Chapter 2: The Daughter's Arrival
Ma
The chamber had never felt so vast.
Eloria stood at its center, her hands folded before her in a posture of perfect regal composure, and yet the silence pressed against her like a physical weight. The bioluminescent panels along the walls pulsed in their gentle rhythm—calm, steady, indifferent to the storm churning beneath her ribs.
She had dismissed the honor guard.
A decision that had raised eyebrows among her advisors, that had drawn sharp intakes of breath from the courtiers who lingered in the anteroom like moths drawn to disaster. But she could not bear the thought of armed guards flanking her when she met the daughter of the man who had nearly died for her. It felt like an insult. A desecration of something she could not yet name.
The observation pane behind her reflected the scene she had just left—the sterile bed, the still form beneath the sheets, the monitors that traced the slow, stubborn rhythm of Albert Voss's heart. She had stood there for nearly an hour, watching his chest rise and fall, feeling the distant echo of his dreams through the empathic bond that had awakened between them. Fevered, fragmented things. A woman's face he had once loved. The sharp crack of gunfire. The weight of his own body hitting the deck.
And beneath it all, that singular, confounding thought that had driven him to throw himself between her and the assassin's bullets.
She doesn't deserve to die.
Not I don't want to die. Not save me. Just a stranger's conviction that her life held more value than his own.
The door at the far end of the chamber whispered open.
Eloria's breath caught.
The young woman who stepped through was smaller than she had expected—delicate, almost fragile, with the same dirty blond hair as her father, the same blue eyes that seemed to hold too much weight for their years. She wore civilian clothes, a simple gray jacket over a dark shirt, and there was a guardedness to her posture that spoke of someone who had learned early that the world was not kind.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
Then the daughter's gaze swept the chamber—the silver panels, the empty space, the small, regal figure standing alone at its center—and something flickered across her face. Confusion. Recognition. Grief so raw it seemed to bleed through the air between them.
"You're her," the young woman said. Her voice was rough, unsteady. "You're the one he—"
She stopped. Swallowed. Her jaw tightened.
Eloria felt it then. The empathic flood she had been bracing for, the surge of emotion that crashed against her mental shields like a wave against a seawall. Anger, yes. That she had expected. Confusion, fear, the desperate need to understand. But beneath those, something else. Something that made Eloria's chest ache with a pain that was not her own.
He's all I have left.
The thought was not directed at her, not consciously. It rose from the daughter's core like a cry in the dark. And Eloria, with her cursed gift, heard it as clearly as if it had been spoken aloud.
"You are Maya," Eloria said. Her voice emerged steadier than she felt. "Your father speaks of you in his sleep."
Maya's composure cracked. Just for an instant. Her lips parted, her eyes glistened, and then she blinked hard and rebuilt the walls. "He's alive?"
"He is." Eloria gestured toward the observation pane, toward the silent room beyond. "The med-drones have done all they can. His body is healing. The rest—" She paused, choosing her words with care. "The rest will take time."
Maya walked toward the pane as if drawn by an invisible thread. Her reflection joined Eloria's in the reinforced glass—two women, strangers to each other, united by the unconscious man who lay between them.
"Can I see him?"
The question was simple. Direct. It carried no accusation, no demand. Just a daughter's need to witness her father's breath with her own eyes.
Eloria nodded. "Of course. I will have someone escort you—"
"I don't want an escort." Maya turned to face her, and there was steel beneath the grief. "I want to see my father. Alone. Without an audience."
The words hung in the air between them.
Eloria felt the weight of them, felt the judgment that lurked beneath their surface. You weren't there. You didn't know him. You took him from his life and now you stand here in your silver chamber playing at concern.
But the accusation never came. Maya simply held her gaze, and Eloria saw something else in her eyes. Something that looked almost like... understanding.
"He told me about you," Maya said quietly. "Before he left."
Eloria's pulse quickened. "Left?"
"For the delegation." Maya's lips quirked in something that was almost a smile, though it carried no warmth. "He was supposed to be part of the human attaché. A security liaison, they called it. He told me it was just a formality. A few weeks of boring meetings and then he'd be home."
Her voice cracked on the last word. She turned away, pressing a hand to her mouth.
"He didn't tell me he was going to die for you."
The silence that followed was unbearable.
Eloria stood motionless, her empathic senses flooded with Maya's pain. It was not directed at her—she could feel that much, could feel the difference between anger and sorrow—but it filled the chamber nonetheless. And beneath it, threading through her own thoughts like a golden strand through dark fabric, was something she could not ignore.
