Alexander Past

Priest Alexander sat quietly in Princess Vivian's private drawing room, waiting. The grand chamber was adorned with tapestries depicting celestial scenes, the air scented with lingering incense and the faintest trace of roses. It was eerily silent, the usual rustling of the temple workers are absent. Vivian had given strict orders for all the workers to leave this section of her quarters, ensuring absolute solitude.

The only people left in this part of the building were just the two of them.

That was why, when he heard the soft, measured sound of footsteps approaching, he knew precisely who it was.

Vivian.

But nothing could have prepared him for what he saw when he turned around.

The sight before him was nothing short of impossible.

"Priest Alexander," her voice was a low, sultry whisper, each syllable curling around him like a spell. "How good is your printing?"

The words were teasing, but Alexander barely heard them. His focus was entirely on the woman before him, the woman who should not, by any means, be standing before him like this.

Vivian stood clad in nothing but a thin, nearly transparent piece of white fabric that clung to her curves, leaving little to the imagination. Droplets of water trickled down her milk-like white, flawless skin, shimmering under the dim glow of the lanterns. Her long, wavy flamboyant red hair cascaded over her shoulders in damp waves, the ends still dripping, as if she had only just stepped out of her bath.

The entire room was thick with the scent of roses, an intoxicating fragrance that mixed with the warmth of the chamber, creating an atmosphere of forbidden temptation.

Alexander swallowed hard.

Vivian had always been beautiful, no, the most beautiful woman in the empire. But because she rarely adorned herself, few had ever seen her in full bloom. She was like a hidden jewel, always wrapped in modest silks and understated elegance, never one to draw attention to herself even though the attention had and will always be on her.

Now, however, she was completely different.

She shone.

No, she burned, like a living flame, like a temptress spun from fire and silk, standing before him, radiating heat, her body still damp from the water that glistened over her soft, delicate skin.

For a moment, the sheer audacity of the situation left him stunned.

Because this, this was Vivian.

The most virtuous woman in the empire. The noble princess whose reputation was untainted, whose loyalty to her husband, Duke Leonard of the Valerion family, had been unwavering. She was not like the other noblewomen, who indulged in secret trysts behind their husbands' backs, nor was she the type to toy with men for amusement.

She had loved Leonard with all her heart.

So why?

Why was she standing before him now, in such a state of undress, looking at him with eyes that held something unreadable, something dangerous?

A realization struck him then.

He can only think of a thing.

Her divorce.

Today, she had dissolved the sacred vows that had once bound her to Duke Leonard. A marriage that had been her everything was now nothing more than a severed thread. Was this her way of seeking comfort? Was she trying to drown her heartbreak in the arms of another man?

Was that man supposed to be him?

Alexander clenched his jaw, a mixture of emotions churning within him.

This, this was why he disliked becoming involved with women who had been committed. It made him feel like a replacement. A momentary distraction. A tool to erase the lingering pain of another.

When he was with a woman, he wanted to be the only one on her mind.

He didn't want to be a substitute for someone she had lost or can't have.

Yet, despite these thoughts, he couldn't deny the effect she had on him. Vivian was the most desirable woman in the empire, and there wasn't a man alive who didn't yearn for her, even him.

He had admired her since his youth, though he had never been certain whether it was love or something else.

His first encounter with her had been when he was fifteen, his first day in the capital temple.

Alexander's past was one shrouded in both nobility and disgrace. His father, a wandering priest of high birth, had fallen in love with a commoner dancer, a woman the noble society deemed unworthy of his name.

Among the upper class, entertainers were seen as little more than high-class courtesans. Many served as the secret mistresses of noblemen, or even lovers to noblewomen, their profession tainted by scandal and whispers. That his father was identity and look can help him get any noblewoman of his choice had married such a woman, a woman whose body had once been bought with coin, was unforgivable in the eyes of their society.

His family had tried to stop the union.

They had begged, threatened, and, when all else failed, they had sought to strip his father of his title and priesthood.

Only one man had stood against them, his father's elder brother, the current pope.

His uncle had intervened, ensuring that his father was not stripped of his holy title, but the compromise was exile. His father was sent far from the capital, stationed in a temple within a small, insignificant village at the empire's borders.

It was there that Alexander was born. It was there that he was raised.

And it was there, on the day he turned fifteen, that his world shattered.

A secret attack.

An enemy kingdom had launched a brutal strike on the village, slaughtering a third of its people. Among the dead were Alexander's parents.

The temple had been reduced to rubble, its priests slaughtered. The surviving children, including Alexander, had been gathered and taken to the capital. Some were sent to distant relatives, while those who had no family were placed in the temple's orphanage.

Alexander had been among the fortunate.

His relatives had been powerful, his uncle the pope himself. He had been brought to the temple to begin his formal training, surrounded by a world that had once cast his parents aside.

And that was when he first saw her.

Vivian.

A princess standing in the halls of the temple, dressed in white and gold temple robe, bathed in sunlight. She had been young, perhaps only a year or two younger than him that was what he thought, but she had already carried herself with a quiet strength that set her apart from everyone else.

She had been kind to him that day.

She had spoken to him as though he were no different from her, despite the whispers that followed him wherever he went. Despite his tainted birth, his mixed blood, his status as the son of a woman who had once danced for coin.

He had never forgotten it.

And now, years later, here they were, alone in a room filled with the scent of roses, with water trailing down her skin and temptation thick in the air.

She was no longer the young girl bathed in sunlight.

She was a woman standing before him in sunshine, wrapped in silk and sin, looking at him with eyes that held something unreadable.

And for the first time in his life, Alexander did not know what to do.