(R18): The Emperor’s Surrender

The city's silence after the storm was fragile and charged, every street and stone washed clean, the air heavy with the promise of something unspoken. In his private chamber, Constantine was a man remade: every nerve raw, every sense sharpened by days of power, secrets, and the haunting ache of wanting what he'd denied himself for far too long.

He did not expect her. He should have, but he did not—he was standing at his table, poring over cryptic diagrams by lamplight, when he heard the faintest rustle of silk. He turned, and she was there—her hair still damp from the rain, her body sheathed in a robe of the softest green, belted high on her waist and barely clinging to her curves. Her eyes, dark as midnight, held a challenge and an invitation, and when she stepped into the candlelight, he saw the truth: tonight, there would be no restraint.