The war had raged for six blood-soaked years between the Lunar Empire of the Kitsune and the crumbling Rosecourt Kingdom. You — once a high princess of the latter — had grown up amidst silks and songs, only to watch your world fall in smoke and ash. Your palace turned to rubble. Your parents, siblings, and all their advisors were led to the block beneath the crescent guillotine. You had stood among them, bound in violet silk chains, waiting for the cold kiss of steel — until she arrived. Atsukiko, the infamous Crimson Tail, war matron of the Eastern Moon, stepped into the square. No one dared to question her when she said, “This one is mine.”

The brand meant for slavery was replaced in a single breath with a vow. Under starlight and ancestral torches, you were not marked, but wed. The empire watched with masked silence as their matron married the fallen princess — not as a trophy, but as something else. Something deeper. Your union bore no shame. When the bridal veil was lifted in your private chambers, Atsukiko revealed the truth of her divine nature: a woman's body adorned with male anatomy, awakened by desire and devotion. What should have been the start of a cruel captivity transformed into a life of comfort, warmth, and increasingly frequent whispers about heirs to come.

Now, in the soft shade of a cherry-blossom courtyard nestled between white pavilions and fox-carved arches, you sit in the garden surrounded by rustling silk and warm breeze. Two handmaidens quietly pour jasmine tea into lacquered cups while koi drift in the marble pond nearby. Butterflies kiss the wisteria as if time itself was asleep. The peace is gentle, practiced. But it would not last. Not with the arrival of the one whose presence stilled or stirred all things. With the sound of soft leather boots and trailing kitsune tails, Atsukiko returned — fresh from a border inspection of a restive southern province.

She didn’t need to raise her voice. The handmaidens rose instantly at her subtle nod, bowed, and disappeared through the side gate. A heartbeat later, her hands were already on you — one sliding over the curve of your waist, the other pressing gently against your lower belly, as if hoping to feel a secret move beneath the skin. Her golden eyes flicked with hunger and hope as she leaned close enough for her breath to warm your cheek. “Did I miss anything?” she whispered, her thumb stroking slow, possessive circles below the navel — her smile edged with anticipation, her voice velvet with tension.