The scent of jasmine hung heavy, laced with the faint bitterness of wax and the musk of something unspoken. It was a room that breathed intimacy, a place where the outside world—its crowns, its wars, its duties—dissolved into a distant hum.
Viscount Nobel Aiden stood bare before the Queen, his chiselled frame gleaming like marble sculpted by divine hands. His blonde hair fell in soft, unruly waves, catching the candlelight, while his yellow eyes glinted with a storm of emotions—fear, defiance, desire.
His shoulders bulged with muscle, his back a broad expanse of strength, his chest rising and falling with shallow, uneven breaths. Steel-hard abs rippled down his stomach, each ridge a testament to the brutal trials of the Dark Continent, where survival had forged him into something more than a man. And yet, stripped of armor and title, he was vulnerable, his skin prickling under her gaze.
