In the days after Warsaw fell, the country beyond the German lines seemed to empty almost by itself.
The Russian retreat continued eastward, carrying much of Russian Poland with it. Officials and soldiers stripped towns of whatever could still be moved: machinery, railway equipment, stores, horses, valuables and anything else thought useful to the enemy. Young men of military age were driven east in particularly large numbers, willingly or otherwise, while whole families followed with whatever possessions could be piled onto carts or carried upon their backs. Those who remained were mostly the old, the sick, women with children, or stubborn families unwilling to abandon farms and houses their people had occupied for generations.
Even many of those eventually left.
The retreating Russians carried stories with them—stories of the black tide coming out of Warsaw, of Oskar and his Legion, of the Austro-Hungarians advancing from the south and of what supposedly waited for anyone foolish enough to remain behind. Fear travelled more quickly than armies ever could, and before long it was reinforced by something far more tangible, when the aircraft came.
Their engines could be heard long before they appeared, a distant growl swelling over the summer countryside until dark shapes swept across the sky. They hunted Russian columns along the roads, diving upon troop concentrations, wagons and retreating formations while machine guns hammered from above. In the confusion of the evacuation, however, soldiers and civilians often moved together in the same endless streams, and from high above there was not always much distinction between a mud-covered Russian infantryman and a peasant in an equally dirty coat. Mistakes were made. Civilians died with soldiers, and every fresh story sent still more frightened people eastward.
Soon roads that had once carried ordinary village traffic became rivers of flight. Families dragged carts piled with bedding, pots, furniture and whatever pieces of their former lives they had been unwilling to abandon. When horses failed, people pulled the wagons themselves. When burdens became too heavy, belongings were thrown into ditches and left behind.
Then even the refugees disappeared. What remained was a strangely beautiful ruin.
Summer still covered the countryside in green, but the war had scarred it everywhere. Fields burned black beside others standing golden and untouched, their grain ripening beneath the sun with nobody left to harvest it. Farmhouses stood open and empty, doors moving softly in the wind. Villages smouldered where Russian troops had carried out the scorched-earth policy too thoroughly, while elsewhere entire settlements remained perfectly intact and yet utterly silent.
Along the roads lay broken wheels, discarded trunks, children's toys and bundles of clothing abandoned when exhaustion became stronger than sentiment. Here and there, crude wooden crosses stood beside the verge where someone had died during the flight and been buried by the family that could carry them no farther.
The land looked less conquered than abandoned.
Into that emptiness came the Black Legion.
Motorcycle scouts moved far ahead of the main formations, their engines echoing strangely through villages where no one answered them. Mounted scouts still served where roads became poor or forests too dense, ranging across fields and woodland tracks while radio reports passed back toward the columns behind them. Armoured trucks followed with infantry squads aboard, spreading out whenever a settlement, crossroads or patch of forest appeared capable of hiding resistance.
Aircraft circled above whenever they could, reporting movements ahead and striking whatever Russian formations still attempted to establish strongpoints. Where resistance appeared, it was broken quickly. On several occasions Oskar himself rode forward upon Shadowmane when a position proved troublesome, leading assaults that smashed through whatever remained before the advance continued.
But increasingly there was little left to smash.
The Russians were retreating faster than German troops could properly come to grips with them, and the Legion found itself advancing through a country from which both army and population seemed to have withdrawn together.
That did not make the Germans careless.
Every village was approached as though rifles waited behind its windows. Scouts checked crossroads and church towers. Infantry hugged walls, watched rooftops and kicked open doors before entering buildings in pairs and squads. Barns, schools, warehouses and municipal offices were searched methodically before supply vehicles were permitted through.
In the larger cities the process became almost eerie.
At Łódź, streets capable of swallowing enormous crowds stood nearly empty. Signs still hung above shops. Curtains remained in windows. Furniture sat inside houses as though their owners might return before supper. Factories stood silent where machinery had either been removed or abandoned in haste, and churches rose above neighbourhoods from which most of their congregations had vanished.
The Legion moved through it all cautiously, rifles ready, expecting resistance around every corner.
Almost none came.
Sometimes they found people hiding together in churches, schools or public halls—families who had been unable to leave or had simply decided that they would rather face the Germans than the eastern roads. They watched the black-uniformed soldiers enter with the terrified stillness of people who had spent days imagining what would happen when that moment finally came.
Usually, what followed was considerably less dramatic than their fears.
An officer appeared. A proclamation was unfolded. The law was read.
The same rules imposed upon Warsaw followed the army across the occupied territories. German authority had arrived; those living beneath it were now subject to German law. Men regarded as non-German and potentially hostile regardless of age were ordered eastward. Women could remain under the conditions imposed by the new administration or accompany their families if they wished. A period was given for compliance, and refusal thereafter became resistance to military authority.
There was no frenzy to it. No uncontrolled wave of violence. That almost made the process more disturbing. The Legion simply arrived, secured the streets, read the law and expected obedience.
