The royal apartments smelled of sex and milk.

Seraphine reclined on the silk-strewn divan, her bare thighs still damp, her breasts heavy with unsuckled need. A scroll of trade agreements lay forgotten beside her—the ink smudged where she’d gripped it too tightly, imagining his hands instead. The ache between her legs had been gnawing at her since supper, sharpening with every passing minute until even the whisper of her own skirts felt like torment.

She traced a fingertip along her lower lip, swollen from biting back moans during her evening audience. The young Lord Darath had noticed. Oh, he’d noticed—she’d seen the way his knuckles whitened around his goblet when she’d shifted just so, letting the candlelight outline the milk stains on her bodice. But he’d lacked the spine to act. A pity.

The anklets chimed as she stretched, listening to the distant creak of armor in the corridor. Someone always lingered near her door after dark. Waiting. Would it be gentle Ser Oswin tonight, his calloused hands and quiet devotion? Or perhaps the new ambassador from the Iron Marches, still smelling of the road, bracketing her thighs with that warrior’s impatience—

The door hinges sighed as it opened.

"Finally," she murmured, not turning.