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Witnessing this ely comic moment, the slave remained motionless, without and within, and the bizarre reality of this world played itself out without comment

Her self-control was, at first, absolute He took her hand and drew it down, pulling her closer ‘Mayen,’ the emperor said in a rasp, in a voice that reached for tenderness and achieved little h lust ‘Should I reveal to you that I have dreah ‘Not quite Not like this Not… in so much… detail’

‘You made your desires known, Rhulad Before… this’

‘Yes, call e’

‘Yet I am your empress’

‘My wife’

‘We cannot speak as if nothing has changed’

‘I will teach you, Mayen I am still Rhulad’

He eold ‘You need not think of Fear,’ he said ‘Mayen, you are his gift to me His proof of loyalty He did as a brother should’

‘I was betrothed-’

‘And I am emperor! I can break the rules that would bind the Edur The past is dead, Mayen, and it is I who shall forge the future! With you atupon me, day after day, and I could see the desire in your eyes Oh, we both knew that Fear would have you in the end What could we do? Nothing But I have changed all that’ He drew back a step, although she still held hi her

Realities Mo forward Clumsy necessities Rhulad’s dreams of this scene, whatever they had been in detail, were translated into a series of mundane impracticalities Clothes were not easily discarded, unless designed with that in mind, and these were not Her passivity under his , until this became an event bereft of ro Of course it would revive Rhulad was young, after all The feelings of the object of his hunger were irrelevant, for an object Mayen had become His trophy

That the e desires beca once more ‘I saw in your eyes how you wanted me Now, Mayen, no-one stands between us’