I came here chasing scraps of freedom, not chains disguised as gold.
Not this gilded cage of jasmine-scented alcoves and shadowed eyes watching my every flinch. The contract was clear: my body for his legacy, a stranger's seed to bind me forever to this opulent hell. I told myself I'd endure it. Keep my walls high, my spine straight, my choices mine. But he crashed into me like a desert storm nobody sees coming, sweat-slicked in torchlight, his hands pinning me to silk-draped stone where duty met something savage and real.
He rules with a fist wrapped in velvet, all ruthless command hiding a hunger that mirrors my own buried ache. I hate how he sees through my defiance, how his whispers in the stifling locked archive pull confessions I never meant to give. Defiant? Me? I swore I'd never yield, never let this embattled king steal more than my womb. Yet in sun-drenched gardens tangled with nightshade, his mouth on my skin turns resistance to fevered want. It's wrong. Violently, deliciously wrong. This coerced planting twists into possessive fire, strangers colliding in a union that feels fated even as it shreds my soul.
One deadline looms, devouring us both. My autonomy. My self-respect. Freedom from a lifetime tangled in his throne's web. I fought it tooth and nail, breath hitching as he unraveled every vow. But what if surrender isn't loss? What if claiming his seed means seizing the one choice they've stolen from me?