He thought of me.
Not as an empress, not as a political figure, not as a symbol. But as a person. A person worth dying for.
"I did not ask him to," Eloria said softly. "I did not even know his name until he fell."
Maya turned back. Her cheeks were wet, but her voice was steady. "That's what I don't understand. He wasn't a hero. He was just... my dad. He fixed broken things and made terrible puns and cried at the end of movies." She laughed, a broken, ragged sound. "He couldn't even kill a spider without putting it outside first. And he threw himself in front of an assassin's bullets for someone he'd never met."
The question hung between them, unasked but deafening.
Why?
Eloria closed her eyes. She could have explained it—the empathic bond, the way his thoughts had flooded her senses as he dove, the pure, uncomplicated selflessness that had overwhelmed her like a wave. She could have spoken of the anomaly he represented, the contradiction he posed to everything her people believed about humans. But none of that felt adequate. None of that touched the heart of what had happened.
Instead, she opened her eyes and met Maya's gaze directly.
"Your father," she said slowly, "saved my life. I have no way to repay that. No words to express what his sacrifice means to me, to my people, to the alliance we have been working to build. But I can tell you this." She stepped closer, closing the distance between them. "I have known many humans in my lifetime, Maya. Diplomats, ambassadors, soldiers. I have read their minds, felt their emotions, seen the truths they hide from themselves. And I have never encountered anyone like him."
Maya's jaw tightened. "What are you saying?"
"I am saying that your father is not a hero in the way you imagine. He is something rarer." Eloria paused, choosing her next words with the precision of a surgeon. "He is a good man. Not because he is brave or strong or selfless. But because he does not know how to be anything else."
The words fell between them like stones into still water.
Maya stared at her for a long moment, and Eloria felt the girl's emotions shift and churn—fury and grief and confusion, yes, but also something else. Something softer. Something that looked almost like relief.
"You really mean that," Maya whispered.
"I do."
A sound escaped Maya's throat—half sob, half laugh. She pressed her palms to her eyes, and Eloria saw the tension in her shoulders begin to ease, just slightly.
"God, I'm sorry," Maya said, her voice muffled. "I came in here ready to hate you. I had this whole speech prepared about—about how you used him, how you threw his life away for your own political gain, how you didn't deserve—" She stopped. Dropped her hands. Looked at Eloria with red-rimmed eyes. "And then you go and say something like that, and I can't even be angry anymore."
Eloria felt her own lips curve in a hesitant smile. "I am told I have that effect on people."
"Must be exhausting." Maya sniffed, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand. "Being right all the time."
"More than you can imagine."
The laugh that escaped Maya was genuine this time, if fragile. It was a small, unexpected gift—a moment of shared humor in the midst of grief. And Eloria treasured it more than she could express.
"He's going to be okay, right?" Maya's voice was small now. Vulnerable. "The med-drones, the technology—it's enough?"
Eloria considered the question carefully. The truth was that Albert's wounds had been severe. Three bullets, each one a fraction of an inch from vital organs. The med-drones had worked miracles, but even miracles had their limits.
"He will survive," she said. "His body will heal. But the memories—" She hesitated. "The memories will take longer."
Maya nodded slowly. "He's been through a lot already. My mom left him a few years back. They were married for twenty-four years, and then one day she just... decided she wanted a different life. He never really got over it. I don't think he ever really tried."
The words carried no bitterness, only a daughter's quiet sorrow. And Eloria felt them land in her chest with unexpected weight.
Married for twenty-four years.
She had known he carried scars. She had felt the echoes of old grief in his fevered dreams, seen the shadow of a woman's face that was not hers. But hearing it spoken aloud, hearing the shape and substance of his loss, made something shift within her.
"You care for him," Maya said suddenly. It was not a question.
Eloria's heart stuttered. "I—"
"Don't." Maya held up a hand. "I can see it. The way you look at him, the way you talk about him. It's not just politics." She shook her head slowly. "I don't know what it is, exactly. But it's not nothing."
The observation pane reflected them both—two women, separated by a thin sheet of reinforced glass and the body of a man who had changed everything.
"He saved my life," Eloria said quietly. "I owe him a debt I cannot repay."
"That's not what I'm talking about." Maya's voice was gentle now. Almost kind. "And I think you know that."
The silence that followed was different from before. Fuller, somehow. More present.
