I woke up to Quinn, cuddling me. He hadn’t left the night before, but we had gotten drunk on mulled wine. Which I now realised had been a very bad idea. My head felt too heavy. I moved his arm out of the way, and he snored loudly. Then he opened his eyes and looked up at me as if I had offended his mother.

“What’s happening?” he grunted and sat up, rubbing his eyes.

“I’m getting my back tattooed today.”

“Oh, how wonderful. You better hurry.” He fell back on the bed and snuggled up.

I envied him for being able to sleep but pushed that aside. I needed to get ready for today. She was coming again. Dy. And I had made up my mind. I was gonna invite her to the coronation party as my personal guest.

I didn’t bother with waiting for my maid to come and help me dress. I dressed myself and quickly pulled my hair up to the sound of my brother snoring softly.

I left him in my bedroom and sat down in the small sitting room, adjoined to my bedroom. I had some light breakfast brought to me. Fried fish and some soup to soothe my headache. And lots of water.

Dy came in, followed by my maid. She greeted me with a nod and sat down at my table.

“Are you ready today?”

I took another sip of water and nodded. “Yes.”

“Fantastic. It won’t take long today. I’ll get the tools ready while you eat. If that’s alright with you?”

“Sure,” I murmured and finished my soup.

She cleaned the tools, lining up every bit for the machine while I ate. She calmly told me what each bit did and what function they had for the machine. She carefully cleaned each bit before putting the machine together. Finally, she placed the needle in it and clicked the electrical chord to it too. She had a little button at her feet from where she turned the machine on and off.

“Ready?” She looked up, meeting my gaze.

“Yeah,” I murmured and sat down in front of her, on the stool she had brought. I leaned in over the table, as she very carefully opened the buttons on my dress, exposing my back.

It was going to be three circles and a line following my pine. The middle circle would be in the middle of my back, and it’d be the biggest. Two smaller ones would be above and under it.

The needle touched my skin, and I flinched.

“You have to be still for this.”

“Sorry.” I bit down on my lip.

“It’s okay. Just try and be as still as you can, and I’ll be as gentle as I can.” There was something cheeky about her tone. But I liked it.

She was done in no time, and it actually didn’t hurt that bad. It was alright. She was very gentle, despite what could be assumed just based on her size.

“Listen,” I said as she wiped my back. “I was wondering if uh… If you’d like to come to the coronation party. It’s going to be fun. Kind of. If you’re into that sort of thing.”

She faintly smiled at me, and her dark eyes met mine as I looked over my shoulder. “Sure, Your Highness. I’d be honoured to come.”

“Don’t call me that. Just call me Alvina.”

“Your maid reprimanded me. She thought it was truly disrespectful of me to not address you accordingly.” She was smiling. She thought it was ridiculous too.

I snorted. “Yeah, well. She can be uptight.”

“I’ll come to your party. What am I supposed to wear?”

“Whatever, really. I don’t really care.”

She took apart the machine again, sitting at the table after having helped me button up my dress again. “Would you prefer I showed up naked then?”

I was about to choke on the hard breath I sucked into my mouth. “I wouldn’t be opposed to that notion.” I sat back down in my own chair.

She chuckled and looked up from her machine. She put it down on the table and rose from her chair. She leaned forward, grabbing the high backrest on mine, coming very close to my face with hers.

“If I didn’t know any better, I would think you were flirting with me, Your Highness.”

“I am,” I said with a shivering voice.

She smiled and slowly leaned in, placing her lips on top of mine. They were ridiculously soft. Like actually ridiculously soft. They made my blood boil, and my entire body was warm. I could hear my pulse in ears, and I clutched the armrests in my hands.

“Al, are you-” Quinn strode dramatically out of the bedroom and stopped. He smirked at me and then at Dy. “And here I thought my dear sister was getting tattooed.”

“I was. And now I’m done.” I rose to my feet and took Dy’s hand in mine, turning to her. “Have my maid write up an invitation for you on your way out. Wouldn’t want you to be turned away at the door.”

“Sure. I’ll see you there.”

She was about to let go, but I pulled her close and kissed her again. “I can’t wait,” I said and smiled at her. She packed up very quickly and left the room.

Quinn was leaning against the frame of the door and chuckled when I turned to him. “Well, you don’t move slowly, do you?”

“I don’t have the time for that.” I shrugged, and he just chuckled again.