I stormed the candlelit galleries of his court, petition in hand, fire in my gut. My family's name, stripped bare by betrayal, demanded justice from the throne. Not this. Not him pulling me into shadows, his mouth hovering so close I tasted his breath before he claimed the almost-kiss that ruined me.
Arrogance drips from him like wax from those flickering candles. Isolated in his crown, he hides a hunger that matches my own buried ache - for someone to see past the ruins, to fill the void with something reckless and real. I defy him at every turn, sharp words like daggers, but gods, his touch turns my rebellion to liquid surrender. Impulsive, consuming. He pins me against tapestried walls, bodies clashing until I'm gasping, yielding to the one man who should never have me.
Yet defiance twists into reliance. Hidden chambers become our secret, limbs tangled in the dark where trust builds like a storm I can't outrun. His possessive need mocks every oath binding his bloodline to divine right - a lowborn like me, carrying his seed? It's blasphemy wrapped in ecstasy, every thrust a rebellion against the hierarchy that crushed my kin.
One formal portrait session, and there it is: the swell of what we've made, cradled against me while courtiers whisper. My autonomy, my safety, my legacy - all teeter on his whim. He could unmake me with a word, restore my name only to chain my soul to his throne. But walking away? That terrifies me more.
His isolation craves my fire as desperately as I crave his claim. Equals in ruin, or destruction for us both?
A full-length breeding royalty erotic romance featuring a defiant petitioner and an arrogant king's forbidden obsession.