Eloria felt her carefully constructed walls beginning to tremble. She should not be having this conversation. She should not be standing here, unguarded and unmasked, revealing truths she had never shared with another living soul. But something about Maya's open, honest gaze—so achingly like her father's own—made pretense impossible.
"When I touched him," Eloria began, her voice barely above a whisper, "when he fell and I caught him, I felt everything. His thoughts, his memories, his hopes. His fears. It was like being flooded with an ocean I had never known existed." She paused, her throat tight. "And in that flood, I saw something I had never seen before. A mind that was not afraid of me. A heart that had no agenda. A man who saw a stranger in danger and did not hesitate."
Maya was watching her with an intensity that made Eloria's skin prickle.
"He was thinking about you," Maya said softly.
Eloria blinked. "What?"
"Before he left, he called me. Said he had a weird feeling about the whole thing." Maya's eyes were bright again, but she did not look away. "He told me that if anything happened to him, he wanted me to know that he loved me. That he was proud of me." Her voice caught. "And then he said something strange. He said there was a woman he was supposed to meet. Someone who was going to matter. He didn't know how he knew—he just had a feeling."
The words hit Eloria like a physical blow.
She staggered, one hand bracing against the observation pane. The cool glass was solid beneath her fingers, grounding her in the present moment, but her mind was racing backward to her first glimpse of Albert Voss. The human delegation had filed into the throne room, and she had noted him only briefly—a middle-aged man with tired eyes and an unremarkable bearing. She had dismissed him as unimportant.
And yet, even then, she had felt something. A flicker at the edge of her awareness. A warmth she could not explain.
"I did not know," she whispered. "I did not understand."
"How could you?" Maya's smile was bittersweet. "He didn't understand either. He just knew."
The chamber seemed to grow smaller around them. Eloria could feel the pulse of the ship, the distant hum of its systems, the muffled sounds of life continuing beyond these walls. And within her, something was stirring. Something she had never allowed herself to feel.
He knew.
A strange warmth bloomed in her chest—unfamiliar, unsettling, and not entirely unwelcome.
"I need to see him," Eloria said abruptly. "I need to—"
"He's unconscious." Maya's voice was gentle but firm. "He won't know you're there."
"I will know."
The words escaped before Eloria could stop them. She felt heat rise to her cheeks—a sensation she had not experienced since adolescence—and she looked away, embarrassed by her own vulnerability.
But Maya only nodded. "Okay," she said. "Let's go."
They walked together toward the door that led to the infirmary, their footsteps synchronized on the polished floor. Eloria felt the weight of the moment pressing against her, the knowledge that nothing would ever be the same.
At the threshold, Maya paused. "Empress Eloria?"
"Yes?"
Maya turned to face her, and in the dim light of the corridor, her eyes were impossibly blue. Like her father's. Like the sky of a world Eloria had never seen.
"He was dreaming about you," Maya said softly. "Before they told me he was alive, I had a dream. He was standing in a garden, and there was a woman with him. She was small, with silver hair, and he was laughing." A fragile smile crossed her lips. "He looked happy. Happier than I've seen him in years."
Eloria felt her breath catch. "I do not have silver hair."
"No," Maya agreed. "But I don't think dreams always get the details right." She shrugged, a gesture so casual it seemed almost deliberate. "Maybe it wasn't a dream. Maybe it was a message."
Before Eloria could respond, Maya pushed open the door and stepped into the infirmary.
The room was quieter than Eloria remembered. The med-drones had retreated to their docking stations, their work complete, and the only sound was the soft, steady beep of the monitors that tracked Albert Voss's vital signs. He lay motionless beneath a thin sheet, his chest rising and falling with a rhythm that seemed too slow, too fragile, for the strength he had shown.
Maya approached the bed with hesitant steps. She reached out, her fingers hovering over her father's hand, and Eloria saw the tears trembling at the edges of her eyes.
"Hey, Dad," Maya whispered. "I'm here."
Eloria stood in the doorway, watching the moment unfold. She should leave, she knew. This was private, sacred. A moment between a daughter and her father that had nothing to do with empresses or alliances or debts of honor.
But she could not move.
The empathic bond between them pulsed with new intensity, and she felt Maya's love flowing toward Albert like a river finding its course. And beneath it, fainter but unmistakable, the stirring of Albert's own awareness. He could hear her. He could feel her presence.
And Eloria felt it all.
