The grand dining room smelled like polished ivory and bored ambition. Chandeliers spat brittle light over linen so pale it looked apologetic; arrangements of white blooms sat like mute, expensive witnesses to emotions they'd never understand. Knights and ministers wore the kind of smiles that said they were here for duty but thinking of estates. Servants moved like shadows, refilling goblets and sliding platters of meat that glistened embarrassingly next to the decor's funeral pallor.
On the raised dais the royal brood gathered—seven of them, five brothers and two sisters—lined up like a bad family portrait. Emily stood spare and bright in dove-gray; beside her, Bennihan cut a sharper silhouette. Born to a foreign concubine, Bennihan didn't share the family's pale hair but she did inherit their pale blue eyes. Her dark, brunette curls were usually cropped short and slicked back for formal nights—practical and severe, the look of someone with no patience for vanity. She'd long ago traded frou-frou for strategy: a soldier with a mind for tactics and politics, all compact bone and simmering intent.
Kaelani had been dragged there by Emily—because Emily loved ceremonies, and Kaelani loved Emily in the same way one loved a particularly useful headache. The room was large but intimate, full of war-heroes and cousins polishing their faces for the cameras of history. They'd come to honor the sons and daughters who'd fought the frontier; everyone had speeches and medals and the practiced grief of those who survived.
Kaelani felt wrong in the room the way a cut-glass decanter feels wrong at a bonfire. Everything was beige and white and sterile, as if life had been politely asked to sit down and behave. She kept imagining a giant ashtray in the center of the table and the relief it would bring. "Ugh," she muttered into her napkin. "I wish I had some smokes." In this world you could buy weed like bread — it had a different name around these parts, but Kaelani's vocabulary didn't bother with regional euphemisms. Weed. She knew exactly what she meant; it was just not the kind of thing a 'lady' did during a banquet.
People circled her with the practiced affection of vultures with manners. Compliments were offered the way bribes were: warm, slippery, and crawling with intentions. They weren't complimenting Kaelani for her laugh or her wit; they were flattering the idea of Nubarra wrapped in human skin—the resources, the ports, the mines, the history they could pillage under a marriage contract. Kaelani heard the undercurrent as clearly as anyone with half an ear meant to keep a throne.
Her annoyance escalated in practical ways. The tights Emily had insisted she wear itched like a betrayal. She scratched one thigh discreetly—well, as discreet as a queen with a habit could be—until Emily, mortified, slapped her hand away. "Stop groping yourself," Emily hissed, so quiet no one else would hear but stern enough to suggest consequences.
Before Kaelani could retort, the corpse-queen herself drifted over—Ms. Tempers, all copper hair and poisoned pearls. She wore a dark gown that swallowed the room's sorrow and turned it sharp. "Your Highness," she purred, eyes hooded like a cat ready to pounce, "I see you might be battling a case of thigh bugs."
Kaelani snapped her fan open with theatrical disdain. "It's not crabs, you pile of dust," she said, perfectly sober and perfectly cruel, "it's the panty hose." The hall tittered; a spatter of scandal clucked like hens.
Ms. Tempers huffed, the sound of a woman who had never learned to take a joke that was not aimed to wound. "I'm sure they'll be off before the night is over," she said. "You might as well make yourself comfortable."
Kaelani's smile cut like a razor. "Oh, I intend to," she said, flicking her fan. "Don't worry — I've got a 'strip when I say so' policy." She reached for her crotch reflexively; Emily slapped the hand away, scandal embroidered into the gesture.
Nicolae watched from the dais with a smirk that tasted of triumph and something softer he wouldn't name. Kae—dark and unbothered, brazen as ever—was being scolded by Emily, and the whole room was eating the show—exactly the kind of chaos he'd crossed a battlefield for. It had been a long, ridiculous road to get back to her, and now that he was here he meant to court her until she surrendered or scorched him alive for trying.
