Morning light spilled through the tall windows of Buckingham Palace, pale gold filtering through the high glass and drifting curtains until even the chamber's heavy stone seemed softened by it.
Oskar woke with a deep yawn and rubbed the sleep from his eyes before sitting on the edge of the bed. His first glance went toward the double doors.
They remained firmly closed.
The chair was still wedged beneath the handles, and the heavy wardrobe he had dragged across the entrance the night before had not moved. For once, no one had tested the lock, whispered outside his room, or attempted to slip inside while he slept.
The silence felt almost luxurious.
Oskar sat there for a moment with his bare feet planted upon the carpet and his immense frame loose and unguarded. His shoulders were relaxed for the first time in days. There were no footsteps in the corridor, no concealed plotting, and no midnight catastrophe waiting beyond the door.
His gaze shifted toward the ornate English clock mounted between the windows. It included both a thermometer and barometer, an impressive piece of workmanship that later generations might have called antique, though in 1910 it was still decidedly modern.
The hour was early. Elise would arrive soon to prepare his bath and begin the morning routine.
Good.
Oskar stood and moved the wardrobe aside with little more effort than another man might have used to shift a chair. He removed the barricade, pulled on a simple pair of undergarments, then returned to the bed and allowed himself the rare indulgence of lying still.
And for the first time since arriving in Britain, he felt finished.
London had been worth seeing. More than worth it. The weight of the city, the history embedded in its streets, and the sheer density of memory held within its palaces, museums, monuments, and ancient halls had stirred the part of him that had once loved history simply because it existed. He had witnessed George V in the flesh and watched the Royal Navy announce its strength beneath smoke and thunder.
It had not been a book, an old photograph, or a documentary narrated by someone born long after the world being described.
It had all been real.
Oskar yawned again and smiled. Soon he would take a bath, then the maids would dress him. Breakfast would follow, accompanied by polite farewells and whatever final ceremonies British etiquette demanded.
After that, Germany and home.
He was lazily deciding whether he wanted bubbles in the bath when a frantic voice sounded beyond the double doors.
"Princess—please! That is my key. Give it back! You cannot enter. His Highness is still resting!"
Elise's voice came through the wood small, breathless, and increasingly desperate, like a frightened little animal attempting to argue with something far larger and more determined than itself.
Oskar blinked and pushed himself upright as the handle rattled again.
Beyond the doors, Elise's voice rose in frantic protest.
"Please, Princess, I will announce you properly—I promise—but you cannot simply enter while His Highness is still resting!"
The lock turned.
Before Oskar could rise, the doors flew open and Patricia hurried into the room.
The sight of her stole the breath from him.
Her long hair hung loose and disordered around her shoulders, as though she had spent the entire night dragging anxious fingers through it. A thin white nightgown clung to her body, rumpled from haste and sleeplessness. One shoulder had slipped free, dragging the neckline dangerously low and leaving her breasts barely contained beneath the fabric.
She looked almost naked.
Yet it was her face that held him still. Her blue eyes glistened with tears, and whatever courtly composure she usually wore had vanished beneath panic, exhaustion, and raw determination.
"Oskar!"
She rushed toward him.
Elise stumbled into the chamber behind her, looking absurdly orderly by comparison, though her frightened expression revealed how completely the situation had escaped her control.
"Princess, please!" she pleaded. "You cannot keep taking my keys!"
Patricia paid her no attention.
She crossed the room in quick, unsteady steps, gathering the hem of her nightgown too late. One bare foot caught in the trailing fabric, and she pitched forward with a startled cry.
Oskar moved before thought could intervene.
He crossed the chamber with startling speed and caught Patricia before she struck the floor. Her forward momentum carried her against him, while the hem trapped beneath her feet dragged the nightdress down with it. The garment slipped past her hips and gathered around her ankles before falling entirely to the carpet.
For one suspended moment, neither of them moved.
Patricia stood naked in his arms. Her body bore the results of the training she had proudly described before: a firm waist, a flat stomach traced by the faint outline of muscle, full hips, and an athletic strength softened by unmistakably feminine curves. Oskar felt his throat tighten as warmth pressed against his bare chest.
