Page 27 of Untouched Queen by Royal Command

CHAPTER FIVE

AUGUSTUS,RULEROFARUN, had always kept himself tightly under control. Born to inherit his father’s throne, raised to think before he spoke, to weigh and qualify every action. His sister had been the unruly one, governed by her emotions, and only careful tutelage and cultivation of a serene public persona had ever contained her. For Augustus it had been easy. Not for him the pitfalls of adolescent crushes or fierce bursts of anger. He was the cool-headed one, the old soul, the stuffy one. No unexpected or unplanned behaviour from Augustus of Arun. He knew what he had to do at all times and he did it, all childhood resistance to his lot in life long since diminished.

So what the ever-loving hell had just happened in there?

Because he’d never done that before in his life. Taken his own pleasure and given nothing back in return. Leave a woman, any woman, let alone a virgin, leaning against a wall for support, her clothes stained and her eyes blown wide with shock, her lips…

Her lips…

What she’d done with them.

He could write an incoherent ode to them.

What had he done? Where was all his rigid moral certainty now?

No one should be made to serve the way she had been groomed to serve him. Even kings needed barriers. Free rein and ultimate power was never a good combination. That was how despots were created.

He hadn’t even given her pleasure.

Augustus stopped to lean against the cold stone of the corridor wall. He closed his eyes and bowed his head and tried to make sense of what he’d done. He was attracted to Sera—had been from the moment he’d laid eyes on her. He’d wanted to set her free from the duty bestowed on her and he’d tried. He’d combed every old text and obscure law journal he could find for ways to release her. It was the honourable thing to do. So far, so good. And while that was still happening he’d allowed her to settle into those dusty old quarters and revive a tradition long dead, and legitimise it with artwork and furnishings, and he’d left her alone to get on with it. He’d given her a secretarial role to be going on with because he’d needed a social organiser and she’d needed to serve.

He’d let her draw up a list of potential brides, not because he wanted to get married but because if he did marry she would surely go away. A stupid reason to marry but he needed to marry sooner or later and he wasn’t complaining.

He’d behaved.

Right up until he hadn’t.

He’d left her standing there, wide-eyed and mute, her mouth a wreck and her body trembling.

He heard a slight sound, a shuffle, and opened his eyes and met the shadowy gaze of one of her guards, half hidden in a recess. The man wanted him to know he was there, that much was obvious. Would he check on Sera once Augustus had gone? Would he comfort her and curse his King?

When had all reason and rational good sense deserted him?

Augustus pushed away from the wall and turned back towards the double doors that kept people out and Sera in. He rang the bell and stared at the flowers and waited.

Nothing happened.

He rang the bell again, and this time, after several more impatient seconds, a peephole opened and he moved to stand in front of it.

She opened the door to him in silence, a towel wrapped around her otherwise wet and naked body.

Washing the stench of him away, he thought grimly, and his heart clenched.

‘Your Majesty,’ she said, and her voice was huskier than it had been earlier, and he certainly knew why.

‘You know my name.’

Only she didn’t say it.

‘May I come in?’

She stood aside and opened the door and glanced behind him and so did Augustus. The guard stood there watching them, fully visible now, arms crossed in front of his chest and his eyes sharp. Augustus didn’t know what she did—more of that silent communication business—but the guard nodded slightly and faded from view.

‘You told him you had everything under control?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Is that what you really think?’

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