The portcullis lowered just as Dominica Shaye Romero, and all of her entourage, entered the palace that had once been home to all members of the Blackmore family and now belonged solely to Natasha. Horses' hooves clopped on the flagstones as the coachman rushed to open the barouche door for the queen, scraping and bowing with the utmost obsequiousness. Natasha, Connor, and Grace stood waiting for the Filipian queen to exit her carriage. A bay mare in the team of horses reared their heads at the sound of thunder far above, and the impending storm, but Dominica—ever the most unladylike of the three sisters—calmed him with a touch and gentle word, as well as the cube of sugar she produced from a cloak pocket. Natasha stiffly approached her sister, passing Grace off to Connor who carefully held her against his shoulder, but Dominica abandoned propriety and ceremony, as always, to throw her arms around her sister. The queen of Arlea had to lean down to embrace her eldest sister, who smelled of orchids and citrus fruits and musk—something bright and tropical, suiting her personality.

"It's so good to see you!" Dominica cried when she released Natasha and they both turned towards Connor and the baby. "And Grace, of course."

Those words were clipped, and Natasha smiled to herself. After all these years, nothing changed. Dominica was comfortable around animals of all sizes, and displayed an exuberant personality with a welcoming smile, but she was awful with children who were not her own. She was too brash and too afraid of saying the wrong things to children, and therefore avoided them at all costs.

"Grace is well, fortunately," Connor spoke.

Dominica's eyes flashed up, surprised, like a startled bird. "Fortunately? Did she fall ill?"

"It is a matter that cannot be discussed through correspondence... or in such a public place. Let us go into the palace—you must be so cold out here, accustomed to Filipian weather as you are," Connor spoke, and Natasha allowed it, knowing he was better at diplomacy than she was.

The three of them—the sisters leading the way and Connor trailing behind with Grace—made their way to the same solarium where Natasha had once asked Connor to marry her. It was much the same: heated glass and the beginnings of spring greenery and melting snow outside, lush curtains and thick carpet and a long line of chairs on either side of the table inside.

"Sit," Natasha commanded, sliding easily into her habits.

Dominica raised both eyebrows, a defiant stare on her freckled face. "My younger sister, demanding things of me like a tyrant?"

"I have long since learned not to question my wife's demands, despite being older than her myself, Dominica," Connor jested as he eased into the seat on the right of Natasha. "Generally, I find it to be the best course of action."

"Obedience is natural for you—you are a Duke, not a king," Dominica said dismissively. She was like this, so blunt and unthinking with her words, that Natasha wasn't even certain that her sister meant any insult to her husband—but she saw that the comment hurt Connor all the same.

"What is meant by that?" Connor asked, his voice cautiously neutral, as the nurse entered the room to put Grace down for her nap. It was cautious, she knew, because it could tip onto either side, either cold silence or heated fury. And she did not want to witness either one.

Natasha flashed a warning glare at him. Connor returned the look as he smoothed a hand over Grace's downy tufts of hair, his grey eyes matching the storm clouds that thundered outside.

"You hold no power over my sister. You are a noble who somehow managed to snare a queen—whose children will be kings." Dominica spoke the words as though listing off materials for a new gown—bored. Natasha felt indignation flare inside of her—yet she saw the truth in her sister's words as well. "Yet you remain prince consort, a courtesy title. You have been granted no holdings of land, you lead no armies, and you command no one but a few hundred measly servants."

"That is quite enough, Dominica," Natasha said, though she could not bring herself to summon the amount of coldness she normally would have injected into such a phrase. "Grace was—a minor baron attempted to assassinate her several weeks ago. I did not tell you because it would make us—and the realm by association—look unstable."

Dominica nodded, comprehension showing on her face. Of course she understood—she had her own nation, her own children, her own responsibilities. Natasha almost felt a strange wave of relief at the sight of it, at her older sister here—now, when she was feeling lost and torn and not knowing how to act, not knowing what decision to make. To crown her husband or leave him as he was, which, according to Dominica, was powerless.

"Connor, darling, could you please take Grace and put her down for her nap? I feel the need for Dominica and I to discuss... feminine matters." She gave him a tense smile. His face betrayed nothing when he, the nurse, and the princess, left the room.

"Good to see that he knows his place," Dominica commented offhandedly. "Anyways, you wished to discuss the possibility of returning the Sleeping Island to the Filipias, correct?"

"That is accurate, but I have another matter that I wish to seek your counsel on..." Natasha steepled her fingers beneath her chin, her nails digging into the soft skin of her jaw. "Connor wants me to make him king, and allow him to rule beside me."

"A dreadful idea," her sister declared immediately, curtly. "Give a man a little power and he will proceed to seize the rest of it from you, whether you like it or not."

"Do you truly believe such a thing?" Natasha reached for her sister's hand. "Who has manipulated you in such a way, to cause your thoughts to take such an extreme turn?"

