The guard's smirk told me everything I needed to know.
He'd escorted me through the private corridors in silence, but that knowing twist of his lips said he'd done this before. Delivered other maids to the King's chambers. Watched them return hours later, disheveled and marked.
He thought he knew how this would end.
So did I. Just not the version he was imagining.
The doors were solid oak, carved with scenes of conquest. Battles won. Enemies kneeling. How appropriate.
The guard knocked twice and left without a word.
"Enter."
I pushed the doors open.
The King's private chambers were exactly as I'd written them. Massive four-poster bed draped in deep burgundy. Weapons mounted on walls like trophies. A fireplace large enough to stand in, flames casting everything in gold and shadow. The room smelled of leather, smoke, and power.
King Aldric stood by the fireplace, still in his formal attire. Broad shoulders, silver threading through dark hair, a face carved by decades of war. Scars traced his jaw, his hands. He was fifty if he was a day, but built like men half his age.
I'd based him on every dangerous older man archetype I could find. Experienced. Commanding. The kind who took what he wanted and called it privilege.
He turned, eyes traveling over me with the casualness of ownership.
"Silver." His voice was smooth. Practiced. "Come here."
I stepped inside. The doors closed behind me with a heavy thud.
My heart hammered against my ribs. This was it. The moment from my original draft. He'd proposition me. I'd refuse. He'd force the issue. And by morning, I'd be dead.
Unless I rewrote the scene.
"You're wondering why I summoned you." He moved closer, each step deliberate. "I've been watching you. You're different from the other servants. There's something... compelling about you."
Three feet away now. Close enough to smell the wine on his breath.
"I have a proposition."
His hand reached for my face.
"Stop."
The word cut through the air like a blade. I felt something inside me *pull*, like a muscle I'd never used before flexing for the first time. The air shimmered.
'''
[MANIPULATION ACTIVATED]
[TARGET: KING ALDRIC]
[MP COST: 20]
[DURATION: 5:00]
[MP REMAINING: 80/100]
'''
His hand froze mid-reach. Confusion flickered across his face.
"What—" He tried to move. Couldn't. His eyes widened. "What is this?"
The spell wrapped around him like invisible chains. I could feel it, a thread connecting us. If I pulled, he'd move. If I commanded, he'd obey.
Holy shit. It actually worked.
On a *king*.
"Kneel."
His body dropped before his mind could catch up. Knees hitting the plush carpet, hands falling to his sides. The King of Salvara, kneeling before a maid.
His face went through several emotions at once. Shock. Rage. Fear. And underneath it all, something else.
Arousal.
I'd written him with a weakness for defiance. For women who challenged him. But I'd never written *this*.
'''
[TIME REMAINING: 4:47]
[Wow. Didn't see this in the outline, did you?]
'''
Even the System was mocking me.
"Tell me," I said, voice steadier than I felt, "what you wanted from me tonight."
His jaw clenched. Fighting it. But his mouth opened anyway, words spilling out like confession.
"I wanted to bend you over my desk." His voice was strained, each word forced. "Wanted to hear you beg. Wanted to mark that pretty neck so everyone would know you belonged to me."
Heat coiled in my stomach. Part fear, part something darker.
"Keep going."
"I wanted to make you scream my name. Wanted to fuck you until you forgot every other man who'd ever touched you." His hands fisted against his thighs. "Wanted to own you."
There it was. The truth under the proposition. He hadn't summoned me for conversation.
'''
[TIME REMAINING: 4:12]
'''
"Beg me," I said softly, "for permission to touch me."
Pride warred with compulsion across his face. The King who commanded armies, reduced to this.
"Please." The word came out rough. Desperate. "Please, Silver. Let me touch you."
"More."
"I need to taste you. Need to feel you. I'll do anything." His voice cracked. "Please. I'm begging you."
My breath hitched. This man, this character I'd created as untouchable and cruel, was on his knees begging me.
And I liked it.
*What does that make me?*
Pragmatic. That's what it made me. This was survival. He was going to use me, so I'd use him first.
At least, that's what I told myself.
"Undress me," I commanded. "Slowly."
