A/N: An update. I had surgery at 6 yesterday but definitely in pain but I wanted to finish the chapter I was writing before I went to the hospital. I'll see you guys next week with two chapters!

Dawn crept in over the southern territory, but Helios Rhadros woke up before even the sun. His old habits from the War showed in the way he did his daily routines, and solidified after his wife died. He watched the maids through half-lidded eyes, his hands resting on his thighs, clad in only linen trousers that hung loose on his hips. The humid morning air bit at his bare chest. He began his day the same way he always did since the death of his wife—alone, and left with himself.

“Your grace,” an older maid murmured, bowing low. “Your bath is ready.”

He acknowledged her, only rising from the bed with his full height. The other maids didn’t dare look at him directly as he shrugged off his robe, revealing his wide, scarred, muscular back. Beneath the faint sunlight of the incoming morning, his olive-bronze skin shone. 

The maids left quickly once he entered the bathing chamber.

The little kitchen maid with a death wish and a softness in her frame, he could still feel under his fingers. She never backed down speaking to him, not even when he touched her, spoke cruelly into her ear.

Helios leaned back in his bath as he dismissed the servant who set it—he still had that bruise from when she slapped him and ran. His jaw tightened, his hand flexed against the porcelain tub. 

He should’ve killed her for that.

He could have, so easily, like crushing a beetle underneath his boot.

But instead…

Ugly thoughts ran through his head.

He wanted to punish her.

He wanted to see her twisted face again as she cried again…but as a more direct result of his actions.

Not with dismissal, not with some cold professional consequence. That would be all too simple. Too easy for a mouse like her, a mouse with teeth. He wanted them to sink into him just once more, before he reminded her exactly who she’s dealing with, and who she decided to go against. 

He wanted her. Wanted to bend her over his knees and strike her firm, supple behind. He wanted his ring embedded in her soft skin, with the mark of the serpent on her skin. His fingers curled inside, promising her something much bigger if she begs.

He closed his eyes.

How would she look beneath him?

She’d quiver, wouldn’t she?

Helios imagined her kneeling in front of her, face resting on his thigh, her wide, brown eyes looking up at him.

Would she cry for him then?

His hand moved beneath the water, gripping himself, beginning with the thick base. Heavy in his palm. He imagined her loose, those thick, dark curls fanning over his pillows. Her thick legs pulled up, his feet tapping the wall as he tastes her.

“Gods, little mouse,” he murmured under his breath. “You’d break around me, wouldn’t you?”

He imagined her full breasts spilling from her dress, her dark skin flushed as he bit and nipped at it.

She’d cry, of course, beautifully.

He imagined her crying, not from disdain for him, but from pleasure, begging him, her soft voice shaking as she said his name.

“Helios,”

Her tears would streak her ruddy cheeks, her full lips would tremble as he pushed her to her limits.

“Please, Your Grace,” 

He could almost hear her voice, trembling, breathless. Tears spilling down her cheek as he pushed inside her. She’d be tight, so fucking tight. He could practically feel the way her body would struggle against him, her cunt stretching around his cock, stretching her open. 

“I-I can’t—!”

Helio’s strokes quickened, his breath coming in sharp, uneven grunts. The water rippled around his body. The heat of the bath, his quick, feverish strokes.

Helios came, cum spilling into the water as his body tensed. He leaned back against the tub, his greying black being pushed out his face with his free hand. The other had still been wrapped around himself.

He rose from the water, it cascading down his scarred body. He dried himself, He dressed in a black tunic and loose-fitting trousers, and his a robe over a linen shirt.

He had reports to read and a decision to make. He decided he’d try to get some work done before he visited the children for the morning. 

𓆙_________ ׂׂૢ་༘࿐

The study glowed from the sun, the low morning light warming the tense aura.

Helios sat at his desk, his long, scarred fingers poised over a stack of letters, correspondence, invitations, and proposals, as he took his mind off the mouse that caught his gaze. The sharp smell of ink filled the air, along with the metal tang of the pen. He couldn’t concentrate; everything in front of him blurred.

Helios reached for a piece of parchment. 

 His quill scratched against its ivory service, the ink shining. His handwriting is neat and controlled, slow and deliberate. When he finished, he folded the note, neatly sealed it with wax and pressed a signet ring into the red pool.

He leaned back into his chair again, letting the wax dry.

“Georgios,” he called out.

The door fell open almost immediately.

Georgios leaned one shoulder against the door frame with an eyebrow raised.

“You rang, oh mighty serpent?”

Helios didn’t rise to the bait. His younger cousin and aide, Georgios, had always wanted to get under your skin. Perhaps it’s because he knows that Helios doesn’t particularly feel privy to choking family.

The 25-year-old’s dark hair was styled a touch too rakishly for the Duke’s preference, like always, like many members of Helios’s family. Like many members of Helios’s family, Georgios was handsome, but perhaps too handsome for his own good. He also has his mouth like his younger brother.

Georgios’s green eyes looked at Helio’s annoyed face with almost glee. 

“You look like you’re about to chew on glass,” he drawled, “Or fuck a problem until it becomes a bigger nuisance. Either way, I’m intrigued, cousin.”

Helios looked back down at his work.

“Do you want to keep your tongue, Gio?”

Georgio grinned, sauntering in and flopping into a chair across from the desk.

“Not particularly. So, what’s the crisis?”

“I need you to hand something to a footman for delivery.”

Giorgios stepped forward, plucking the folded note whose wax had not properly dried or settled in yet.

“What am I delivering this time? A threat? A business proposal? Or just your brand of intimidating nonsense?”

Helios gave him a flat look. “You’ll find a footman and see that that note is delivered to a kitchen maid named Enid.”

Georgio froze mid-turn.

“…a kitchen maid?” he repeated, incredulous. “You’re talking about the ones who mop the floors and bake the bread?”

Helios shrugged. “The exact ones.”

Georgios blinked, then crossed his arms, holding the note between two fingers like it might burn him.

“This wouldn’t happen to be about the shouting I heard from yesterday, would it? Or the part where you scared half of the household staff after? Or the gossip I heard from a footman that someone apparently slapped you?”

Helios shot him a glare.

“Oh my gods, she did slap you.”

Giorgio unfolded the note, peeling back the wax as he skimmed it. And then his mouth fell open.

“Naked?” he said, voice cracking on the word. “You want to come here naked?”

Helios’s gaze didn’t waver. “Yes.”

Giorgio stared at him like he’d grown up in the second head. “First of all, what the fuck? Secondly, are you mad? No, seriously— are you out of your god’s are you out of your godsdamn mind?”

The older man ignored him. 

“Helios, you’re the Duke of Rhadros, and you’re approaching a maid like a back-alley merchant throwing coin at a tavern wench.”

“Georgios.”

“I mean, does she even know it’s coming? Or is this some twisted game you’re playing because she bruised your ego?”

Helios’s silver eye squints. “She’ll understand.”
Georgios rolls his eyes. “Oh, she’ll understand, will she? I fear that you’ve lostI fear that you’ve lost your age, cousin. Or your sanity. Maybe both.”

Helios rose from his chair, slowly, deliberately. Georgios stopped laughing.

“Make sure that note gets delivered.”

Georgios stared at him for a long time, then sighed before shoving the note into his coat pocket.

“This is going to end badly,” he mowed, turning for the door. “For you. For her. For everyone.”

Helios didn’t respond. He sat back down, the light casting shadows across his face.