Akhile woke up to warmth.
Not the synthetic kind with heated floors or programmed daylight. This was real warmth, organic from another human, pressed against her back like a promise she hadn't agreed to making, his soft breath streaming down her neck.
Her eyes opened slowly. For one moment, she didn't recognise the ceiling.
This ceiling didn't simulate the sky or pretend to be something it wasn't. It was just dark wood, with clean edges, and a faint strip of light from a half-open curtain.
Her heart began to race. She didn't know this room.
Then she realised there was an arm around her waist. A strong and heavy arm. It had pinned her in a way that wasn't possessive, but in a way that wanted her to stay.
Akhile went still. Her body didn't panic the way her mind did. Her body… was regaining its memories.
There was a tender ache in her muscles, the kind you get the day after a workout. And a faint soreness at her mouth as if she'd been kissed to within an inch of her life. She swallowed hard and cocked her head to the side.
Nathaniel lay behind her, one arm tucked under her, the other draped over her like he'd fallen asleep mid-decision, his one hand squeezing her breast. His face was peaceful in sleep, almost unfairly handsome without the harshness he always wore like armour.
His red hair was scruffled up, his lashes resting against her back.
Akhile stared at him, almost lovingly.
This couldn't be real. She tried to move.
His arms tightened around her instinctively, pulling her closer, his hand spreading across her stomach as if he could sense the retreat, that the fantasy was over. He nuzzled his face against her shoulder and kissed it, warm breath spilling onto her skin.
"Nath—" she started. But he broke her voice.
He stirred. Eyes opening slowly and sharply. He didn't scramble away. It felt so wrong to let go of her.
He stared at her, into her eyes as if he was confirming something he'd already decided last night.
Akhile forced her voice to be steady. "Why am I here?"
Nathaniel's gaze lingered on her mouth.
"You walked all the way here, from your apartment," he said, his voice roughened by waking up. "And you didn't want to leave."
"Nathaniel Redcliff!" she said.
"Whoa!" He yawned, using her back as a shield. "No one has ever called me that so early in the morning," he replied quietly, his voice still half asleep. "Especially when she's in my bed." He grinned, his eyes half open.
Akhile pushed herself away from him. The silk sheet between them slid off slightly, exposing them, cool air caressing her bare skin.
Nathaniel's hand moved instantly, covering her exposed skin with the sheet again, tucking it back into place as if it mattered that she remained modest.
His tenderness startled her more than the intimacy.
Akhile stared at his hand. Then at his face.
"Did we…?" she mouthed, trying not to alert the walls or anything else that may have been listening in.
Nathaniel didn't smile. He exchanged a strong exhale. "Yes, we did," he simply replied.
Akhile's cheeks turned red. "That's…"
"What?" he interrupted, almost frowning.
Akhile struggled for a word that wouldn't associate her with this act.
Stupid. Reckless. A mistake?
But the words wouldn't come out directly.
She swallowed again. "You had no right, what we did..."
Nathaniel's gaze deepened. "You're right," he said. "I didn't."
The admission disarmed her.
He continued, his voice low. "That's why I asked you to tell me to stop."
Akhile's breath stuttered. A thread of memory flashed by, his mouth near hers, his hand caressing her jaw, stopping midway, just before taking her.
Tell me to stop.
Akhile's throat tightened, her eyes widened in shock, or was it embarrassment?
She did not ask him to stop.
Nathaniel watched her regain her memories, and a slight grin returned to his face.
"Exactly. You didn't ask me to stop. And I asked you 100 times," he murmured.
Akhile looked away quickly, humiliated by her own silence. She was left speechless.
Nathaniel shifted closer to her, without touching her, just closing the distance, hoping to incite the same reaction from the previous night.
Akhile lay still, her thoughts racing, her mind dissociating.
"If you regret it…any of it," he said, "you can say it now."
Akhile's chest tightened.
"I don't know, what is this feeling?" she admitted, too honest, too fast.
Nathaniel's gaze softened, only slightly. "That's fine," he said. "But you can't pretend you feel nothing."
Akhile's eyes flashed back to him. "You don't get to decide for me. I don't know what got over me."
Nathaniel crossed his face and moved away from her. That was not what he expected to hear.
"Go," he said.
Akhile pulled the sheet and sat up fully, using it like armour, leaving him exposed.
Nathaniel didn't try to stop her. But he spoke, and the words hooked into her spine.
"Princess Cora."
Her name in his morning voice felt different.
Akhile paused almost at the door and looked back.
Nathaniel's gaze held hers.
"You're not an object I can place on a chessboard," he said quietly. "So don't pretend to be one." This was in reference to her him never being able to think for her, to control her.
Akhile didn't trust herself to respond.
She turned her focus back to the door, wrapped in the sheet, and walked toward the edge of the room where her nightdress and robe lay draped over a chair. Another memory flashed through her mind, remembering herself disrobing while he watched.
Behind her, Nathaniel's voice followed, calm and certain.
"Cora..." he paused.
Akhile didn't turn around. She slowed her step, but without giving him another look, she stepped out of his bedroom and out of the west wing.
That same morning, nothing had changed, but there was a slight shift in the way things used to feel.