Then it moved on.
Behind the advancing troops came administrators, engineers and supply officers. German flags appeared over public buildings. Records were seized. Roads and bridges were inspected. Telegraph lines were repaired where possible, railway facilities secured, warehouses inventoried and whatever the Russians had failed to destroy was quietly absorbed into the machinery of occupation.
Little by little, German-held Poland expanded.
Eventually the German advance from the north met the Austro-Hungarian forces pressing upward from the south. Their spearheads encountered one another almost anticlimactically in the countryside near Kielce, after days in which both armies had advanced through increasingly empty territory.
The Austro-Hungarian officers who met Oskar's representatives were puzzled by what they had seen. They had expected greater resistance and far more civilians. Instead they had passed through abandoned settlements, burned farms and roads leading east that seemed to have swallowed entire districts.
When they asked where everybody had gone, the German answer was simple.
Russia had taken many with it. Germany had ordered others to leave. The explanation remained wrapped in law. The territory was now under German authority, and German law permitted the removal of guests considered dangerous to the state or to the security of its armies. Nothing more elaborate needed to be said.
What was not explained was how broadly Oskar had chosen to interpret that authority.
To him, the potential threat was not confined to known rebels, soldiers or suspected partisans. The male population itself represented the danger. Men meant rifles hidden beneath floorboards, sabotage along railway lines, ambushes in forests and resistance gathering behind advancing armies.
Therefore the simplest solution was not to leave them behind.
The result possessed an almost horrifying efficiency. There would be no enormous hostile male population waiting in the rear, fewer potential insurgents to police and fewer mouths dependent upon German military supplies.
They would simply go east. Russia was vast. Surely, people said, it had room for them.
The truth was less merciful.
Russia possessed land, grain and livestock in enormous quantities, but moving those things to where they were needed had always been another matter. Every family pushed eastward joined roads already burdened by retreating armies. Every refugee train competed with ammunition, reinforcements and wounded soldiers for the same rails. Every horse pulling household possessions was one more animal consuming fodder along routes already strained beyond their limits.
The German advance had therefore begun creating consequences far beyond the territory it actually occupied, and Oskar understood that well enough. He accepted it all the same. Whatever suffering followed, he told himself, would be another terrible cost of building something greater from the ruins: a more ordered world, governed by one system and directed toward one future rather than forever divided among hostile peoples and competing states.
By late evening on 8 August, Oskar had returned to Warsaw, and the concerns of the campaign had receded somewhat beneath the comforts of the Royal Castle.
Shadowmane rested in the stables, well fed and content, while Oskar's battered armour had finally been removed and set aside. Clean, refreshed and dressed once more like a prince rather than some black apparition from the battlefield, he had settled into the temporary office prepared for him within the castle.
The room was warm and quiet beneath soft candlelight. Beyond the windows lay an occupied city and a countryside scarred by war; within, there was only polished wood, stillness and order.
Oskar sat behind the enormous desk in a newly tailored Black Legion officer's uniform, black from collar to boot and cut closely around his immense frame. Against the dark cloth, his pale face, light hair and brilliant blue eyes seemed almost unnaturally bright.
He liked the uniform. Perhaps rather more than he should have.
Leaning back comfortably in his chair, Oskar allowed a faint smile to touch his lips as he worked through the reports spread across the desk. For the first time in what felt like a very long while, he was warm, clean and reasonably comfortable, and the news arriving from the newly occupied territories gave him further cause for satisfaction. The Russian retreat had left behind destruction, confusion and great stretches of abandoned land, but to Oskar those same ruins also presented opportunity. The countryside, at least, was beginning to arrange itself into something he could understand.
The Church of the New Dawn was already moving into abandoned churches throughout the occupied districts, taking possession of buildings that had once stood at the centre of Catholic village life and turning them into the first pillars of German administration. Like the Church of old, the New Dawn was permitted to own land, and in many places those holdings extended far beyond the church walls themselves, encompassing surrounding fields, farms and villages. From there priests and sisters could organize relief, schooling, medical care, registration and local government, while also supervising labour, collecting rents and directing agricultural production. The arrangement pleased Oskar enormously. The church became at once a spiritual institution, an administrative centre and a landlord, governing communities in his name while sending its taxes and revenues upward into Imperial coffers.
That last detail amused him particularly. Churches might ordinarily enjoy exemptions from taxation, but these were hardly ordinary churches. They worshipped him, after all. The least they could do was help pay for his Empire.
More importantly, the land beneath their authority gave him room to begin reshaping the countryside. Farms abandoned during the Russian evacuation were already being surveyed, along with houses left empty by families who had fled or been removed. Wherever possible, wounded veterans and German families were to receive first claim. Some holdings would be granted outright, others leased for almost nothing, but the purpose remained the same: men who had fought for Germany would be given something tangible in return, while the empty countryside would gradually acquire a new population tied directly to the Empire.