Then he saw her face.
Whatever breath the sight of her body had stolen was forgotten beneath the tears filling her eyes. They rolled freely over flushed cheeks, catching upon her lashes as she looked up at him with an expression stripped of every trace of royal pride.
"Oskar," she whispered. "Please."
That single word reached him more deeply than her nakedness ever could.
He released her at once and stepped backward, forcing distance between them before surprise became something more dangerous.
"Patricia, no. Cover yourself."
She made no attempt to reach for the fallen nightdress.
Instead, Patricia followed him.
"Do not push me away," she pleaded.
Oskar drew a careful breath. "Patricia—"
"I need you," she interrupted, her voice breaking.
Oskar turned his head and fixed his gaze upon the windows, the carpet—anything except the naked woman advancing toward him with neither clothing nor restraint. He raised one hand as though the gesture alone might hold her back.
"You should not be here, Patricia," he said. "This has already gone far too far."
"I do not care," she answered.
He retreated another step, but the backs of his legs struck the bed before he realized how far he had moved. His balance failed, and he fell heavily onto the mattress.
Patricia followed without hesitation.
She climbed over him and settled astride his hips, bracing one knee on either side of his body. Both hands came down upon his chest, tracing the hard planes of muscle as though reassuring herself that he was real while also preventing him from rising before she had been heard.
Her loose hair fell around them in a disordered curtain.
Oskar lay beneath her, stunned by the absurdity and dangerous intimacy of their position. Every instinct told him to lift her away, yet his hands remained stiffly at his sides. He scarcely knew where he could touch her without making the situation worse, and he refused to handle her roughly while she trembled above him, appearing so soft, desperate, and vulnerable.
"Patricia," he warned.
"No," she replied, her fingers tightening against his chest. "You will listen to me. You cannot simply leave and expect me to accept it."
Oskar tried to look away, but wherever he turned his gaze, some part of her remained at the edge of his vision: the tense line of her firm stomach, the trembling of her shoulders, and the rapid rise and fall of her breasts with every uneven breath.
Most dangerously, her bare womanhood rested close against his lower abdomen, entirely exposed. The soft pink folds brushed him whenever she shifted, unclaimed and untouched, making it nearly impossible for his body to ignore what his mind was desperately trying to resist.
Yet it was her eyes that defeated him most completely.
They were bright with sleeplessness, fear, and desperation, and Oskar had never possessed much defence against a woman's tears. He hated seeing women frightened. He hated knowing that he had caused their pain, even when reason reminded him that Patricia had created most of this disaster herself.
Behind them, Elise remained frozen just inside the chamber.
She stared at the naked princess straddling the half-dressed German prince, the stolen keys clenched tightly in her trembling hand. Then she remembered the open corridor behind her and hurriedly closed the doors before some passing servant witnessed enough to destroy several royal reputations at once.
The click of the doors brought no true privacy. It merely trapped Elise inside the scandal with them.
Oskar forced his attention back to Patricia.
"We have already discussed this," he told her firmly. "I cannot take you with me."
Patricia shook her head fiercely, sending loose strands of hair across her tear-streaked face.
"No, Oskar," she said. "You do not understand."
Then the words began spilling from her in a breathless rush.
"My parents have forbidden me from seeing you again after today. They despised watching me guide you through London, laugh with you, and speak as though I had chosen my own company. They said I humiliated our family."
Her hands pressed harder into his chest.
"After the farewell breakfast, they mean to send me away. They have spoken of marrying me to some cavalry officer I have never even met."
A broken laugh escaped her.
"And if I refuse, they will disinherit me, exile me, and place me somewhere distant enough that everyone may conveniently forget I existed."
The words struck Oskar harder than he wished to admit.
He did not know how much was literal truth and how much had been enlarged by fear, exhaustion, or Patricia's habit of treating every refusal as an injustice. Yet the pain in her face was real, and sympathy entered through every defence he attempted to raise.
Slowly, he lifted one hand and cupped her cheek.
His thumb brushed away a tear.
