The great hall is packed.
Every noble who can claim a drop of Valeria's blood has come to petition the queen on the first-day-of-summer. Banners hang limp in the still, heavy air. Sunlight spears through the high stained-glass windows and paints the marble floor in jeweled patches. The heat is brutal; fans move languidly in perfumed hands.
She sits the throne in cloth-of-gold so bright it hurts to look at. The crown of summer roses rests in her hair like fresh blood against midnight. Her face is serene, cool, untouchable.
I stand at the foot of the dais, one step below her, dressed in formal black. To the hall I am only the silent youngest prince, the queen's shadow.
No one sees that my left hand is hidden behind the fall of her gown.
No one sees that two of my fingers are buried to the knuckle inside her cunt.
She has been like this for two hours.
Since the moment the heralds flung the doors open, she has kept me there (motionless, aching, leaking into my breeches) while she listens to petitions about water rights, marriage alliances, border taxes.
Every time a petitioner kneels, she shifts slightly (just enough) so my fingers slide a fraction deeper. Every time she speaks, her inner muscles clench deliberately around me, milking my trapped hand.
I have been hard since the first trumpet.
Sweat beads at my temples. My jaw aches from keeping it locked.
She is soaked. Has been since dawn, when she bent over the bed, told me to fill her "so thoroughly that I feel you on the throne," and then forbade me to come again until night-long. I obeyed. I always obey.
Now the evidence of that obedience coats my fingers and the inside of her thighs beneath layers of gold tissue.
The current petitioner is the Duchess of Calen, droning about dowry disputes. The queen's voice is cool crystal when she answers, but her hips rock the tiniest amount (forward, back), fucking herself on my fingers in a rhythm no one else can feel.
I curl them slowly, deliberately, against that spot that makes her breath catch.
Her reply to the duchess falters for half a heartbeat. No one notices except me.
She comes silently, thighs trembling against my wrist, cunt fluttering so hard I feel it in my spine.
A faint flush rises on her throat (the only outward sign).
She lifts her goblet with her free hand, sips, and smiles benevolently at the duchess.
"Granted," she says, voice perfectly steady. "Next."
The next petitioner withdraws, bowing and scraping.
The moment the doors close behind him, she leans forward as if to consult a parchment on the small table beside the throne. The movement drives my fingers deeper. Her eyes flutter.
"Withdraw," she murmurs (so low only I can hear). "Slowly."
I ease my fingers out. My hand emerges slick and shining.
She brings it to her mouth under pretence of stifling a yawn, licks my fingers clean one by one, eyes locked on mine the entire time.
My cock jerks so hard I nearly spend untouched.
The herald announces the final petitioner of the morning session.
She stands (graceful, regal), and the entire hall drops to its knees.
"Court is adjourned until the cooler hour," she declares. "I find myself… overheated."
A ripple of knowing laughter (they think it is the sun).
She descends the three steps of the dais. I follow.
Behind the throne is a small arched alcove hidden by a tapestry of the founding queen. The moment we are behind it she shoves me against the stone wall, yanks my breeches open, and sinks to her knees.
She takes me into her mouth in one swift motion (hot, wet, merciless).
I last seven seconds.
She swallows, hums with satisfaction, then rises, wipes the corner of her mouth with one delicate finger, and smiles.
"Walk me to my apartments, darling," she says aloud, voice serene. "I believe I require a long, cool bath."
I tuck myself away with shaking hands and offer my arm.
We process out through the bowing crowd.
No one sees the wet handprint I leave on the gold silk at the small of her back.
No one smells the sex on us.
No one knows that when the doors of her bedchamber close behind us twenty minutes later, she will bend over the nearest table and demand I finish what the job properly (this time with my cock, hard and fast and loud enough to rattle the windows).
Summer has only just begun.
And the queen intends to spend every burning afternoon of it exactly like this:
untouchable in public,
unravelling in private,
and always, always full of her shadow.