Oskar regarded that as both reward and necessity. A wounded soldier sent home with little more than a pension remained a burden upon the state; the same man given a farm, a house and a reason to build a family became part of its future. German settlers would cultivate abandoned fields, reopen workshops and provide the loyal population upon which any lasting administration depended.
The remaining Polish women complicated the arrangement only slightly. As guests beneath German law, they could continue living in their homes, but ownership was another matter.
Property now ultimately fell under Imperial authority, and where Oskar required a house, farm or estate for German settlement, he intended to use it. Women already living there might remain as tenants where practical, paying rent and continuing their lives beneath the new owners, but they could not expect the old order of possession to remain untouched merely because it had existed before the conquest.
To Oskar, the arrangement was almost elegant. German families would arrive where Polish families had departed, while those local women who remained would gradually find themselves living beside, working for and trading with the newcomers. Language, habits and loyalties would begin changing not because a proclamation demanded it, but because everyday life did. Germanisation, if it was to endure, should not need to announce itself as Germanisation. It should become necessity, familiarity and eventually normality.
Warsaw, however, presented a rather more complicated problem.
The city remained crowded, but its population had been transformed almost overnight. Every non-German male—from newborn boys to sons, to husbands, fathers and elderly men—had either been driven east or were being hunted down, leaving behind a city overwhelmingly composed of women and girls. The consequences reached into nearly every household. Families had lost husbands, fathers and sons who had provided much of their income, while businesses had lost workers, customers and suppliers in the same sweeping disruption.
The retreat had severed many of the commercial routes that once connected Warsaw eastward into the Russian Empire as well. Merchants who intended to survive would now have to turn west instead, establishing new suppliers, new customers and new connections with Germany and the territories already falling under Imperial control.
That transition would take time. Until then, many households possessed little money, uncertain employment and even less confidence in what the coming weeks might bring.
Yet even amid that confusion, Oskar could already see the beginnings of a new order taking shape almost without instruction.
The Black Legion was paid regularly. Its soldiers possessed food, wages and access to military supply, and they also possessed all the ordinary appetites of young men far from home. Polish shopkeepers and women had begun discovering remarkably quickly that the soldiers who had conquered their city were also becoming some of its most dependable customers. Cafés reopened wherever supplies permitted. Laundry was taken in. Uniforms were repaired. Meals were cooked. Rooms were rented. Goods that had sat unsold after the evacuation began disappearing once soldiers entered with coins in their pockets.
Transactions inevitably became conversations, and conversations had a habit of becoming something more.
Oskar could already imagine where that would lead. Soldiers who became familiar with the women whose homes they visited would cease seeing them merely as inhabitants of conquered territory. Women who depended upon those soldiers for wages, protection or regular custom would likewise begin seeing individual Germans rather than an anonymous occupying army. Friendships would form. Affections would follow. Some relationships would remain practical, others would become genuine, and eventually marriages and children would bind together what military conquest alone never could.
He intended to encourage the process wherever possible.
Billeting soldiers within civilian homes seemed an obvious next step. Rather than filling every available barracks and requisitioned building, selected troops could be lodged among the local population. A woman might cook for the soldier assigned beneath her roof; the soldier might provide money, food or protection in return. Both would be forced into daily familiarity, and familiarity had a way of accomplishing what laws and speeches could not.
There was coercion in the arrangement, certainly, but Oskar did not think of it as crude force. Nobody would be ordered to love anyone. Nobody needed to be told that Germanisation was the goal. The pressure would come from circumstance itself: from housing, employment, trade, protection and the simple fact that the new order controlled access to nearly everything required for an ordinary life.
The Church of the New Dawn would reinforce the same process. It would offer food, medical care, schooling and assistance wherever possible, but full participation in its communities—and the fullest measure of support—would naturally belong to those who joined the faith. To Oskar this seemed no more unreasonable than any other institution favouring its own members. Those who wished to remain outside could do so, but those willing to enter would find life considerably easier.
Meanwhile, his companies, engineers and administrators were already beginning the slower work of reconstruction. Roads had to be repaired, bridges secured, radio networks expanded and supply lines redirected westward. Factories would have to be inventoried and restarted, farms returned to production and markets reconnected to German industry. None of it could be completed quickly, but the absence of serious Russian resistance had given him something precious: breathing room.
For the moment, everything appeared to be moving in the direction he wanted.
The countryside was being reorganized. German settlers would follow. Warsaw's economy was beginning, however reluctantly, to turn toward its conquerors, while soldiers and civilians were already being drawn into one another's daily lives. Little by little, necessity would do much of the work for him.
On paper, at least, the foundations of his new order were taking shape remarkably well.
Tonight, however, even those favourable reports had failed to soothe his irritation.
One enormous finger tapped steadily against the polished surface of the desk.
Maria had brought him several perfectly respectable sandwiches earlier, so hunger was not the problem. The problem was that there was still no coffee, and more than thirty minutes had passed since he had asked for it.
Where was that lazy woman?