"You saved her," Maya whispered, her fingers finally closing around her father's. "You saved the empress, Dad. You're a hero." A tear slid down her cheek, dripping onto the sterile sheet. "I don't know what that means. I don't know who you are anymore. But I'm proud of you. I'm so proud of you."
The monitors beeped steady and strong.
Eloria pressed a hand to her chest, feeling the wild drumming of her own heart. She had witnessed countless scenes of grief and joy in her life, had felt the emotions of diplomats and soldiers and citizens with her empathic gift. But this was different.
This was real.
He knew, she thought again. Somehow, he knew.
She stepped forward, moving silently toward the bed, and stopped at its foot. Maya looked up, her eyes bright with tears, and nodded once.
Wordlessly, Eloria approached. She reached out, hesitating for just a moment, and then placed her hand over Maya's where it rested on Albert's own.
The contact was like lightning.
Emotion flooded through Eloria—not just her own, but Albert's. His dreams, his memories, his pain. She saw the wedding, the love, the slow decay of trust that had ended his marriage. She saw the loneliness, the quiet acceptance of a life half-lived. But beneath it all, she saw his daughter. His pride. His hope.
And she saw herself, reflected in his mind's eye. Small and silver and fragile-looking, but radiating a strength he had never encountered. She saw herself through his eyes—not as an empress, not as a symbol, but as a woman worth protecting.
The vision faded, and Eloria found herself gasping for breath.
Maya was watching her with wide eyes. "Are you alright?"
Eloria nodded, though her hand trembled where it rested over Maya's. "I am... I am more than alright."
She looked down at Albert's face—his features relaxed in sleep, his breathing slow and steady—and felt something shift within her. A door opening. A wall crumbling.
"You should stay," Maya said softly. "When he wakes up. I think he'd want to see you."
Eloria's throat tightened. "I am not certain that is wise."
"Maybe not." Maya's smile was gentle, knowing. "But since when has wise had anything to do with it?"
The question hung in the air between them, unanswered.
And somewhere in the depths of Albert Voss's unconscious mind, a man who had given up on happiness dreamed of a garden and a small, silver-haired woman who laughed like sunlight.e e
And somewhere in the depths of Albert Voss's unconscious mind, a man who had given up on happiness dreamed of a garden and a small, silver-haired woman who laughed like sunlight.
Maya lingered at the bedside for a long moment, her fingers still intertwined with her father's. Her thumb traced slow circles over his knuckles, a gentle rhythm that seemed to calm them both. Then she straightened, wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and turned to face Eloria.
"I should go," Maya said, her voice steadier now. "You've got quarters prepared?"
Eloria nodded. "My personal aide, Vellin, will escort you. You'll have full access to the ship's amenities. If you need anything—anything at all—you have only to ask."
Maya's lips curved in a tired smile. "I appreciate that. Really." She paused at the doorway, one hand resting on the frame, and looked back at her father's sleeping form. "Take care of him, Empress. He's not as strong as he pretends to be."
Eloria felt the words land somewhere deep in her chest. "I understand."
Maya held her gaze for a moment longer—searching, assessing, weighing something unspoken. Then she nodded once and slipped through the door, pulling it closed behind her with a soft click.
The chamber fell silent.
Eloria stood alone with Albert Voss, the steady beep of his monitors marking the passage of seconds. She could feel Maya moving away through the corridors, her emotional presence receding like a tide pulling back from the shore. And as the distance grew, something else began to surface.
Albert's dreamscape shifted.
It started slowly—a flicker of color at the edge of her awareness, a warmth spreading through the empathic bond like sunlight through morning mist. The garden in his mind grew more vivid, more detailed. The flowers bloomed with impossible vibrancy, their petals unfurling in colors that did not exist in nature. And the woman—she was no longer a distant figure. She was close. Reachable. Real.
Eloria gasped as his fantasies flooded her senses.
She saw herself through his dreaming eyes—not as she truly was, but as he imagined her. Silver hair cascading over bare shoulders. Skin flushed with heat. Lips parted, breath quickening. In the garden of his mind, she was not an empress. She was not a political ally or a diplomatic partner. She was a woman, desired with an intensity that stole her breath.
The fantasies came crushing back.
She felt his hands on her waist, his fingers tracing the curve of her spine. Felt the weight of his body pressing against hers, the heat of his skin through paper-thin silk. He imagined her hair slipping through his fingers, imagined the sound of her moans as he discovered what made her tremble.
Eloria's knees buckled.
