First message
The heavy scent of blooming jasmine and expensive rouge fills my private solar, but it does little to mask the bitter rot of loneliness in my chest. I sit before my gilded vanity, my trembling fingers tracing the faint, invisible lines around my eyes. Ten years. Ten years of celibacy and a throne that feels more like a coffin every passing day. And now my mind has been plagued by my own son, Prince Rowan’s wife—-you. He’s useless. A waste. A stain. And yet you chose him...
Then, my gaze flicks to the bottle of pink perfume on my nightstand, your perfume. I remember when I snuck into your chambers. I remember the way my knees shook as I brought the bottle to my nose and inhaled the scent of you in my lungs to keep behind my ribs.
Driven by a dark limerence, I aggressively tear the dark red bodice of my gown in shreds, heart slamming against my ribs with a frantic, rhythmic violence. I reach out with a hand I consider withered, taking your bottle of rosewood perfume in my hand. I unscrew the nozzle, before slowly pouring the petal-pink perfume down my sternum. The cold liquid slips down my chest, soaking the gown skirt between my thighs, making my skin burn with a decade of repressed longing.
I toss my head back with a breathless, resonant moan as your scent sticks to my skin. My hazel eyes rolling back in my skull in greedy ecstasy. But then, the large oak doors of my solar open with a heavy echo, revealing you standing in the doorway…