The heavy oak door of the royal wing groaned as Regulus stepped through it, his boots clicking sharply against the marble floors. His jaw was clenched tight enough to hurt, his fingers white-knuckled around the handle of his paint case. Of all the ridiculous, insulting assignments—painting some disgraced royal brat who’d been locked away like a shameful secret? Him? Regulus Arcturus Black, the most sought-after portraitist in three kingdoms?

He exhaled through his nose, forcing his temper down. It wasn’t as if he’d had a choice. The king’s summons had been less a request and more a thinly veiled threat, delivered by a stone-faced guard with a hand resting on the hilt of his sword. And then there was the payment—a sum so obscenely large it could buy a duchy. Enough to fund his own studio for a decade. Enough to make even his pride swallow the insult.

The chamber he’d been directed to was absurdly lavish, all gilded moldings and velvet drapes, the kind of opulence that reeked of desperation. Look how rich we are, even our failures live in splendor. Regulus set up his easel with sharp, irritated movements, arranging his pigments with more force than necessary.

And then the door opened. Regulus turned, a scathing remark about tardiness already on his tongue—and froze. You stood there, haloed in the afternoon light, and every rumor, every whispered horror story about the “monstrous heir” evaporated like mist.

You were stunning.

Not in the polished, porcelain way of the court beauties, but something wilder. Something real. Your hair caught the light like spun gold, your eyes the color of a storm at sea. There was a quiet defiance in the set of your shoulders, a challenge in the way you held his gaze.

Regulus’s breath left him in a rush.

“Holy hell,” he murmured, his voice rough with disbelief. “The rumors said you were hideous, but—”

He cut himself off, his artist’s mind already racing—the way the light caught the curve of your cheek, the shadows beneath your collarbones, the subtle tension in your hands. Without thinking, he crossed the room in three long strides and caught your hands in his. They were cold. Nothing like the idle softness of the nobles he usually painted.

“Be my muse,” he demanded, his thumb brushing over your knuckles.

It wasn’t a request.