses until she could barely think.
He leaned his head in closer, his lips touching the air by hers. "If you wish to refuse," he breathed, "speak now."
She was paralyzed. The dagger remained in her hand, concealed, but ineffectual. Her lips opened, but nothing emerged. The tempest raging within her was too fierce—fear, rage, desire, all crashing against each other.
He watched her silence, his eyes never leaving her. His hand came up, slow, careful, and grasped her chin, turning her face to his. "Say it," he said again, his tone lower now, commanding, intimate. "If you don't want this, say it."
Her mind whirled—consequences, threats, chains, dreams she had kept buried for so long. And yet… she nodded.
His eyes flashed dark, burning into hers. And then their lips touched.
It was not soft. It was not courteous. It was slow, fiery, ravenous—breath-robbing. Her world was destroyed in this kiss, all walls she had erected tumbling down beneath the force of his lips. She concealed the purloined books behind her with frantic speed, even as her knife was still locked in her hand.
But he was aware.
His hand crept down, tracing the outline of her cloak. In one fluid, jolting motion, he snatched the dagger from her fingers—never even breaking the kiss. Her breath caught in surprise, but he swallowed it, drawing her deeper, harder, until she forgot where her courage had been.
Her knees gave way. Her legs shook, weak in a manner she had not previously experienced. She had battled knights. She had survived in exile. She had weathered betrayal. But this—this kiss—undid her.
His arms were around her as she started to fall. Strong, cautious, firm. As if she was china he might break. Gently, he picked her up, holding her against the chill wall, her legs automatically wrapped about his waist for balance. Her fingers clamped on his shoulders, then crept higher, merging into his hair as his mouth ravaged her lips.
Her mind fogged. This is what kissing someone is like, she thought, burning in her chest, as his tongue thrust deeper, taking every last bit of air from her lungs.
"Let go and leave yourself to me, Empress," he groaned against her lips, his voice rough, trembling. His hold at her back tightened, possessive, unyielding. She gasped, trying to gasp air, but he took her mouth again, harder this time, demanding submission.
Her fingers clenched his hair, pulling his head back, pushing his lips away. Her chest rose, fighting for breath, eyes wild. "Kill me here if you can," she hissed, short of breath but incisive, her hand pushing against his throat, threatening. "But I cannot do this with you. With anyone. Not with a man I do not love."
His face changed, the fire in his eyes becoming black and twisted. There was silence between them like a knife.
She pushed him back with all her might, her feet regaining contact with the floor. "I swear to you," she spat with each and every word venom-spurred, "I will divorce you. I will leave this palace. I will marry whom I want, give birth to children, and have a family. I will not be another toy for your whores' bazaar. I will never let your hands on my body again. Either I kill myself, or I kill you.
The silence that followed was oppressive. His expression was impassive, but his eyes—those eyes—were something deadly, hurt, impossible to define.
Then he turned, without a word, and departed.
The room became quiet again, but the shadow of his presence remained, his heat still on her lips. His shadow was gone, yet she remained trapped by it.
Her legs buckled, and she stumbled, fury churning in her breast. With a choked scream, she seized the closest vase and flung it across the room. Shards shattered on the wall, spewing out like the fragments of her mind.
"Stupid," she breathed harshly, shaking. "How could I even think… even for an instant… of conceiving him a child? What would have happened to that child? How cruel of me."
The idea belted her more than the kiss had. More than the Emperor's eyes. More than her weakness. She fell into her chair, resting her trembling hands against her mouth, unable to stem the storm within her.
The night pressed down, colder, heavier, as if laughing at her fragility.
And still, her lips burned.
The palace walls never felt so oppressive.
As the Emperor departed from Lara's rooms, his pace was measured, his face serene. To the eye, he would have appeared the same—insensitive, aloof, the very picture of an uncompassionate ruler. But within him, something splintered. Each ring of her words—brilliant, biting, ruthless—rang in his head like the clanging of a bell.
One man. One wife.
I will not permit you to touch me again.
I will kill myself—or I will kill you.
His face hardened as he strode through the dark hallways of the imperial palace. The moonlight streaming through the high windows cast his shadow long on the marble. Servants went by, bowing low, but none dared look up. They did not perceive the storm that raged within him.