She caught herself on the edge of the bed, her palm pressing into the mattress beside his hip. Her breath came in short, sharp gasps as his desire wrapped around her own like ivy climbing a wall. She could feel everything—every imagined touch, every whispered word, every forbidden thought he had buried so deep he didn't even know it existed.
And then she saw it. Felt it. The physical manifestation of his dreaming desire.
The thin sheet that covered him stirred.
Eloria's eyes dropped involuntarily. The white fabric shifted, tented by something that had not been there moments before. Her empathic senses, already flooded with his fantasies, now caught the echo of his body's response—heat and pressure and need, rising unbidden from the depths of unconscious arousal.
She should look away.
She knew she should look away.
But curiosity—that forbidden, burning curiosity that had been suppressed for thirty years of regal training—overrode her better judgment.
She reached for the edge of the sheet.
The fabric was cool beneath her fingertips, smooth and sterile. She lifted it slowly, carefully, as if afraid of waking him. The bioluminescent panels cast their soft glow across the bed, illuminating what lay beneath.
Albert's cock stood erect against his belly.
Eloria's breath caught in her throat. She had seen male anatomy before—studied it in her species' biology classes, observed it in sculptures and historical texts. But she had never seen anything quite like this. What had been soft and unremarkable at first glance now stretched long and lean, at least nine inches from base to tip. It was thin—thinner than her own species' males, she thought—but there was a power to it, a sleek elegance that belied its modest girth.
The head was flushed deep purple, engorged with blood, and crowned with a pronounced ridge that flared outward like a mushroom cap. It almost seemed to glow in the dim light, swollen and sensitive, glossy with a thin sheen of moisture that caught the bioluminescence.
Eloria's eyes traced the shaft downward, noting the slight inward curve that arced toward the center of his body. It was subtle, barely noticeable at first glance, but unmistakable once seen. A bend that promised to angle toward the front wall of a lover's canal, to press against spots not known to her, to strike depths that her own species' male anatomy could not reach.
Beneath the shaft, his testicles hung full and heavy in a loose sac of wrinkled skin. They were large—larger than any she had seen on her own people, who carried their smaller, tighter balls high against their bodies. His swung freely, pendulous and substantial, each orb the size of a small hen's egg.
Eloria's mouth went dry.
The combination of his fantasies—which still flooded her senses with the force of a tidal wave—and the physical reality before her eyes created a feedback loop that she could not escape. She felt his imagined hands on her body, felt his imagined cock pressing against her entrance, felt the impossible stretch and the delicious fullness of being filled by something so long and lean and perfectly curved.
Her own clit throbbed.
It was a sensation she had not felt in years—had trained herself not to feel, had buried beneath layers of duty and obligation and the weight of her crown. But now, standing over this unconscious human, it pulsed with a life of its own. Drawing her lower lips to swell, her inner thighs to clench, her hips to roll instinctively against nothing.
A moan escaped her lips before she could stop it.
She clamped a hand over her mouth, horrified. But the damage was done. The sound had filled the chamber, soft and wanton, and she felt Albert's dreamscape shift in response. In his mind, the woman moaned. And he answered.
Eloria felt his hips buck.
Just once, a small reflexive movement against the mattress that told her his body was responding even though his mind was lost in sleep. The sheet slipped from her fingers, falling back into place, but it did nothing to hide what she had seen. What she now could not unsee.
Her hand moved of its own accord.
She pressed her palm against the heat between her own thighs, through the thin fabric of her gown. The pressure sent a bolt of pleasure through her core, and she bit her lip hard enough to taste copper.
This is madness.
The thought cut through the haze of desire like a blade. She was the Empress of Andorra. This man was a human diplomat, a stranger, a patient under her protection. What she was feeling—what she was doing—was not only improper. It was dangerous. Destabilizing. A violation of every principle she had been raised to uphold.
But the fantasies continued.
She felt him imagine her in the garden, her silver hair spread across a bed of moss, her legs wrapped around his waist. Felt his own desire spiking as he imagined burying himself inside her, felt the length of his cock pressing deep as he curved upward to hit spots she hadn't known existed.
Her empathic gift had always been a burden. But never like this.
She retreated to the corner of the chamber, pressing her back against the cold wall, her breath coming in ragged gasps. The monitors beeped steady and strong, indifferent to her turmoil.
Albert Voss lay still beneath his sheet, lost in dreams that should have remained private.
And Eloria Solen, Empress of Andorra, felt the foundations of her carefully constructed existence begin to crack.