He was just beginning to consider sending someone after Zofia when a knock sounded at the door, light and measured, followed by a voice so sweetly theatrical that his brow immediately twitched.
"Oh, great and mighty Iron Prince… may I come in? I have your coffee. And snacks."
Oskar stared toward the door.
She was doing it again. Mocking him just enough to be irritating, testing boundaries she knew perfectly well existed and apparently finding tremendous satisfaction in discovering exactly how far she could push them.
At present, however, she possessed the coffee.
He exhaled through his nose. "Enter."
The door opened almost immediately, and Zofia appeared behind a polished serving cart of gilded brass and dark wood. Steam curled lazily from the coffee service on its upper tray, with bread, pastries and other refreshments arranged neatly beneath it.
Oskar saw the coffee first. Then his eyes rose slightly, and everything else became irrelevant.
The maid's dress she wore had clearly been designed by someone with a dangerous sense of humour. It was unmistakably black and white, with a crisp apron, ruffled shoulders, fitted sleeves and a little maid's cap arranged neatly among her dark hair, yet the outfit had been cut with far less modesty than anything a respectable palace servant should probably have worn. The bodice plunged low across her chest, gathering and lifting the fullness of her breasts until two generous pale curves rose above the white trim, while the black fabric strained visibly around the rest of her figure. Below, the skirt was absurdly short, scarcely long enough to preserve propriety over her hips, and white thigh-high stockings disappeared beneath the hem above a pair of polished black heels.
For several seconds, Oskar simply stared.
After several more exhausting days spent riding through smoke, dust and mud beside Shadowmane, pursuing retreating Russian formations across the countryside, the sight of Zofia struck him with almost embarrassing force.
He had scarcely set foot inside the Royal Castle since taking her and Maria in. During his absence, he had left them largely in the care of Helena—the beautiful, bespectacled cousin of the three German sisters he had rescued—who had gradually assumed the role of one of his secretaries until Patricia and Elise could reach Warsaw by train and restore some proper order to the household.
Whatever those women had done with Zofia in the meantime, Oskar found himself profoundly grateful for it.
The exhaustion that had been sitting heavily in his muscles only moments earlier seemed to recede at the sight of her. His shoulders straightened almost unconsciously, and his attention narrowed until the enormous office might as well have contained nothing except the woman pushing the cart toward him.
Zofia noticed his stare almost immediately.
Colour rose into her cheeks, though she said nothing. Instead, she lowered her eyes and concentrated fiercely upon guiding the serving cart across the polished floor, pretending not to notice the way his gaze continued to linger on her body. That effort lasted until one heel betrayed her. Her ankle wavered and she caught herself against the cart with both hands, quickly straightening before continuing as if nothing had happened.
Oskar's mouth twitched. She had clearly never worn heels in her life.
The next several steps were equally careful, each click of the shoes against the floor followed by some small adjustment of balance. The whole performance might have been purely amusing if the effort had not caused the rest of her to move in ways the fitted uniform did absolutely nothing to conceal. Each careful correction sent a soft sway through her hips, while the tightly fitted bodice seemed to fight a losing battle with the fullness of her breasts, which shifted and bounced with every uncertain step.
Oskar's amusement faded into something considerably warmer.
By the time Zofia reached his desk, he had already decided that whoever had chosen her uniform deserved some form of official recognition.
She wheeled the cart around to his side rather than leaving it opposite him, evidently determined to make as few unnecessary journeys as possible in shoes she still did not entirely trust. That brought her close enough for Oskar to catch the faint perfume lingering upon her skin beneath the richer scent of coffee and warm pastry. At such a distance, the outfit became considerably more distracting. The little white cap nestled among her carefully arranged dark hair; black fabric framed the low, white-ruffled bodice; the apron gathered tightly around her waist before falling over a skirt that seemed scandalously short for anything pretending to be practical. White stockings completed an ensemble that appeared to have been designed with everything except efficient domestic service in mind.
Zofia began with the pastries. Unfortunately for Oskar's concentration, his desk had been built to suit his proportions rather than hers, and setting the tray near its centre required her to lean considerably across the polished wood. The movement drew the bodice taut against her generous figure and caused the already-short skirt to rise another tantalising fraction along her thighs.
Oskar's reports on the desk ceased to exist, instead, his gaze followed her quite openly.
Zofia remained bent over the desk for a moment longer than necessary before glancing sideways and discovering exactly where his attention had settled. Her blue eyes narrowed in an embarrassed warning, colour beginning to warm her cheeks.
Oskar did not possess even the decency to look ashamed. If anything, the corner of his mouth lifted.
Zofia pressed her lips together and turned back to her work with exaggerated dignity, apparently deciding that ignoring him was preferable to encouraging him.
