Thanks to its meringue shape, the Temple of Sweetness was one of the most recognizable buildings in Olympus. Due to its location—the main square of the capital city—it was also one of the most visited places in the entire Ilion. In its essence, it was a bazaar where sellers presented confectionery products from all over the country, but thanks to two terraces stretching along the walls equipped with tables, the facility was famous primarily as a place for social meetings. When Hera suggested to Dago that they meet there, it seemed perfect for a date where the main purpose was to “show themselves,” but when the momentous day came, she regretted her choice even before she went inside.

“Oh, hi!” a woman called to her with a charming smile and a look that concealed a fox’s cunning.

In her loose, sleeveless white tunic, Gaiana wouldn’t have stood out much from the crowd of similarly dressed passersby, even with the shock of flaming red hair framing her freckled face. But the men accompanying her, who towered over the crowd with their height and muscular build, were hard to miss. One of them was Pax Hercules, a national hero and her husband. The other­­­­­­­­­­—may dreams protect them all—was Romeo Wilis, her older but equally redheaded brother, with whom Hera had long ago had her first affair.

Even though she wanted to run home, she forced herself to stop and smile. “Hi.”

“Didn’t you write you’d be busy today?” Pax asked as their group came closer to the door that looked like it was made of sesame. He lifted the rolled-up carpet from his leonine shoulder and placed it on the ground as easily as if it were a paperboard. “If you had sent us a message, we would’ve picked you up.”

The question lurking in his green eyes was one of the main reasons why Hera had been putting off meeting her friends, but she couldn’t understand why she hadn’t thought about the possibility of running into them in a place they visited regularly.

Discreetly, she took a deep breath…

…pushing away the memory of her abrupt reaction provoked by Dago Midais’s tongue…

…and breathed out, preparing for the inevitable confrontation. There was no point making excuses. Her friends would find out anyway, so she’d better tell them in person. Moreover, it was her decision, and she had to face the consequences…

“Herkules, do you really think you’ll capture a harpy with your carpet?”

All four of them looked toward the familiar mocking voice, but the first to react was Romeo, for whom the sight of Dago Midais was like a red rag to a bull.

“A friend’s carpet is better than the castle of a poisonous snake,” he snapped, glaring at the fair-haired man with wide, golden bracelets on his wrists and a golden belt around his black tunic.

A small smile pulled at Dago’s lips. “I would dare to say that Hera has a different opinion.”

Her first name in the mouth of her long-time rival, who always called her by her last name, must have made a rather strong impression on her friends, because they only reacted when the man stood next to her.

“Stay away from her!” Pax said sharply, taking a step toward him.

“Why?” Dago placed his hand on Hera’s back. She tensed but didn’t pull away. “As far as I know, Hera is here to meet me, not you.”

Pax opened his mouth to reply, but his wife’s nudge brought him to his senses. He looked at Hera and finally saw the flustered look on her face.

“You don’t…”

“You?” Romeo raised his voice, attracting the attention of passers-by. “With him?”

For some reason, it was his indignant tone that broke her constraint. How did he dare play a prude? After they’d ended their awkward relationship ten years ago, he’d dated more than one woman with nightmarish tendencies!

“You are making a show, Romeo,” she said in the calmest tone she could manage. “I would be grateful if you lowered your voice and kept from criticizing matters that do not concern you.”

Unfortunately, her sensible response had an adverse effect.

“You goblin!” Romeo cried, throwing himself at Dago. “What did you do to her?!”

Before a crime was committed, Gaiana stepped forward and elbowed her brother in the stomach so hard that he doubled over with a strangled groan.

“Forgive us our agitation,” the red-haired maga said politely, apparently convinced that beating older brothers was not a crime. “We didn’t expect to hear such news in such a place.”

The meaningful look she gave Hera said she was offended but willing to hold her resentment for a while. The blush she saw on Hera’s face must have placated her, however, because gesturing at the sesame door, she dismissed them with the words, “Don’t mind us. Have fun.”

Hera responded with a grateful smile, but she didn’t have the courage to look at Pax and Romeo. She wanted to escape the stares of onlookers—who grew in number with every minute—as soon as possible, so she moved toward the door wordlessly. Even though she had fervently hoped that Dago would curb his temper and follow her example, when he actually did, she was surprised. Pleasantly.

“This way,” he said, gently holding her arm. She threw the elevator a hesitant look because it was in the opposite direction of the stairs she usually used to get to the first floor, but he added, “I booked a table in the Sweet Loge.”

The Sweet Loge was the name of the highest terrace, where the entrance was only possible for an absurdly high fee. Hera was about to protest until she saw merit in this solution—they would still be in plain sight, but they wouldn’t have to be in the crowd.