The estate functioned as if the world had not tilted the night before. The sky still projected a flawless maroon dawn.
Akhile stood in front of her mirror longer than necessary.
She half-expected to see evidence of what had happened, a mark, or a bruise- something that would give her away.
There was nothing.
Only her own reflection.
Only Princess Cora.
Her fingers hovered briefly near her mouth before she lowered her hand.
"Stop tormenting yourself," she said.
Breakfast was punctual, as always. Akhile entered the dining hall in controlled steps.
Nathaniel was already eating, dressed sharp as normal, nothing out of place.
If he had not woken with her in his arms, there would be no sign of it.
Norman sat to his left and not across from him. That detail did not escape her.
"Princess Cora," Nathaniel greeted evenly. His eyes were empty, as if she were just an acquaintance.
Akhile inclined her head slightly. "Mr Redcliff."
Norman's gaze rotated between them. He noticed something was off about the interaction.
Of course he did. He's a whole Molecular Biologist.
Breakfast unfolded in polished, rehearsed conversation. Transport schedules to the headquarters, preparations for the GMP audits…and peach extracts.
Akhile buttered her toast too carefully, trying not to make a mess, her gaze on Nathaniel as he spoke. He did not look at her mouth. She wanted him to, so that she could feel like things were back to normal.
He did not let his hand brush hers by mistake.
He was back to being robotic, to being rigid and strict. He did not acknowledge her at any point in time.
She felt erased by him.
"That's how it should be," she thought to herself. But how come this realisation hurt?
Norman spoke casually at one point, leaning slightly toward her. "Will you need assistance with your bags when we return to the Meadowlands?" he asked.
The warmth in his voice contrasted sharply with the air between her and Nathaniel.
Oh, that's right, the Meadowlands, she thought. Her betrothal.
"I can manage," she replied, clearing her throat right after.
Norman's eyes lingered on her face a second too long.
Nathaniel noticed this but did not react, not even a frown. He sipped his coffee as if the entire room were a board meeting and he was a guest.
Akhile felt foolish. Foolish for walking to him at three in the morning.
Foolish for letting him touch her. Foolish for making him believe she regretted everything.
Perhaps it had been a moment of weakness.
Perhaps it had been her curiosity.
Perhaps it had just been stupidity.
She finished drinking her tea and got up to leave.
"If you'll both excuse me," she said.
Nathaniel nodded once without looking at her, already turning his attention back to reading from a holographic projection hovering above the table.
"Of course," he replied.
Of course?
The words followed her down the corridor like she had been dismissed from class. She spent the afternoon in an office near the foyer. She wouldn't dare go to the library.
The marriage under the blood moon crept up in her thoughts. It was not meant to be romantic. Nathaniel was not her knight is shining armour.
It was engineered by his father, the Sharman.
Akhile signed off on adjustments she had barely read. A moment later, a knock came at the door to the tiny office.
Norman leaned against the frame.
"You look like you've been sentenced to prison," he said lightly.
She forced a smile. "I'm fine."
"You've said that three times today."
Akhile closed the folder in front of her.
"Why, you've noticed?"
Norman hesitated— "Maybe."
"You have."
He pushed off the door frame and walked completely inside, stopping a careful distance away from her. She would usually be excited to be around him. The nicer brother.
"You and my brother," he began, his tone casual but measured, "You both seem unusually… constructed this morning."
Akhile stiffened.
"What do you mean?" she assumed she had been exposed.
Norman's jaw tightened subtly. He studied her face as if searching for something beneath it. A crack exposing some softness in her expression.
When he didn't find what he was looking for, something darker was portrayed in his expression.
"If he's hurt you in any way," Norman said quietly, "I will kill him."
Akhile blinked uncontrollably. "He didn't!" she exclaimed.
The words came too quickly, bringing with them another piece from her memories. She remembered feeling Nathaniel's warm skin against hers, making her orgasm 3 times simultaneously, such that she temporarily lost all feeling in her legs.
Norman's eyes sharpened. "I didn't say he did, I said only if-."
Norman's voice sharpened Akhile's attention back to reality. He stepped slightly closer to her.
"You don't have to marry him, you know," he added softly.
Akhile swallowed.
"I don't have a choice, do I?" she replied to him. But she knew she could decide not to marry Nathaniel. It seemed she wanted to.
Norman's gaze dropped briefly to her hands clenched at her sides.
He wanted to say more to her. "Okay, Princess."
He left before she could respond.
Late that evening, Akhile stood alone on her balcony.
There was a perfect maroon gradient in the sky. The perfect industrial skyline, an illusion.
Across the estate, a figure stepped out onto another balcony.
Nathaniel.
He did not call out to her.
He did not even wave.
He simply leaned against the railing and looked toward the sky, the stars barely visible beyond the industrial haze.
For a moment, their eyes met. There was an ache between them.
Akhile looked away, then another balcony door opened in the east wing.
Norman stepped out. He did not look at her or Nathaniel.
For a moment, all three stood suspended in the same engineered evening.
There was a triangle without lines.
Akhile felt the shift again. There was a gap between them. She was no longer certain herself what she wanted.
And for the first time since her rebirth,
She wondered which version of herself was falling for a Redcliff