Sophia's day started out like any other - she awoke peacefully in the early morning to the sound of birds chirping outside, singing springtime and warmth and the promise of sunny skies ahead, and she ate croissants and fresh fruit for breakfast before dressing and heading down to the castle gardens, where she would remain until later on in the afternoon, tending to the flowers and plants with the graceful sort of skill that she had been known for. Then, after attending lunch at court, and crossing paths with a man a few years older than herself who had been lusting after her for quite some time and agreeing to see him later on in the day, she retired back to her chambers to prepare herself for his arrival, taking a long bath in the luxurious soaking tub that had been a gift to her so long ago and softening her creamy skin with sweetly-scented oils and perfumes the moment she stepped out of it. She brushed out her hair, allowing it to tumble down the delicate length of her back and dry in rich marigold waves, and she dressed herself in a pale pink chemise made of silk and lace, one that just barely dusted across the tops of her shapely thighs and dipped low between the supple curves of her breasts, rosy nipples still peaked from their post-bath exposure and more than ready to be touched and tweaked and teased. She was a milk and honey goddess, all golden softness and dripping with femininity, and already she was anxiously counting down the seconds for her lover of the evening to arrive - she longed for a man's presence, for a man's hands and his touch and his cock, and she knew that she wouldn't be able to sleep soundly tonight unless it was after being completely and utterly fucked within an inch of her life.
She just...she didn't want to be alone. Not tonight - not ever.
The man visiting her tonight wasn't one she had been with before, and truth be told, it was only due to his persistence and the fact that he had been the first to ask that she had finally accepted his proposal. He was the son of a noble, an alpha in little more than title, and he was younger than the men she usually pursued - the men she usually preferred. He wouldn't be enough to replace Antonio, this much she knew, and he wasn't Christian, but...for just tonight, he would be more than enough to soothe the aching pain between her thighs and in her heart that never seemed to go away no matter how desperately she willed it to. The sound of a roughened hand knocking upon the door to her chambers drew Sophia out of her muddled thoughts, and she perked up immediately; if she had been transformed into the sleek white wolf she was known for during the fool moon, her ears would have shot up eagerly and her fluffy little tail would have begun to wag with excitement...as it was, her heart was already racing, and she stood gracefully from her seat at her vanity in favor of making her way towards the entrance to her boudoir...only to be caught off guard by the sound of two men talking instead of one. Delicate blonde eyebrows furrowed together in confusion, but she didn't even think to reach for a robe to cover herself as she continued towards the door, if only because - that voice, the second one, the one that was low and deep and startlingly familiar - struck a chord inside of Sophia, one that hadn't been plucked for more than a year now. It couldn't...it couldn't possibly...
Her heart was in her throat, racing hummingbird-fast, and she felt herself begin to tremble as she reached for the doorknob, gingerly pulling it open just in time to see a pair of two men standing in front of her. One, the young noble she had agreed to meet with earlier on in the day, looking decidedly irritated and displeased, and the other...he was older, with dark hair and dark eyes and about a week's worth of stubble lining his strong jaw, and his clothes were dusty and clearly well-worn from what she could only assume was at least a day or two spent travelling. Achingly handsome, achingly familiar, was her Antonio, standing before her now for the first time in more than a year, and Sophia - Sophia couldn't breathe. All at once he seemed out of place and perfectly at home standing in the doorway of the chambers they had once shared with one another, and she couldn't believe the sight of him, even if there was no doubting that the striking vision before her was nothing but the man she had once worshiped and adored with everything she had in her. The rich timbre of his voice, the way that it lilted with the very same accent that had never failed to send shivers up and down her spine, carried its way into her suddenly-anxious mind and reminded her of the last time she had heard it: when he had been saying goodbye. He was here, though, standing right in front of her as if he had never abandoned her all those days and weeks and months ago, as if she hadn't counted every single moment without him as if it were a new bruise being added to her skin each and every time the sun rose and fell -
"S'il vous plait, I - I am so sorry, Sir Ashwood, but I do not think that tonight will be best for us," she breathed as soon as she was capable of speaking, without even looking at the man she had invited up to visit her mere hours ago; instead, her wide-eyed and startled gaze remained focused on Antonio...even now, she couldn't bring herself to look anywhere but at him. Once again, he was the sole star of her life, the only thing that she could ever manage to gravitate towards and around, and - oh, she hated herself for it. Sir Ashwood - clearly disappointed - scowled, kicking at the floor in front of him before nodding jerkily and offering Antonio a heated glare right before he turned on his heel and stormed down the corridor away from them. He wouldn't be pleased, but Sophia couldn't bring herself to care, and the moment she was left alone with the man whose heart she had once kept tucked up against her own, she began to tremble from head to toe, frantic little breaths escaping her parted lips in helpless puffs of air as her heart pounded loudly enough to be heard over the sound of her blood racing in her ears. She didn't - she didn't know what to think, what to feel; she was torn between relief at seeing him alive and unharmed, joy at having him returned to her after only one year instead of five, and...hurt, alive and tangible, due to the fact that he had made leaving her seem so easy. Tears filled her blue-green eyes, wet and glossy and impossible for her to hide, and she felt small and vulnerable standing before him in the lingerie that she had donned entirely for another man - small, vulnerable, and so overwhelmed that, for a solid moment, she could do little more than stare up at him in shock,
She remembered everything. She remembered the late nights and the early mornings, she remembered going to court with love-bites and hickeys all over her neck and decollete, and how she would touch them whenever she wanted to be reminded of the claim he had placed over her...she remembered falling in love in the garden of her childhood home, of looking up into his dark eyes and knowing that she would never find someone quite as perfect as the man she had once been so fond of calling her lord. She remembered the full moons, of disappearing into the forest with him and losing herself over and over again to both her animal instincts and him, and - she remembered being his omega, his mate. She remembered it all in startling clarity, and looking up at him now, seeing him war-weary and hardened after a year spent fighting up at the front, she wondered if she would faint or fall apart or both, all at the same time. "Antonio," she breathed his name for the first time in more than a year, and it tasted bittersweet on her tongue...she brought one trembling hand to the flushed skin at the hollow of her throat, rubbing at it anxiously, fretfully, as she struggled to calm her racing heart and quell the tears that glistened so evidently in her shining eyes. "Antonio - my lord - " Her voice broke on a small, pitiful sob, and she shook her head once, twice, as if to somehow dispel the image of him before her...as if she still didn't believe that he was truly here. "You cannot - non, I did not think - mon roi, what are you doing here?" Her tone was soft as always, but shaky as she spoke, and she was torn between both running into his arms and slamming the door in his face all at the same time. "You - you left."