For years, he had allowed them all to think him a man of many women. That his palace was full of wives, concubines, lovers—a market of flesh and power. Let them gossip. Let them spin stories. He had given them silence, and silence had always served him so well.
But now—
Now she had cursed the word at him, with disgust so hot it burned him. Sluts' market.
His fists curled at his sides. She didn't know. Didn't know that she was the sole bride, the sole woman he'd ever kissed. That her defiance had come face-to-face with his first experience of weakness, his first true desire.
And she'd pushed him away.
Deep into the night, he arrived at his private study. He closed the doors with a soft finality and stood frozen in the flickering candlelight, looking at the lines of books and scrolls on the shelves. His eyes wandered—toward where she had touched, toward the shelves she had cleaned with counterfeit innocence. He knew. He had always known.
And he still allowed her.
"Lara," he breathed against his teeth, the word alien on his lips. His name for her was a burden, a chain, pulling him under. He pressed the fingers of one hand to his mouth, still smoldering with the feel of hers—gentle, obstinate, shaking beneath his. First kiss. First loss.
Meanwhile, in her own chambers, Lara hadn't remained stationary. She paced the room like a captive beast, breathing hard and shallow. Each corner was marked with evidence of her rage—broken glass, tossed cushions, wine staining the rug. She touched her fingers to her lips, and pulled them away as if burned.
"Fool," she breathed to herself, over and over. "Fool, fool, fool.
She should have killed him as soon as he approached. She should have plunged the dagger into his neck rather than had his breath mix with hers. But her body—treacherous, weak—had done her wrong.
The manner in which her knees gave way, the manner in which her hands had held onto him, the manner in which her heart pounded not with fear but with something much more sinister. She could not forgive herself for that.
Her fingers trembled as she collected the pilfered books she had stashed away, piling them precisely on her desk. The ink ran before her eyes, words blurring. She concentrated, tried to anchor herself to the cause that had led her here. Nina. Count Bartholin. The truth.
But all she could sense was the ghostly pressure of his lips, the whisper of his voice—Leave yourself to me, Empress.
Her gut turned inside out. "Never," she spat into the vacant room. "Never."
And yet… when she squeezed her eyes shut, she could feel the wall against her back, his fingers supporting her as if she might break. She could feel the odd delicacy beneath his hunger, the tenderness that was in contradiction to the brutality of his kiss.
Her chest hurt.
She threw the closest book across the room, its thick spine thudding against the door. "I am not weak!" she shouted, her voice cracking. "I am not weak!"
But the ensuing silence did not agree with her.
In the Emperor's office, he bent over his desk, hands planted on the wood, head down. He was not a man accustomed to upheaval—his mind had long been steel, clean and cold. But tonight, it was flame.
He recalled her defiance, her venom-tipped words. Divorce. Another man. Children that are not yours.
Something writhed deep in his chest, strange and unwanted. Possessiveness. Anger. Longing. He despised the flavor of it. Despised that it was hers.
He took a breath, jagged and grounding, and reordered his mind. "You are mine," he growled into the quiet, the words not an admission but a promise. "Even if you despise me. Even if you attempt to destroy me. You are mine."
The candle flame danced, shadows crossing his face, sharpening his features to something cruel and unreadable. But his lips—still afire with hers—gave him away. For even as he breathed his promise, he recalled not her threats, nor her anger, but her silence when she nodded.
The silence that had granted him permission.
Lara sat at her desk, resting her head in her hands. Her frame still shuddered, her mind raging. She thought of Nina, of liberation, of the life she had vowed herself beyond these palace walls. A husband who adored her. Children who were stamped with her laughter. A house that was hers, not the palace's.
But tonight had shattered something in her, as well.
Because for the first time since her parents died, since the day she was sold, she had felt… wanted. Not as a commodity. Not as a game piece. Wanted.
And that was the most deadly feeling of all.
She looked up, eyes fixed on the shattered pieces of glass that sparkled on the floor. "Never again," she breathed, though she sounded lacking in conviction. "Never again."
The moonlight flooded her room, pale and chill, lighting her solitary form amidst the devastation of her wrath. The night outside breathed not.
And somewhere within the palace, a man who had never known passion before held his hand to his lips and recalled the flavor of his wife's maiden kiss.