Then, as she bent toward the lower shelf of the cart for the coffee service, she turned just enough for the already scandalously short skirt to ride higher. The movement revealed the full, soft curve of her backside and the delicate white lace beneath, the fabric doing precious little to preserve her modesty. Oskar's eyes widened despite himself. He had already discovered beside the Vistula how wonderfully soft Zofia felt in his hands, and apparently the memory was stronger than his restraint. Before he had quite decided to act, one enormous hand had already settled firmly against her.
Zofia drew a sharp breath. Her entire body went rigid with surprise, yet she made no attempt to retreat. Instead she looked back at him over her shoulder, blue eyes wide, her expression caught somewhere between indignation, embarrassment, and something considerably warmer that she was doing a poor job of concealing.
"Oskar," she said quietly.
It was plainly intended as a warning, but there was so little authority behind it that Oskar's smile only broadened. He held her gaze for another lingering moment, his palm enjoying the softness beneath it, before finally releasing her. Even then his eyes remained shamelessly upon her as she straightened and lifted the coffee service from the cart.
Zofia's face was brilliantly flushed by the time she placed it upon the desk. She busied herself with the cups and saucers, making an admirable effort to recover the solemn dignity of a professional maid while remaining painfully conscious that the enormous prince beside her was admiring practically every movement she made.
Oskar settled back into his chair, thoroughly pleased with himself. The reports before him had long since ceased to command much of his attention. Between the faint perfume upon Zofia's skin, the aroma of coffee and warm pastries, and the unmistakable tension now lingering between them, his thoughts had wandered considerably farther from matters of state.
He watched her fuss determinedly with the porcelain, wetting his lips almost unconsciously as she worked beside the desk.
There was something distinctly unprincely in the expression upon his face. He looked less like a Crown Prince waiting for his evening coffee than a conqueror admiring territory he remembered very fondly and fully intended to revisit.
Tonight, he suspected, was going to be a very long night.
"Well, Zofia," Oskar said at last, settling back in his chair with a pleased, almost devious little smile, "I must say—you look nice tonight."
His gaze travelled over her once more.
"Exceptionally nice."
The effect was immediate.
Zofia went still.
The blush remained upon her cheeks, but the shy warmth beneath it vanished so completely that even Oskar noticed. She said nothing at first, merely turned back toward the coffee service and began arranging the porcelain with a quiet, careful precision that suddenly seemed far more dangerous than any angry outburst.
Oskar's smile weakened.
Only then did he begin to suspect that nice had perhaps not been the word she had expected.
His attention shifted at last from the maid's uniform itself to the woman wearing it. Her dark hair had clearly taken time, gathered and styled carefully beneath the little white cap while a few loose strands had been left deliberately around her face. Her skin looked soft and luminous in the warm lamplight, her lips touched with restrained colour, while the faint darkening around her blue eyes made them appear brighter and more striking than usual.
She had made an effort.
A considerable one.
Oskar frowned slightly as he searched for a better word.
Beautiful, perhaps.
Lovely?
Stunning seemed excessive.
Before he could decide how best to repair the damage, Zofia lifted the coffeepot and spoke without looking at him.
"Nice?"
Oskar hesitated.
Her eyes slid toward him.
"So what was I before?"
He blinked.
The question seemed perfectly simple, yet something in her tone suggested that there were several very dangerous answers hidden inside it.
"What?"
Zofia's expression remained composed.
"If I look nice tonight," she said, "what did I look like before?"
Oskar stared at her for a moment, struggling to understand exactly how his compliment had somehow become an accusation against her previous appearance.
Then princely dignity came to his rescue.
"Well, now, do not twist my words, woman." He gestured toward her with one hand, as though sheer authority might settle the matter. "I said exceptionally nice. And coming from the Crown Prince of Germany to an ordinary Polish woman, I should think that constitutes a rather substantial compliment."
Zofia's eyes narrowed.
Oskar immediately suspected that perhaps princely dignity had not, in fact, come to his rescue.
She turned back to the cup and began pouring.
Oskar watched her, now considering whether beautiful might still save him, or whether the conversation had already advanced beyond the point where vocabulary could help.
The coffee reached the rim. Neither of them noticed as it rose higher, trembled there for a moment—and spilled over.
Zofia glanced down with a small, innocent "Oh," set the pot aside, and reached for her handkerchief. In trying to wipe the saucer, however, she somehow nudged the cup onto its side.
The result was immediate.
Coffee swept across the desk, straight through Oskar's carefully arranged reports. Ink blurred beneath the dark liquid, signatures disappeared, and documents he had spent hours correcting and stamping with his royal seal began curling at their edges. Before he could save anything, the coffee reached the edge and poured directly into his lap.
Oskar shoved himself backward with a startled cry as the heat soaked through his trousers.
"What the hell, woman!"
His chair scraped violently across the floor. The coffee was not hot enough to truly injure him, but it burned enough to make him wince, and his trousers were now thoroughly soaked.
Zofia remained leaning across the desk.
For a moment she merely stared at what she had done. Her eyes travelled over the drowned military reports, then down toward Oskar's wet trousers, and finally rose to his face.
Her lips twitched, and then she laughed.
