The soft, golden light of the early morning had just begun to filter through the heavy silk curtains when a sudden, sharp knock violently shattered the peaceful, intimate silence of the bedchamber.
'Isla, open the door!' a muffled, authoritative voice called out from the grand hallway.
Isla and Dorian had only just fallen into a deep, utterly exhausted slumber after their long, passionate night.
Still entirely half-asleep and heavily disoriented, Isla stumbled out of the tangled warmth of the silk sheets and sleepily made her way toward the heavy oak door.
Her hand was just a fraction of an inch away from turning the cold iron handle when she suddenly caught a fleeting glimpse of her reflection in the towering gilded mirror; her brilliant blue eyes shot wide open as she realized, with a violently pounding heart, that she was completely, entirely bare.
It was her mother, the Queen, waiting impatiently outside.
'I am coming, Mom! I am actually just taking a bath right now!' Isla panicked, shouting back in a frantic, breathy voice while desperately backing away from the wooden door, her hands flying up to cover herself.
'Alright then, my child, I will simply come back to see you later,' the Queen's voice echoed through the thick wood, followed closely by the fading, rhythmic sound of her royal heels clicking down the corridor.
Letting out a massive, trembling breath of sheer, unadulterated relief, Isla immediately dropped to her knees, frantically gathering her discarded, ruined clothes from the cold stone floor and desperately attempting to cover her exposed, heavily flushed skin.
The sudden, frantic commotion had finally awakened Dorian.
Slowly opening his dark, heavy-lidded eyes, he lazily picked up his discarded white shirt from the floor with one hand.
Reaching out with his strong, free arm, he effortlessly caught her slender waist, gently but firmly pulling her deeply flustered, trembling body right back against his warm, muscular chest.
'My sweet Isla, there is absolutely no need for you to ever hide your beautiful body from me like this,' he murmured, his deep, husky morning voice vibrating against her bare skin and sending a fresh cascade of electric shivers straight down her spine.
He leaned in, cupping her cheek tenderly to press an incredibly soft, deeply devoted kiss against her parted lips.
As he fluidly rose to his feet and began to slip toward the shadows by the open window to make his secret escape, he cast one final, wickedly seductive glance over his broad shoulder.
'Be entirely ready for me again tonight, Princess,' he whispered, a dark, promising smirk playing on his handsome face.
Isla's cheeks instantly burned with a furious, brilliant shade of crimson.
She shyly lowered her gaze to the floor, her heart fluttering wildly in her chest as she thought to herself, ''What on earth do you mean just tonight? After last night, I am entirely ready for you every single night, and every single day.''
The very moment Dorian silently vanished into the cool morning breeze, Isla slowly walked back to stand in front of the grand vanity mirror.
She stared intently at her reflection—her beautifully messy, tangled hair, her glowing, flushed complexion, and the dark, passionate constellation of love bites proudly adorning her pale neck and delicate collarbones.
In that quiet, incredibly intimate morning light, completely stripped of her heavy royal titles and suffocating burdens, she genuinely felt like the absolute most breathtaking, magnificent, and undeniably loved girl in the entire world.
However, as she stared deeply into her own reflection, the euphoric, intoxicating high of the morning slowly began to fade, rapidly replaced by a heavy, suffocating shadow of profound guilt that violently gripped her chest.
'Falling so deeply and irrevocably in love with him is absolutely not a sin, nor is it fundamentally wrong to fiercely desire his touch,' she thought to herself, her brilliant blue eyes pooling with unshed, deeply conflicted tears as the crushing, inescapable weight of her royal reality settled over her shoulders.
'But the terrible, undeniable fact that I am continuously deceiving my own family members, hiding in the dark and lying straight to the faces of the very people who raised me... that is what makes this entirely, unforgivably wrong.'
Taking a deep, incredibly trembling breath to forcefully suppress the painful, chaotic storm of guilt currently raging within her conscience, she finally tore her gaze away from the gilded mirror and walked over to her grand washroom to physically prepare for the exhausting, treacherous day ahead.
Once she was fully bathed and meticulously dressed in her pristine, highly elegant royal garments, she closed her eyes and carefully summoned that familiar, ancient serpent magic quietly humming within her veins.
With a few highly controlled, glowing touches of her fingertips, she ruthlessly and completely erased every single dark, passionate love bite Dorian had left upon her skin, entirely washing away the undeniable physical proof of her secret, fiery rebellion until her pale skin was flawlessly untouched once more.
Masterfully burying her turbulent, agonizing emotions behind a perfect, impenetrable mask of royal duty, she gracefully stepped out of her bedchamber and walked down the grand corridor, wearing an incredibly simple, beautifully sweet, and utterly innocent smile that could effortlessly fool the entire kingdom.
'Ah, look everyone, our beautiful Isla has finally arrived!' the King's booming, cheerfully oblivious voice echoed warmly through the grand hall the very second she stepped into the morning light.