(R-18 Mature Scenes)
(Almera's POV)
The reception was still roaring with celebration when I felt him again.
Laughter spilled like wine across the hall, music rising and falling beneath vaulted ceilings. Gold caught fire in the torchlight. The empire reveled—oblivious, indulgent, convinced the night belonged to spectacle alone.
Then Romulus was beside me.
He did not announce himself. He never needed to.
His presence pressed close, a heat at my side that cut through the noise. His hand brushed my lower back—brief, proprietary—before his mouth found my ear.
"It is time," he murmured.
My breath caught.
"To pay me back," he continued calmly, as if discussing trade routes instead of fate. "As per our contract. I will be waiting in the wedding chambers."
The words slid beneath my skin, deliberate and inescapable.
I swallowed.
"Yes, Your Majesty," I said, steady despite the thrum in my chest.