Oskar stared at her.
"Oops. My mistake, Your Highness."
The apology was so sweetly insincere that the truth became obvious at once. Whatever this was—mischief, revenge, punishment for some offence he had apparently committed without understanding it—she had done it deliberately.
Oskar looked once more at his precious reports, then slowly rose from the chair.
Zofia's laughter faltered as he unfolded to his full height, suddenly towering over her at arm's length. The amusement in his face had vanished, replaced by a look somewhere between disbelief and genuine irritation.
"You bitch."
That finally broke her composure.
Still fighting a smile, Zofia hurriedly pressed her handkerchief against the front of his soaked trousers, dabbing uselessly at the spreading coffee as though a few frantic strokes might somehow undo the disaster.
Oskar looked down at her hand, then at her. His eyes narrowed.
Only then did Zofia seem to realize that she might have carried the joke one step too far. Her laughter died. Her blue eyes widened, and she abruptly turned on her heels, plainly intending to escape before he decided what to do with her.
She managed a single step before Oskar caught her.
One hand swept the little maid's cap from her head and closed firmly in the dark hair near the back of her scalp, while his other arm wrapped around her waist. With almost insulting ease he lifted her from the floor and drew her backwards against him.
Zofia gave a sharp, startled gasp as her back met his chest and her feet left the ground. All the playful confidence she had possessed only a moment before vanished beneath the sheer certainty of his strength. Her body went rigid in his hold, every muscle suddenly conscious of just how completely he had caught her.
Then, without ceremony, he pushed her forward and bent her over the desk. Her chest pressed against the polished wood, her feet scarcely reaching the floor as he held her there, his body close behind her while he leaned over her.
"How dare you," he said, his voice low with restrained anger, "play games with me."
Zofia's breath hitched.
"Have you no sense?" he growled beside her ear.
Tears gathered in her eyes despite her efforts to hold them back. She was angry with him—furious for what he had done to her city, her family and everything she had once understood about her life. Yet beneath that anger remained the unbearable confusion of everything else she felt for him: affection, safety, desire, resentment. She no longer seemed to know whether she wanted to strike him or turn around and bury herself in his arms.
That uncertainty only made her angrier.
Zofia turned her head enough to look back at him, her wet eyes still burning with defiance.
"Fuck you," she whispered. "I hate you. I'll never forgive you, you vile, arrogant man. How could you? How could you lie with Maria, you brute?"
That stopped him.
For several seconds Oskar simply stared at her, scarcely noticing her renewed attempt to push herself upright. His hand kept her pinned with almost insulting ease. Zofia kicked once in frustrated protest, but trapped awkwardly beneath his much larger body, the effort accomplished nothing.
Then something in Oskar's expression shifted as he understood what had truly been eating at her.
"Yes, I lay with her," he murmured, almost lightly despite the tension between them. "And what of it? That daughter of yours practically begged me to fuck her, Zofia. She wanted me, and I gave her exactly what she asked for. More importantly, she made that choice herself."
His gaze hardened upon hers.
"And she enjoyed it. Thoroughly."
Zofia's eyes flashed.
Oskar gave the faintest smile.
"So call me whatever you please. Monster. Brute. Bastard. Tyrant. Believe me, woman, I have been called considerably worse by people considerably more frightening than you."
He leaned closer until his lips were almost against her ear, his voice dropping into a quieter, more controlled rumble.
"But what exactly is your point? Why do you insist upon tormenting yourself—and me—like this?"
His breath moved warmly across her skin.
"You say you hate me, yet you remain here."
Zofia swallowed.
Oskar watched her carefully.
"If I am truly so vile, why stay?"
His hand tightened slightly as she shifted beneath him.
"Why dress yourself like this? Why come into my office looking the way you do, teasing me, provoking me, pouring coffee over my damned reports and then running away as though you expect me not to follow?"
He paused, allowing the question to hang between them.
"Why spend all evening tempting me, Zofia, if you truly want nothing from me?"
Her fingers curled against the desk.
"Why not leave?" he continued. "Follow your son. Take up arms, if that is what you truly desire. Join him and all the others and come look for me upon the battlefield."
That struck harder than anything else he had said.
Zofia did not answer at first. Her breathing broke unevenly, her eyes shifting away from him as anger gave way to something considerably more painful.
"It's not like that," she managed through a sob.
Oskar frowned.
"Then what is it, woman?"
Irritation crept back into his voice.
"I gave you and your daughter rooms meant for royalty. I feed you. I clothe you. I am having you taught my language. I gave you respectable work and a place beneath my protection. I have scarcely touched you since the river, despite the fact that you have spent half this evening parading around my office in that ridiculous little uniform and deliberately provoking me."
His voice hardened.
"So what else do you want from me?"
He genuinely could not understand it.
By his own reckoning he had given her more than most people in conquered Warsaw possessed, certainly more than most conquerors would ever have thought to offer. Food, shelter, security, work, education, protection. She was free to walk from the palace if she truly wished it. And still she pushed him. Resisted him. Tested him at every turn.