"Manipulated?" There was that fire, that spark in her eyes, that the three of them shared, besides their dark hair, their stubborn hearts and their quick tempers. "I was never manipulated. I was never so weak—only observant. A man will not be satisfied with a little bit of anything, whether it is power, pleasure, or riches. He will always seek more. That is the nature of men, to take, and we, as women, can either lie down and give all that we have until we break, or we can take it back."

"Is that what you tell your own daughters?" Natasha's voice sounded distant to her own ears. "That all men in the world look to hurt them and steal from them, and that all their lives will be spent fighting against them? Yes, I believe there are evil men, and my past is proof of that. But I love my husband, and I will not be frightened into making decisions—"

"If I am cruel, it is because I am honest, and do not want to see my youngest sister blinded to the truth of the world. Let me tell you a story, dear sister. As the eldest daughter, I was given the most substantial dowry. A month into our wedding, my husband utilized half of that wealth to entertain harlots, and the other half to acquire racing horses. The people starved, and we had to tithe them to pay for John's gambling debts. There was nearly an uprising. I was almost killed on an outing once, nearly stoned to death while my carriage was being pelted with rotten fruit. So tell me, why should I care for the power-hungry requests of one glorified stud-horse of a duke?"

"I am sorry for your husband's mistakes, and his foolish actions. But Connor did not want to be married to me!" Natasha stood from the table, her chair falling with a muffled thump. "He did not seek out this life. He did not ask for this position. I forced him into it. I am glad that he is taking more of an interest in it."

Dominica's eyes remained still; her lips, however, curved into a smile. "And I am glad to see that you have made up your mind."

And she had. So why, then, did it sound as though she were convincing herself?

• • •

Natasha found Connor reclining against a granite pillar outside the atrium with his hands shoved deep in his trouser pockets. Rather than speak—she knew the look of his face when a fight was impending, and presently she was not in the mindset to start one—she surveyed her husband. Despite his relaxed posture, the tense set of his shoulders and the stiff line of his mouth told her that he was far from calm. He is as rigid as the column he leans against, she thought. It was an unusual sight to her—typically, Natasha herself was the one who was harsh and frigid, and Connor the one to soften her, the one who wore his emotions like bright garments for all to see.

They had changed, somewhere along the way. She stepped closer to him, and his head jerked up, that silver gaze locking onto hers, conviction burning in them. He looked as though he could peer into her very heart—but he had, he did, he always did.

"Connor," she said by way of greeting. Simple, direct—so different from the emotions roiling inside of her heart.

"Tasha." He neared her; she could feel the heat rolling off of his skin, could feel it envelop her.

She had not realized she had been cold, that the glass-encased atrium had—despite showing signs of spring outside—been freezing. Natasha felt as though she never realized that she was cold, she was hurt, she was stumbling through the dark, until she met him, talked to him, touched him. Connor was warmth, he was light, he was a drug that made pain easier to endure. And now—now he was the source of her agony, of her conflict. 

The thought was too much to bear. She bit her lip and pushed it aside.

"Do you agree with your sister?" His tone was clipped and frosty as the snow outside; it was at odds with the warmth that radiated from his body. "Do you, too, believe that obedience should come naturally to me, because I was not born into the privileged family that had the honour of ruling a country?"

"I—" She could not answer him. Could not give him the answer he desired, yet she longed to do so. She stepped forwards, yearning to touch him, to soothe him as he had done for her. "Connor, no, of course not—"

He gripped her wrists, and she had not known they had turned, that he faced the pillar now and she had her back against the wall. His voice was ice; his breath, as it fanned across her cheek, was a burning ember that set her skin aflame. It was a paradox—one that sparked something in her, despite herself.

"Tell me," Connor murmured. His eyes looked into hers; he was not seeing only the depths of her heart, but those of her soul. His fingers caressed her palm. "Tell me the truth, Tasha. Tell me that I have no power over you."

She could not. Not when he phrased it just so, not when his words were a whisper against her skin, against her skin that wanted his against it. Not when his teeth were nipping at her jaw, not when her heart was pounding in her chest as though it wanted to escape, to escape and return to him like a tame bird flitting back to its owner.

"Tell me that nothing I do affects you at all."

Her hands made to touch him, her fingers jerked against his grip, needing to roam his body, to cast on him the same spell that he had enchanted her with. His grasp tightened, and she knew, she knew she could never bow down to any man, not even him, she was a queen—but this, just in body and never in spirit, allowing him power over her... She could give him that, but no more.

Natasha knew what he meant—what he intended, pairing his actions with his words, seducing her. And Connor knew what he intended as well.

So why did she not resist, when he leaned down and kissed her? When he took the silent answer of her lips against his, rather than the vocal one that she did not know how to give him?

She did not know. And for once, Natasha was afraid to know.