AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She did not need to be her true self.
She needed to be a woman who looked like she could be Queen.
It made a mockery of what she wanted, which was actually to know who she truly was. She wanted to understand. Wanted to be something other than a useful tool. She just couldn’t see a future where that was possible.
She had hoped. For a grim little while, she had hoped.
And that hope now felt sharp. Made her feel ill-used.
It would have been better to have no hope at all.
Still, she had succeeded in putting together a wardrobe that pleased her. The clothes that she had chosen were exactly as she had told Maximus she wanted them to be. They felt like armor.
The red dress that she would wear tonight on the eve of her coronation had long sleeves, a plunging neckline that revealed a wide V of pale skin. The fabric was stitched into clever panels that looked a bit like individual pieces of armor. It was a thick weighted fabric that held that shape even as she moved. And yet there was something incredibly feminine about it. And it made her feel strong.
She had been paraded around in soft white things for years. Her blond hair loose, as soft as everything else. Barely any makeup.
She looked in the mirror now. At the woman who would be Queen, and she was satisfied that it was a transformation.
Her hair was down, but slicked back, behind her ears and flowing down her back, a golden waterfall. Her lipstick was the same red as the dress, her eye makeup a pale bronze. She looked like she could just as easily lead troops into battle as she could dance the waltz.
And that seemed a triumph in and of itself.
At this event, she would also be introducing Maximus as her fiancé.
And she tried not to curl in on herself with embarrassment over everything that had transpired between them.
It wasn’t like she hadn’t seen him.
It was just... She wanted him.
And the fact that he was so immune to her...
It was an interesting thing.
Being beholden to such...typical feelings. Embarrassment and jealousy over his past lovers. Insecurity about her own appeal as a woman. She had never worried about that. In fact, she had always hoped that she was not overly appealing as a woman. She didn’t want to fend men off. She didn’t want to be seen as beautiful. It was a dangerous thing. Just like her softness and her femininity was not something to enjoy.
So, feeling a different relationship to those sensations was...
It was all very strange.
As was the embarrassment.
She looked at herself in the mirror one last time and found that she could not feel embarrassed when she remembered what she looked like. Not tonight.
For tonight, she looked like everything she could hope to be. Strong, a warrior. And beautiful besides. Like something that Maximus would have to notice. Though she should not care if he did.
She lifted her chin high and walked out into the corridor. And there he was. Looking resplendent in a perfectly fitted suit. He was clean-shaven, his dark hair looking disreputable. As if someone had just run their fingers through it.
No wonder the media wrote such things about him. He always looked like he was both perfectly put together and like he had just exited a lover’s bed.
Even she took in those undertones from his appearance, and she could not recall having ever seen a person who had recently left a lover’s bed. She had certainly never left one.
“What?” he asked, lifting a brow. “You look angry.”
“I’m not.”
She frowned even deeper.
