You had just come out of your room when you stopped dead in your tracks.

Boa was kneeling on the bed.

Completely naked.

Long hair draped over her back, her pale skin glowing in the candlelight, and in her delicate fingers… was a comb.

“I wish to be groomed,” she said softly. “By you.”

You stared. Mouth open. Eyes wide. Posture locked like someone had hit pause on your soul.

“She’s the Empress,” your brain screamed. “She rules a nation and she’s… she’s NAKED and wants a BATHROOM-STYLE COMBING?!”

“I have read,” she continued, trying not to sound nervous, “that a wife should allow her husband this honor, to show full trust. My body is yours. My heart already is.”

You were too stunned to speak. Too stunned to breathe.