Patricia closed her eyes and leaned into his palm with such immediate affection that his chest tightened.
"Please," she whispered. "You are my last chance. If you leave today, I am trapped."
Oskar shut his eyes for one dangerous heartbeat.
She was reckless, selfish, wilful, and catastrophically determined. She had broken into his room, ignored his refusals, and now sat naked upon him as though persistence might somehow become permission.
Yet she was crying.
That had always been one of his weaknesses.
Oskar placed both hands against her shoulders and began lifting himself, intending to move her aside as gently as possible.
Yet Patricia struck before he expected it. She caught his face between her hands and kissed him.
The kiss possessed no skill and little grace. Her lips met his too hard, her breath catching as she tried to imitate an intimacy she clearly had never practised. Yet what she lacked in experience she replaced with hunger and raw desperation.
Oskar's eyes widened, and for a single stunned moment, he did nothing.
Patricia pressed herself closer, her body warm against his, her tears leaving salt upon his lips. Beneath it lingered the faint sweetness of strawberries. Her tongue brushed his uncertainly, and between broken breaths he heard her whisper against his mouth.
"I love you, Oskar."
The words nearly undid him.
Then reason returned.
"Patricia—no."
His protest vanished between their lips as he placed one hand against her and tried to push her away without hurting her.
In the confusion, his palm landed against her bare chest.
Patricia gasped and arched instinctively beneath the accidental pressure. The movement finally broke the kiss.
Oskar withdrew his hand as though burned.
"I did not mean to—"
Patricia stared down at him, breathing hard, her cheeks crimson and her lips parted from the kiss. Instead of retreating, she pressed both hands against his chest again and held him beneath her.
"Then stop trying to send me away."
Elise stood scarcely a metre from the bed, face burning and eyes fixed desperately upon the floor. The keys trembled in her hands as she struggled to appear invisible within a room where invisibility had become impossible.
Oskar looked up at Patricia, still caught between anger, temptation, and the unbearable sincerity in her eyes.
"Please," she said again. "Do not leave me. Let me remain beside you, and I will help you."
She leaned closer, her voice falling into a trembling whisper.
"I may stand far from the succession, but through me you could gain a path toward the British throne."
The words struck Oskar with greater force than the kiss.
A child of theirs upon the British throne.
In theory, such a child might possess some distant claim through Patricia's blood. In practice, it would be almost worthless. Britain was not an absolute monarchy, and no claimant raised within the German imperial family would reach the throne without Parliament, the government, the armed forces, and the public accepting it.
They never would—not willingly.
To press such a claim from Berlin would not resemble inheritance. It would resemble conquest. Laws would have to be broken, rivals removed, factions raised, and blood spilled across both nations before their child came anywhere near the Crown.
Even victory would leave that child ruling a country that might see him not as its king, but as a German occupier.
The idea was distant, reckless, and soaked in enough blood to poison Europe.
Yet Patricia spoke of it with frightening sincerity.
For a moment, the room seemed to contract around them. Oskar became painfully aware of her naked body above him, Elise standing rigidly near the doors, and the sheer absurdity of the life into which he had been thrown.
In his first life, Zhang-Ge had been a nobody—an obscure truck driver and military-strategy streamer who understood history, warfare, engineering, and supply lines far better than he understood ordinary people. He had never been charming. Social conversation exhausted him, and women had rarely noticed him unless he said something strange enough to make them stare.
Now he was twenty-one years old, lying half-dressed upon a bed inside Buckingham Palace while a British princess pressed herself against him and begged to be carried away.
Behind her, a tiny blonde maid clutched stolen keys like a thief caught inside a royal vault.
The ridiculousness of it almost made him laugh, almost.
His body, meanwhile, was reacting with painful disloyalty beneath the thin fabric of his underclothes. If he allowed Patricia to remain against him much longer, restraint would become considerably harder to preserve.
Then she leaned downwards, clearly intending to kiss him again. But this time Oskar turned his face away.
"Patricia, stop."