He thought back to the first time she'd berated him as a child—the look on her face, the ease with which she refused to be cowed—and he'd known, ridiculous as it sounded, that she was the one. People treated him like he could do no wrong because he was a prince; at home he'd been treated like an annoying afterthought, bullied and neglected by his own blood. Watching Kaelani had taught him a different lesson: don't take anyone's shit, not even from your family.
He'd followed her footsteps in his own clumsy, military way. He'd watched her defend, fight, and bleed to be seen, and he'd done his utmost to be the kind of man who might deserve standing by her—if anyone deserved to stand by her. She had no idea how much of himself he'd built in her image.
Tonight he would ask his father for permission to pursue her properly. He knew the politics—his father wanted Kaelani in the family for reasons Nicolae neither admired nor intended to question. That didn't matter. What mattered was getting the blessing, if only to make it official and make the court squirm. Not that the blessing would be the final say—Kaelani's consent was the only thing that would ever mean anything to him—but he would do it the right way first. For the show. For the precedent. For himself.
A sharp, indignant cluck rippled through the dais as a cloud of ladies suddenly discovered their vocal cords. Pearls flew to throats like white flags. Someone sniffed scandal as if it were perfume. Kaelani hadn't even tried to be subtle — her voice had sliced across the room: "What, I'm sure everyone has herpes these days. It's normal." The sentence landed like a thrown shoe.
Nicolae felt something stupid and bright bloom in his chest. He could not help himself; he grinned so wide his cheeks hurt. Watching Kae make those polished title-whores squirm was a religion he'd converted to without knowing it. He could name at least two of them who spread rumors about her, and one who'd been trying to climb the ladder with the grace of a goat on stilts. Get 'em, Kae, he thought, entirely private and smug about it.
Before the room could rearrange itself around the scandal, trumpets cut through the chatter and the herald announced the King's presence. The whole hall shifted—glasses stilled, conversations froze mid-bite. Protocol snapped into place like a glove. All rose and rearranged themselves in a choreography of bows and fluttering fans.
Everyone crouched into the agreed posture of obeisance, a wave of practiced humility. Everyone, that is, except Kaelani. She stayed where she was, chin leveled, eyes level with the room, utterly unbowed. She had never needed to perform deference here; she'd never bent to Hanz's gilt shadow, and Nicolae had learned long ago not to expect her to. Her refusal was a private art, practiced and perfect, and she used it whenever the court needed a reminder that her crown wasn't just jewelry.
He respected it. He hated the King's games and the men who played them, but more than that he respected Kaelani's refusal to pretend. The sight of her standing steady—dark, deliberate, and entirely undomesticated—made him want to move to her side and fold her in, or else to stand back and watch her burn the room down. Either way, he kept his smirk small and deadly, pleased that she was still, as always, doing the work of being herself.
King Hanz Drachenberg entered arm-in-arm with the newly appointed queen, all ceremonial smile and slow, practiced gravity. His gaze skimmed the hall—the nobles, the banners, the polished faces—then paused on Kaelani long enough for something like a resigned sigh to escape. He expected her storms by now and indulged them; she was his honored ward, a living asset more ceremonial than sovereign, and tantrums were part of her charm.
King Hanz cleared his throat and let the hall fall into the brittle hush that passed for reverence. In a voice honed by a thousand court ceremonies he intoned, "We are gathered this night to honor those who fought at Gorudo Point and the valor that turned the tide of war. Let the house recognize—by medal and by name—the bravery and service of our sons and daughters."
His aide stepped forward and opened the velvet box with the slow, ceremonial flourish everyone expected. Bennihan came first, striding up with soldierly composure, bowed, and accepted two awards—one for bravery, the other for tactical excellence—while polite applause rolled around the chamber like a tide.
Then Hanz read Prince Nicolae's name. Kaelani straightened her posture the way a bird snaps its head at a promise. Nicolae rode forward to receive his honor: a medal for the madness at Gorudo Point, for the reckless brilliance that had turned the tide. The story traveled in hushed, impressed ripples—he'd led a small force by unconventional means, turned a rout into a victory, and earned himself a battlefield sobriquet that suited him like armor: The Golden Mad Dog.