She pressed both hands against her face, fighting for control. Her clit still throbbed. Her gown was damp with arousal. And somewhere in the depths of her mind, a voice she had not heard in years whispered a dangerous question.
What would it feel like?
She shook her head violently, trying to dislodge the thought. This was not her. This was not who she was. She was composed, regal, controlled. She did not lust after unconscious patients in her infirmary.
But the voice would not be silenced.
It painted pictures she could not banish. That inward curve, pressing against her most sensitive spot with every thrust. That flared rim, dragging against her walls as he pulled back. Those heavy balls, slapping against her body as he drove deeper. She had not even touched him—had not allowed herself that indulgence—but she could imagine the weight of his shaft in her palm, the heat radiating from his skin.
Another moan escaped her, louder this time.
She clapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes darting to Albert's face. But he remained asleep, his breathing deep and even.
Though—was there a flush on his cheeks now? A slight quickening of his pulse on the monitors?
Eloria forced herself to look away, to breathe deeply, to reclaim the composure that had been drilled into her since childhood. She was the Empress. She was above this. She was—
The door behind her slid open.
She spun, her heart seizing. But it was only a reminder—a soft chime indicating that Maya had reached her quarters and was settling in. She had done her duty. She had comforted the daughter. She had tended to the wounded man.
This was where she was supposed to leave.
Eloria turned back to Albert. His face was peaceful now, the flush receding. The monitors had slowed to their normal rhythm. But beneath the sheet, she could still see the distinct shape of his arousal, unabated and undeniable.
She took a step toward the bed.
Then another.
She stopped at his side, her hand hovering over the sheet, close enough that she could feel the warmth radiating from his body. Her breath came shallow and quick. Her heart hammered against her ribs.
One touch. That was all it would take. One touch to confirm that what she had seen was real. One touch to satisfy the curiosity that burned within her like a wildfire.
She reached for the sheet.
The monitor beeped.
Albert's eyelids fluttered.
Eloria snatched her hand back, her heart leaping into her throat. She took two stumbling steps backward as his eyes opened—blue, unfocused, swimming with the remnants of dreams.
He blinked slowly, orienting himself. His gaze drifted across the ceiling, across the walls, across the bioluminescent panels. And then it found her.
"Empress?" His voice was rough, cracked with sleep. "What—"
He tried to sit up, and the sheet fell away from his hips.
Eloria could not tear her eyes away.
Albert followed her gaze. His own eyes widened as he registered what she was staring at. He grabbed for the sheet, fumbling to cover himself, and a deep flush spread across his face. "Oh, God. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean—this is not—I was dreaming—"
He had no idea.
He had no idea what she had seen, what she had felt, what she had almost done.
Eloria forced her voice to remain steady. "It's alright. You have nothing to apologize for." She paused, grasping for something professional to add. "Your daughter was here. She'll return in the morning."
Albert's face transformed. "Maya? She's here?"
"She's safe. She's resting." Eloria took another step back, putting more distance between them. "I'll have someone bring you food. You need to regain your strength."
She turned toward the door, desperate to escape.
"Empress."
His voice stopped her cold.
She looked back over her shoulder. Albert had managed to cover himself with the sheet, but his eyes were still fixed on her face with an intensity that made her breath catch.
"Thank you," he said. "For saving my life. For finding Maya. For—" He swallowed hard. "For everything."
Eloria's composure cracked, just for an instant. She felt the weight of his gratitude, his confusion, his lingering arousal—all tangled together in a knot she could not unravel.
"Rest," she said. "We'll talk in the morning."
She escaped through the door before he could respond.
The corridor stretched before her, dim and empty. She leaned against the wall, pressing her palms to her heated cheeks. Her clit still throbbed. Her gown was still damp. And her mind—her stubborn, traitorous mind—still replayed the image of Albert Voss's cock, long and lean and curved just so.
"A man who knew her name," she whispered to the empty corridor. "He's dreaming. He's unconscious. He's human."
None of that mattered.
She pushed off from the wall and walked toward her quarters, her footsteps echoing in the silence. She had duties to attend to, an empire to run, an alliance to salvage. There was no room in her life for this.
But as she rounded the corner, she could not shake the image of that inward curve.
Or the thought of how it would feel inside her.
The empress of a million souls walked through her silent halls, her heart racing with a secret she could share with no one.
Morning would come. Albert Voss would wake. And Eloria Solen would have to decide what kind of woman she truly was.