He closed both hands around her waist and rolled them across the mattress with effortless strength. Patricia gave a startled gasp as she landed in the centre of the bed, Oskar braced above her with one massive arm planted on either side of her head.
Yet the position was no less compromising than the first.
Patricia lay beneath him with her hair spread across the sheets, her breathing quick and uneven. Her legs had fallen apart around him during the movement, leaving Oskar between them. She looked up with open willingness, as though she expected him finally to surrender to everything she had offered.
For one dangerous heartbeat, he nearly did.
Then he forced himself to remember his wives, his children, his promise to his father, and the thousands of eyes waiting to interpret the smallest mistake as German policy.
"I cannot help you," he said. "It does not matter how much you cry, plead, kiss me, or force yourself against me. This cannot happen. You must give up."
Patricia shook her head immediately.
Fresh tears slipped across her temples and disappeared into her hair. The sight made her appear so wounded that Oskar looked away, fixing his attention upon the carved bedframe rather than her face. He knew that if he continued staring into those desperate blue eyes, what remained of his resolve might collapse.
"Please, Oskar," she begged. "Do not say that. If you leave now, I fear we will never see each other again."
Her throat worked as she swallowed.
"I have nothing here. I will inherit nothing that gives me any real freedom. I am not important enough for anyone to care what becomes of me. I am merely another princess without purpose, kept close until someone discovers a politically convenient man to marry me."
Her hands rose and settled against Oskar's face.
"No one will care if I disappear," she continued. "But you are the Iron Prince. You perform miracles. You build cities, armies, industries, and futures where none existed before. You are the only man powerful enough to save me from what they have chosen for me."
Oskar made the mistake of looking down. Patricia's tearful gaze caught him at once.
"Let me be with you," she whispered. "Let me matter to you."
Panic sharpened her words as they began spilling out more quickly.
"I will become whatever you require. I will change my name. I will serve within your household if that is all you offer me. Hide me aboard your ship. I will leave a letter and allow them to believe I fled alone."
She drew him closer by the face.
"Take me to Germany, and I will never ask to return. Please, Oskar. Do not leave me here."
Behind them, Elise twisted her fingers into her apron and glanced anxiously toward the clock.
"The farewell breakfast will begin soon," she whispered. "Princess, please—if anyone discovers you here…"
Her warning reminded Oskar how little time remained. He needed only to end this, send Patricia away, dress, and endure the final formalities before returning to Germany.
Then another thought surfaced. One of an open door, a missing key, and the confused fragments of sensation that had followed him since that particular morning: soft hands upon him, warm lips, and someone using his sleeping body while he remained too exhausted to understand what was happening.
His sympathy vanished beneath a sudden wave of anger.
He assumed it was Patricia, after all she had already stolen the key once, ignored his warnings, and broken into his room. Who else could it possibly have been?
Oskar's icy gaze returned to her.
The change in his expression silenced Patricia immediately. Hope disappeared from her face as she saw the fury gathering behind his eyes.
"Your words sound innocent enough," he said, his voice cold and controlled. "But before you ask me to place you beneath my roof, beside my wives and near my children, you will answer one question."
Patricia stared up at him uncertainly.
"That night, after I had already thrown you out of my room, someone entered again."
Her breath caught.
"When I woke, the doors were open and the key was gone. I remembered hands upon me. A small body in my bed. Soft lips touching me while I was too deeply asleep to understand, refuse, or give permission."
The colour began draining from Patricia's face.
Oskar did not soften.
"You returned, did you not?"
"No."
"You entered my chamber and used my body while I slept."
"No, Oskar—"
"You ignored every refusal I gave you, waited until I could no longer resist, and took what you wanted."
His restraint finally cracked.
"You sucked my cock like a whore, and now you crawl naked into my bed, kiss me, and throw yourself at me as though none of it matters. Have you no shame?"
Patricia shuddered beneath the brutality of the accusation.
Oskar's hand tightened involuntarily around her breast, the soft flesh compressed beneath his palm. Patricia gasped, her fingers clutching his forearm as pain and unwanted pleasure crossed her face together. The reaction only deepened his anger, seeming in that moment to confirm everything he believed about her.