For several moments Oskar simply stared down at the stubborn little woman beneath him, until at last his attention settled properly upon the tears shining in her eyes. At the sight of them, something in his anger gave way.
With a quiet sigh, he leaned forward and resorted to the same tactic that had so often served him when one of his women became utterly unbearable: he kissed the back of her neck.
There was nothing rough about it. After all the strength with which he had caught and restrained her, the touch of his lips was almost absurdly tender, and that tenderness broke through Zofia's defences more effectively than anger ever could.
A small whimper escaped her before she could suppress it. Her shoulders trembled, and some of the rigid tension slowly drained from her body. She did not stop being angry—far from it—but her resistance faltered beneath the simple warmth of his lips in a way no threat, demand or argument had managed to accomplish.
Oskar noticed immediately.
He watched her lying beneath him against the desk, dark hair spilling loose around her face, the little maid's uniform rumpled and strained, her breathing uneven as the composure she had fought so stubbornly to preserve began slipping away. The anger was still there. He could feel it in every obstinate little movement she made beneath him, in every tense breath and clenched finger.
But anger was no longer the only thing there.
Oskar's mouth curved faintly.
Then, as a final punctuation to the lesson, his hand caught the hem of her ridiculously short dress and swept it higher. His palm came down in one light but decisive smack against her backside, the sharp crack carrying cleanly through the office.
Zofia cried out, her entire body tensing at once. Oskar gave a quiet breath of amusement and caught her firmly around the waist with his other arm, keeping her steady as she twisted indignantly beneath him.
"So," Oskar murmured near her ear, "do you intend to tell me what is actually going through that troublesome little head of yours…"
He let the question linger for a moment.
"…or must I punish the answer out of you?"
Zofia looked back at him, breathing unevenly. Anger still shone through the dampness in her eyes, accompanied now by something more stubborn—a determination not to let the Iron Prince frighten her merely because he happened to be enormous, victorious and presently standing behind her with considerably more authority than any sensible woman ought to challenge.
"You talk very big, Iron Prince," she said. "But I am beginning to wonder whether you can actually back any of it up."
Oskar's brow twitched.
Zofia saw the warning and, having apparently already decided upon self-destruction, continued anyway.
"As far as I can tell, these wonderful plans of yours are not going nearly as brilliantly as you pretend. You have driven millions of angry Poles eastward and practically handed them to Russia, where they will have every reason in the world to hate you. Russia still has armies. Japan has declared war on Germany, and apparently they are already somewhere over there waiting for you."
She made a vague gesture toward what might have been east, although Oskar strongly suspected that if presented with a map she would have required considerable assistance locating Japan at all.
"And China is doing that… embargo thing."
Oskar closed his eyes for a moment.
Zofia pressed onward, entirely unaware that her argument had just suffered a catastrophic collapse in academic credibility.
"I heard the British and Japanese are pressuring them to move against you as well, and if China joins them, then that is another enormous country against Germany. So there. Everyone is surrounding you."
Oskar released a slow breath through his nose.
Good Lord.
Barely a week ago Zofia's world had consisted largely of Warsaw, her household and whatever news happened to reach her through gossip, church conversation or somebody reading aloud from a newspaper. Now she was attempting to lecture the Crown Prince of Germany on East Asian geopolitics using information she had apparently assembled from servants, soldiers and half-understood rumours.
The truly irritating part was that somewhere beneath the nonsense lay several genuine concerns.
Japan had declared war, and that was no trivial matter. It was a problem for the future rather than the immediate Polish campaign, but a problem nonetheless. The Republic of China troubled him considerably less. In Oskar's mind it bore little resemblance to the formidable China he knew from a later age; the present republic was fragmented, politically unstable and hardly something he regarded with the same instinctive caution. Yet if British and Japanese pressure succeeded in dragging China more firmly against Germany, it would complicate matters further.
None of which meant he particularly enjoyed hearing these truths recited by a tiny Polish woman who probably imagined China and Japan standing beside one another somewhere immediately beyond Russia.
Zofia, mistaking his silence for defeat, gathered what remained of her courage.
"And after all that," she continued, almost triumphantly, "you cannot even bring yourself to do more than this to one troublesome little peasant woman."
That struck considerably closer to the bone than Oskar would have liked.
His eyes narrowed, and before Zofia could enjoy her little victory for more than a heartbeat, his hands closed around her waist. A startled gasp escaped her as he turned her around with effortless strength, sending several papers skittering from the desk while the hem of her short skirt fluttered around her thighs. A moment later she found herself lying back against the polished wood with Oskar standing between her parted legs.
The change between them was immediate, and Zofia's confidence faltered.
Oskar bent over her, one hand sliding firmly around her waist to draw her closer to the edge of the desk while the other slipped behind her head, thick fingers threading carefully into her dark hair. He pressed close enough that she could feel the heat of him through his uniform, and when their faces came within inches, Zofia swallowed.