His hands shook as they reached for me. Started with the laces of my bodice, fingers fumbling with urgency he couldn't control. He pulled the fabric open, pushed it off my shoulders. Unlaced my skirt. Let it pool at my feet.
I stood before him in my thin chemise, nothing else.
I could see the hunger in his eyes. The compulsion kept his hands from wandering, kept him waiting for permission. But his body betrayed him. The evidence of his arousal strained against his trousers.
"Sit on the bed," he breathed. "Please. Let me—"
"You don't give orders here." I moved to the bed myself, sat on the edge. Spread my legs. "Kneel between them."
He crawled forward. Actually *crawled*. The King of Salvara on his hands and knees, positioning himself where I directed.
'''
[TIME REMAINING: 3:03]
[MP REMAINING: 80/100]
'''
"You don't get to touch yourself," I said, watching his hand twitch toward his own need. "You don't get relief unless I allow it. Understand?"
"Yes." His voice was wrecked. "Yes, please, just let me—"
"Show me how badly you want this."
He surged forward, hands gripping my thighs, face burying between my legs. The chemise was thin enough to feel everything. His breath hot against me, his mouth finding me through the fabric.
"Not enough," I gasped. "Remove it."
He pushed the fabric up, bunched it at my waist, and then his mouth was on bare skin.
Oh. *Oh.*
Whatever else King Aldric was, he was thorough. His tongue traced patterns that made my thighs tremble, lips sealing around sensitive flesh, sucking in a rhythm that suggested extensive experience. He worked me like a man starving, like this was his only purpose.
Maybe right now, it was.
"Please," he mumbled against me, the vibration sending sparks up my spine. "Please let me—I need—"
"You need to make me come," I managed, fingers threading through his hair. Gripping. Controlling. "That's what you need. Nothing else."
He groaned, the sound muffled and desperate, and redoubled his efforts.
'''
[TIME REMAINING: 2:00]
'''
I'd written sex scenes before. Dozens of them. But experiencing it was different. The heat of his mouth, the clever pressure of his tongue, the way he learned what made me gasp and exploited it ruthlessly. The scratching of his beard against my inner thighs. The obscene wet sounds filling the quiet chamber.
And underneath it all, the intoxicating knowledge that he had no choice.
That I'd reduced a king to this.
*This wasn't supposed to happen,* I thought distantly. *He was supposed to be untouchable. Cruel. Above everyone.*
I'd made him that way.
Now I was unmaking him.
His hand slid up my thigh, fingertips pressing into soft flesh. His other hand worked with his mouth, skilled and devastating. He looked up at me through his lashes, eyes dark with compulsion and genuine hunger.
"Please," he breathed. "Let me—I'm so hard it hurts, please—"
"No."
He made a sound like pain.
'''
[TIME REMAINING: 1:00]
[MP REMAINING: 80/100]
'''
The pleasure built like a storm. My control wavered. It would be so easy to lose myself, to cry out, to give him the satisfaction of breaking me.
But I didn't.
I kept my breathing steady even as my thighs started shaking. Kept my expression smooth even as heat coiled tighter in my core. When his tongue did something particularly devastating, I just tightened my grip in his hair and directed him exactly where I wanted.
"There. Don't stop."
He obeyed. Of course he did. He had no choice.
The orgasm hit like lightning. White-hot pleasure that rolled through me in waves, stealing my breath, making my back arch despite my best efforts. I bit my lip hard enough to taste copper, keeping the sounds locked in my throat.
Control. I had to maintain control.
When I could breathe again, I looked down.
King Aldric was trembling. Face flushed, lips swollen, eyes desperate. His erection strained visibly against his trousers, a damp spot spreading across the fabric.
"Please," he whispered. "Silver, please, I've never needed anything like this, please let me—"
'''
[WARNING: MP CRITICAL - 20% REMAINING]
[TIME REMAINING: 0:34]
'''
Thirty seconds left.
His hands slid up my thighs, possessive despite the compulsion.
"I've never wanted anyone like this," he gasped. "Whatever you want. Anything. Just please—"
"No."
The word landed like a slap.
'''
[TIME REMAINING: 0:30]
'''
The spell had thirty seconds left.
And I wasn't done with him yet.
--