He clipped the medal on with an easy, unapologetic flourish, then turned—just so—to where Kaelani stood. For a beat she looked as if she'd seen something holy: mouth open, eyes wide and shocked. Nicolae caught that look and, with the theatrical insolence he saved for her alone, tapped the medal and flashed the sort of grin that begged for one witness above all the others.
The next medal was almost an anticlimax—handed to the First Prince Ritchor with all the pomp of a coronation rehearsal. It was for politics, which read in Kaelani's ears like participation trophy for looking handsome while other people do the work. The King kept his firstborn close; the eldest was the heir by design and breeding, a son raised to sit behind desks and sign away other people's blood.
Kaelani leaned to Emily and hissed under her breath, loud enough for a few poisoned eavesdroppers to hear, "Oh wow—wittle princey gets a medal for sitting on his skinny ass and jerking off in the war room with a bunch of nepo babies."
Emily's elbow jabbed into Kaelani's ribs, sharp as embarrassment. She'd mouthed "Shut the fuck up"—too loud for the dead air—and then went instantly pink, hand flying to her mouth as if she could clap a lid over the profanity.
Kaelani blinked at her in faux horror, eyes wide and syrup-sweet. "Oh my word," she intoned, putting on her most scandalized face, "that is unlady-like language. You should be absolutely appalled."
Emily's blush deepened. "K-Kae," she sputtered, muffled by her palm, "your—your swearing is rubbing off on me."
Kaelani pointed at her like a professor catching a student plagiarizing a poem. "Ha—ha. Look at you. Evolving into a proper Kaelani. Cute."
Ms. Tempers, who'd been hovering like a human thimble of malice, choked out a laugh—a brittle sound that meant the joke had landed and the truth was deliciously obvious. Around the hall, polite coughs tried to put the scandal back in its box and failed.
Then the room shifted, the air tightening like a held breath. Hanz lifted the last medal from the velvet tray and read aloud, "And for gallantry at the Sand Dunes—Captain Himil Darius."
Kaelani's head snapped up. Every sarcastic thing she'd planned evaporated into one hot, simple reaction: there he was. Captain Darius moved with slow, deliberate grace—bronze skin glinting, the Nubarran wrap at his temple, the kind of soldier who looked as if the desert had taught him how to stand both hard and beautiful. He climbed the dais and knelt before the King with the same discipline he showed on the field.
Kaelani felt something like hunger unfurl—sharp, immediate. Her first thought was unladylike and perfectly honest: make him kneel under my skirt. He was that kind of hot.
Emily saw the change in her, eyes catching the heat in Kaelani's face, and gave a tiny, warning shake of her head. Kaelani, not interested in being shamed mid-orgasmic glare, snapped her fan up to block Emily's sight like a paper shield. The fan hid her expression but did nothing for the way her pulse had quickened or the way her gaze tracked Darius as if following prey.
All Kaelani could hear now was the flapping of the King's crusty gums and the rat-tat of her own heart. Is this love? Hell no. She wanted one thing and one thing only: to tear that pretty chestplate off and make him bleed a little while she was at it. Handsome? Yes. Sexy? Absolutely. Love? Not in her tax bracket.
Nicolae slid into her line of sight, grin bright as a war banner. "Kae—what do you think of my medal?" he asked, proud as a pup.
She spared him two seconds. "Adorable," she clipped, flat as a blade. "Now move. You're blocking my view."
He glanced toward the dais, eyes tracking to Captain Darius, then snapped back, a low, possessive sound hovering in his throat. "You can't have that one," he said, half-growl, half-joke. "We're pretty sure he's a virgin. Untouched."
Kaelani raised an eyebrow. "Virgin as in fresh?" she asked, amused more than shocked.
Nicolae smoothed his charming smile like a shield. "Virgins are no good in bed. They cry. They...complicate things. You want that?" he asked, trying to steer her away with mock-concern.
She considered the thought of tears—lovers she'd broken had cried before. Pain was fine; pleading and neediness were not. "Huh," she mused, soft and predatory. "I'm curious. I need to see what kind of sandwich this meat makes."