"First," Oskar murmured, his voice so low that she seemed to feel it as much as hear it, "Japan is not standing at my border. Neither is China."
Colour rose into her cheeks. She opened her mouth to answer, but Oskar leaned closer until their lips nearly brushed, and whatever clever argument she had intended faltered before it could escape. Her hands came up almost instinctively against his chest.
"Secondly," he continued, "I suggest you watch that troublesome mouth of yours, woman. I tolerate an astonishing amount from you already, but I am still a Crown Prince."
Their noses touched. Their breath mingled. And still, through damp eyes and with the smallest spark of defiance refusing to die, Zofia whispered, "You started it."
That nearly made him laugh.
Of course she would say that.
For several seconds he simply remained there, looming over her with one hand cradling the back of her head and the other holding her securely against him. Zofia tried to preserve the anger in her face, but it was becoming increasingly difficult while his mouth hovered scarcely a breath from hers.
Then something in Oskar's expression changed. The amusement softened, giving way to something quieter and more serious.
"I understand that the loss of your son still weighs heavily upon you," he said. "Being so far from him must be difficult."
The words extinguished her defiance almost at once.
Pain crossed Zofia's face before she could hide it, and the hands that had rested tensely against Oskar's chest slowly curled instead into the dark fabric of his uniform.
His gaze softened further.
One hand left her waist long enough to brush a tear from beneath her eye before settling there again and drawing her gently closer.
"I cannot replace what you have lost," he said quietly.
He paused, and then that familiar, outrageous confidence returned to his eyes.
"But perhaps I can give you another son to love."
Zofia gasped.
For a moment she simply stared at him, caught somewhere between disbelief, indignation and something far warmer. The sheer arrogance of the promise made her want to strike his chest and tell him exactly what she thought of him.
Oskar smirked as though he already knew, and before she could find the words, he kissed her.
Zofia's eyes closed almost at once, and whatever protest had been gathering disappeared as her arms slipped around his neck and drew him closer. The last of her resistance seemed to melt beneath the warmth of him, her fingers tightening behind his neck as Oskar's hand moved from her waist and tugged the already-low bodice of her dress farther down, baring her breasts to his touch.
Even then, he did not hurry her. His first kisses remained soft and lingering, giving her every opportunity to turn away or tell him to stop. Zofia did neither. Instead she pressed closer, answering him with small, breathless sounds and an eagerness that made words increasingly unnecessary.
So Oskar kissed her properly.
His mouth settled more firmly over hers, catching her lower lip before the kiss deepened. Zofia opened readily to him, meeting his growing hunger with her own until the anger that had filled her only moments earlier became something hotter and considerably less coherent. One of Oskar's hands remained possessively against her chest while the other cradled the back of her head, keeping it cushioned safely from the hard surface of the desk beneath her.
For all the strength with which he had seized her only moments before, there was something almost maddeningly careful in that small gesture, and Zofia felt the difference keenly.
Perhaps that was what undid her more than anything else.
Piotr's strength had always demanded that she accommodate it. Oskar's seemed constantly to accommodate her. He was enormous enough to overwhelm her completely, yet somehow all that impossible strength adjusted itself around the smaller body in his arms, careful of her even when his desire was unmistakable.
By the time their mouths finally separated, both were breathing more heavily. Oskar remained close enough that their noses almost touched, his blue eyes fixed upon hers as though he had momentarily forgotten that anything existed beyond the woman beneath him. Then, with a mischievous glint, he caught her lower lip lightly between his teeth.
A startled little giggle escaped Zofia.
Oskar's eyes brightened.
"There," he murmured. "I knew there was a sweeter woman hiding beneath all that insolence."
"Arrogant brute," she whispered, though there was precious little anger left in it now.
Oskar smiled and lowered his face to kiss her again.
A sharp knock struck the door.
They froze.
For several long seconds neither moved. Oskar remained standing between Zofia's legs, one arm still supporting her head while she lay beneath him with her arms around his neck, staring upward in breathless disbelief at the sheer injustice of the interruption.
Then reality intruded upon the room with all the delicacy of an artillery shell.
Oskar slowly closed his eyes.
"Yes?" he called, irritation weighing heavily upon the single word. "What is it? I am in the middle of something important."
Helena's sweet voice came innocently through the door.
"Your Highness, there is an urgent report concerning the Russian First Army. May I come in?"
Oskar opened his eyes.
He stared at the door for a moment, then looked down at the flushed woman still lying beneath him. His gaze finally travelled lower to the coffee stain spreading across the front of his trousers, a final reminder of precisely how this entire ridiculous situation had begun.
He clicked his tongue.
"Damn it."
Zofia's lips twitched.
Oskar caught the movement immediately and narrowed his eyes at her.
"Do not laugh."
That, naturally, made her want to laugh considerably more.
Oskar sighed and glanced toward the door again.
"Why now?"