"After all of that," he continued, lowering his voice until it became more threatening than any shout, "how do you expect me to trust you? How could I bring you into my home, place you beside my wives and children, and ever believe that the word no would mean anything to you?"
Patricia stared at him in horror.
"You are not worthy of me," Oskar said. "Not after what you have done. It does not matter how beautiful you are, how helpless you make yourself appear, or how convincingly you cry."
Her face had gone deathly pale.
"No."
The denial came immediately.
Patricia shook her head violently beneath him, tears spilling freely across her temples.
"No, Oskar. I did not return that night. I swear to you, I did not."
She closed both hands around his wrist, not attempting to push him away but holding on as though the truth depended upon keeping him there.
"I would never use you while you slept. I would never touch you without your consent—not like that."
Her voice broke.
"Never."
Oskar studied her in silence.
Then his brow tightened.
"You expect me to believe that?" he asked. "Do you take me for a fool? Who else would dare enter my locked chamber?"
His gaze hardened further.
"I remember someone small. Soft hands. A quiet presence. A young woman with pale skin and blue eyes."
Patricia recoiled as though he had struck her.
"It was not me," she whispered. "I swear it was not."
The denial sounded immediate and sincere. Oskar heard no obvious lie in her voice, yet he did not trust his own judgment of people well enough to accept it without question. Something was wrong. There was deception in the room; he could feel it, though he could not yet understand where it lay.
Then he noticed movement near the doors.
Elise had taken half a step backward.
Her shoulders were trembling, all colour had drained from her face, and the keys shook faintly between her clasped hands. She stared down at the carpet with the desperate concentration of someone silently begging it to open and swallow her.
Oskar's eyes narrowed.
"Elise?"
He spoke her name quietly, but the fury still burning within him gave the single word the weight of an accusation.
The maid flinched as though struck.
For one terrible moment, she remained frozen beneath his gaze. Then whatever fragile courage held her upright collapsed. Her legs gave way, and she dropped to her knees upon the carpet, her hands rising instinctively before her as though she might shield herself from him.
"I am sorry," she stammered. "Your Imperial Highness, I am so terribly sorry. I did not mean to—it simply happened."
Patricia turned toward her, confusion rapidly sharpening into disbelief.
"Elise?"
The maid's confession spilled out in a breathless rush, hurried and clumsy, as though she believed speaking quickly might somehow make the explanation sound more reasonable.
"I only returned to retrieve the key and complete my morning duties," she said hurriedly. "Princess Patricia had taken my original key, so I borrowed a spare from another maid and used it to enter the room. I meant only to recover the first key, prepare your bath, lay out the towels and arrange your clothes before you woke."
Her eyes dropped toward the carpet.
"But when I entered, you were still asleep—and completely uncovered."
Her face turned scarlet.
"I did try not to look, Your Highness, but I had never seen a man before—not like that—and yours was already terribly hard. It was so long and thick, and the veins stood out all along it, and the tip was wet, and it kept twitching as though it had a life of its own."
Oskar stared at her.
Patricia stared at her.
Elise, apparently unaware that she had already said far too much, hurried onward.
"You moved in your sleep and frowned, and I thought perhaps you were uncomfortable or in pain. I am a maid, and it is my duty to attend to you, so I only meant to help."
Her fingers twisted tightly into her apron.
"Then I touched it, and you seemed to relax," Elise continued in a hurried, mortified voice. "After that, I remembered something I had once overheard the older maids discussing. I kissed it and tasted it, and before I properly understood what I was doing… I had taken it into my mouth."
She swallowed, her cheeks burning so fiercely that even the tips of her ears had turned red.
"You never woke completely, but after a little while you made rather a mess. I panicked because I did not know what I was supposed to do. Then I noticed that you had stopped frowning and that it was no longer so hard, so I thought perhaps I had actually helped."
Elise raised her eyes tentatively, almost hopefully, as though awaiting praise for completing an unusually difficult household duty.
"And I did remember to clean everything afterward," she added quickly. "I cleaned you, changed the linen, put the room back in order, and prepared your bath before you woke."