Nicolae didn't always understand the exact words that tumbled out of her mouth, but he knew the tone, the threat in her appetite. He didn't like it. He watched her staring past him at Darius—watched the way she undid herself in the face of that bronze presence—and a heat of annoyance pulsed under his calm. There was always something about Darius: the way the captain sometimes looked at Nicolae like a man assessing a rival. That look crawled up Nicolae like an itch. It went a mile up his ass.
Nicolae watched with a sharp, hot edge that had nothing to do with pride in his medal and everything to do with the way Kae undid herself for other men. He knew Darius wasn't a real threat—Darius didn't throw himself at women—but what gnawed at him was that Kae looked at that desert-bred captain the way she never looked at him. That was intolerable.
Kaelani pivoted around Nicolae, fan snapping up to block whatever sound might leak from him, and walked like a goddess through the parting sea of admirers toward the captain. The women made way the way water makes way for something that might drown them. She announced herself loud enough that there was no mistaking who she was. "I am Queen Kaelani," she said, theatrical and bright. "Captain, congratulations on your honor. I hear from Prince Nicolae you are an upstanding, esteemed soldier with many talents."
Darius blinked, something like surprise cutting across his composed face. "You are too gracious, Your Majesty. I am honored," he answered, voice steady and a little stunned.
Nicolae loomed at her shoulder, a presence half in front of her and half behind, breath warm at her neck like a claim. Darius' gaze slid from the queen to the prince and he dipped into a careful bow. "I am astonished, Fifth Prince, you would think so highly of me," he said politely.
Nicolae's mouth tightened; he hated the title. "Stop calling me Fifth Prince," he growled.
Kae fixed him with a look that could curdle cream. "Tell him he can call you by your boring little human name," she said, deadpan.
Nicolae cocked an eyebrow so theatrical it deserved its own fanfare—are you for real?—and mouthed a silent protest. Kaelani gave him the eye-slice of doom: do it now.
He fluffed a world-weary huff like a man exhaling dignity. "Fine," he said, all grand annoyance. "Call me Nicolae." He said the name like a thrown gauntlet.
Kaelani beamed with the cruel delight of someone awarding a dog a biscuit. "Aww—good boy, Nicky," she cooed, dry and patronizing. "You're becoming such a suitable young man."
That small praise lit him up in a way that made her smirk. Then, without missing a beat, she turned and addressed Darius. "Escort me to the balcony?" she asked, voice casual, as if making the request was the most ordinary command.
Darius glanced at Nicolae—whose face had gone a dangerous red—and then bowed. Protocol forbade refusing a queen, and he stepped forward, offering his arm. Kaelani slipped into it like a sword into its sheath.
Nicolae lunged, half-protest, half-plea, trying to reach for her as if to snatch her back. Kaelani was ready. Quick as memory, her fingers found the spot she'd forever used to put him in his place. She pinched and twisted his right nipple a practiced grip that she'd wielded a thousand times in private duels of will.
He yelped, the sound shorn off into something strangled and ugly as he bit down on his knuckles. The hand at her waist tightened as his knees threatened to buckle. Nicolae tried, feverishly, to swallow the rush that flared through him—tried to make the trouble into a groan he could hide—but the heat was close to the surface. For a moment he folded in on himself, knees coming down as he crouched to hold back the control he'd almost lost.
She watched him do it—the small, humiliating surrender—and it was almost comic how effective she still was. He gulped air, the color rushing painfully into his face, and then he straightened, furious and breathless, trying to readjust his posture and his dignity in one motion.
Darius' jaw tightened; he'd seen a man break privately and had the professional courtesy to look away. Nicolae, cheeks bright as a signaling flag, forced a grin that was all teeth and brittle pride.
Kaelani patted his shoulder with a mockingly sympathetic air. "Behave," she said. "Don't embarrass yourself before the dessert." Then she allowed herself to be led away, the balcony pulling them up and out of the hot gossip-breathed hall, leaving Nicolae behind to collect his composure and Darius to wonder what he'd just been inducted into.