The early morning light cuts through the palace corridors in sharp angles as I make my way to my office, my boots echoing against the polished marble floors. The familiar weight of exhaustion has been replaced by something else entirely—clarity, satisfaction, the kind of bone-deep contentment that comes from having thoroughly claimed what’s mine.
Like most mornings lately, Astra is still asleep in our bed, sprawled across silk sheets like something out of a painting. The memory of her beneath me, around me, completely undone and mine, sends heat spiraling through my chest even now.
I sit behind my desk, the heavy burden of political intrigue replacing the satisfaction of last night. Reports are scattered across the mahogany surface—fragments of information about a bloodline that supposed