Her voice dwindled into a tiny, embarrassed murmur.
"So I did finish my duties properly. And I was not the one who told the other maids about your… large, German sausage. That was the three women who attended you before. I never told anyone. I kept completely silent."
Silence descended upon the chamber with the finality of a falling blade.
Oskar's hand released Patricia at once.
For several seconds, both royals simply stared at the kneeling maid, their previous argument forgotten beneath the sheer absurdity of what she had confessed.
Patricia slowly turned her head toward Oskar, her expression emptied by astonishment.
"What, surely she didn't?"
The word carried neither anger nor seduction.
Only complete disbelief.
Oskar didn't answer, he just closed his eyes, and brought one hand to his face and pressed thumb and fingers hard against his brow, as though he might physically hold his thoughts together.
So Patricia had told the truth.
And it was infact the palace maid, that had entered his room while he slept, found him naked, convinced herself that his erection was a medical or domestic inconvenience requiring attention, and proceeded to use her mouth upon him in the name of household service.
And he had just pinned Patricia beneath him, accused her of violating him, called her a whore, and declared her unworthy of his household.
All because he had assumed that no one else in Buckingham Palace could possibly possess such nerve.
Oh, hell no.
He exhaled sharply through his nose while a much less controlled reaction tore through his thoughts.
Did a little palace maid truly suck me off in my sleep—and then prepare my bath as though she had merely polished the silver?
A tight knot formed in his stomach.
Ah, shit.
His jaw clenched.
Why could the British not simply have allowed him to bring his guards?
That question struck harder than the embarrassment itself.
For years, Oskar had slept surrounded by people he trusted.
Maids entered his rooms before dawn to open curtains, prepare baths, lay out uniforms, and begin dressing him while he was still half asleep. His wives touched him freely during the night, sometimes affectionately and sometimes with considerably less innocent intentions. Children crawled across his bare chest, tugged at his hair, whispered beside him, and occasionally used his enormous body as part of their bed.
Noise, movement, and touch had become part of sleep itself.
Without realizing it, Oskar had learned to accept familiar hands upon him without fully waking. When Elise entered his chamber, his sleeping mind had simply placed her inside that pattern. He had mistaken an unfamiliar maid for one of the women he loved and trusted, allowing her to use his body while he remained trapped between dreams and waking.
The realization filled him with anger, but beneath it lay something worse.
Embarrassment.
He had allowed himself to become careless. He had slept naked in a foreign palace, surrounded by unfamiliar servants and separated from every person responsible for his safety, yet behaved as though he were still at home in Potsdam.
He could already imagine Tanya's expression when he told her.
You allowed a maid to do what while you were asleep?
That explanation would be painful.
Yet as Oskar looked between Patricia and Elise, another conclusion settled over him. Neither woman appeared to be following some carefully prepared plan. Patricia was too reckless, Elise too frightened, and the entire situation far too absurd to have been deliberately arranged in detail.
But someone had created the opportunity.
The corridor had been emptied. The guards had vanished. Servants had been withdrawn, and spare keys had remained conveniently available. Someone within Buckingham Palace had ensured that Patricia could reach him without interference and then waited to see what happened.
Whoever had arranged that opportunity did not yet know what had occurred inside the room.
Oskar intended to keep it that way.
If word escaped, Patricia could be ruined, Elise dismissed or imprisoned, and Oskar accused of violating a British princess beneath the roof of the new king. It might not begin a war by itself, but it could poison relations between Britain and Germany beyond repair.
For now, however, only three people knew the truth.
That could still be controlled.
Oskar lowered his hand from his face and looked first at Patricia, then at the maid kneeling near the doors. His disbelief hardened into quiet resolve.
There would be no panic and no public scandal. Before the farewell breakfast, both women would understand that not one word of what had happened was to leave that chamber.
Afterward, Oskar would return to Germany.
And never again would he enter a foreign palace without the Eternal Guard outside his door or someone from his household beside him. If a host refused that condition, then there would be no visit.
He had allowed this mistake once.
There would not be a second time.