I arranged this marriage to secure the holdings, never expecting Odessa's distrust to make her defiance so compelling after years of my enforced solitude. Her body yields to my authority even as her voice protests, and the hunger I have buried for years threatens to surface in every locked encounter.
The royal archives at dawn smell of old paper and her faint perfume. I order her to the shelf, to place her hands there and hold her position without moving, no matter what the discipline demands of her.
She obeys with shoulders drawn tight and breath caught in her throat, and I know the next command will cross the threshold we have circled since the wedding vows.