She nodded and walked with Dago to the elevator, which was guarded by a person with short dark hair who was dressed in a berry-colored toga and whose face was so delicate they could be taken for either a woman or a boy. Only their amethyst irises gave away that they were a morpheus.

“Good day,” the phantom said in a pleasantly hoarse voice with an echo of pertness in it. “I am very pleased to welcome you again, sir, and your new companion for the first time.”

Though Hera was used to minor mischief from the shadows, now she felt as if a thick pin had been driven into her heart. Right. She’d only thought about meeting her friends here when she bumped into them, so that it hadn’t occurred to her that the Temple of Sweetness might have been a place where Midais visited with his “companions” wasn’t strange at all. The fact that, in the people’s eyes, Hera would be just another woman at his side was also to be expected.

“I see that you’re in a good mood as usual, Oinone,” Dago said with steely politeness. “I assume you were informed about my reservation.”

“Of course.” The shadow sent him a flirtatious smile. “I always look forward to hearing about you, Dago.”

Before Hera could choke on more suspicions, Dago wrapped his arms around her as if to stop her from running away.

“The latest news is,” he said, still addressing the morpheus, “that this is the first time I’ve come here with a woman who isn’t Deianira Ikaros but matches her in temperament. So it would be better for everyone in this building if you stopped making remarks that could spoil her mood and saved us time by taking us upstairs.”

The phantom squinted their eyes like a cat glad about a snack. “As you wish,” they purred.

Hera submitted to the gentle pressure of Midais’s hand and stepped onto the round strawberry carpet, which Oinone pointed to with an elegant gesture. She was confused throughout the slow flight, powered by the morpheus’s illogical magic that didn’t require rituals to work. But before she could decide whether the information that she was the second woman Dago had brought here was good or bad, she came face to face with her.

Olive skin highlighted by a white, boldly non-traditional jumpsuit consisting of a tight short-sleeved blouse and wide, skirt-like pants. Long black hair that reflected the light from the lunar lamps in such a way that it seemed to glow. Facial features bringing to mind a bird of prey and equally disturbing dark eyes that could give one as many good dreams as nightmares.

Deianira Ikaros in the flesh.

Dago was meditating.

Or at least he was trying to meditate. Usually he recharged his mana in a different way. More social. The word “sensual” would be better, but that was forbidden…

Focus, he reminded himself again and again until he remembered that meditation was about relaxation.

Breath, he told himself, struggling to tear away his thoughts from the word “relaxation,” which he associated with other ways to relax—ways which he should not be thinking about, even though they were measurably more pleasant than sitting on the pool edge.

It wasn’t that he had something against the pool. He loved his pool. Tiled in black like the rest of the bathroom, with its glass roof that let the sunrays in to dance on his silver-white scales, exposing their beauty while he enjoyed his bath. It was his favorite place in the entire castle.

Except, perhaps, his bedroom, which he liked just as much but which decisively didn’t fit into meditation practice.

Breath, he repeated, really decisively.

He took a slow breath…

…almost not remembering Hera Galenos taking a sharp breath in response to his touch…

…and slowly emptied his lungs, decisively pushing away the memories of her trembling body and her titillating taste on his tongue.

Again. An inhalation…

…his, not Hera’s…

…and exhalation.

I can do this, he thought, summoning his confidence in his abilities.

Of course he could renew the reserves of magical energy alone. He didn’t need anyone.

He couldn’t need anyone. It was his mana.

If people found out that he, Dago Midais, was unable to recover on his own after a three-day flying castle trip, it would be a disgrace not only to him, but also to the entire ancient line of businessmen who shared blood with the Queen of Nightmares herself.

But no one would know because he could recover. He just hadn’t done it alone for a while, and he hadn’t done it alone because it was more pleasant to do it together. Everyone had the right to pleasure, didn’t they? And certainly everyone would choose pleasure if they could…

But he couldn’t, and there was no point thinking about alternatives. At this moment, neither general memories of pleasant mana recharging nor specific visions of Hera Galenos caressing him with her sensual lips would help him.

Feeling a dangerous hardening below his stomach, Dago took a deep breath—pushing away associations with the word “deep”—and exhaled, desperately trying to remember why he’d refused an attractive proposal from an attractive woman who was the reason he was now so magically exhausted that he had to park his castle on a hill instead of several hundred chariots above the hill. It would only be fair for Galenos to help him restore the reserves he’d sacrificed for her sake. Especially since this whole trip was unnecessary, because—as he found out when they were already there—the maga hadn’t intended to fish for koralion from the beginning, even though that was the purpose of their trip.

Sweet nightmare, she should be licking and sucking him as if her life depended on it…

Dago swallowed and opened his eyes, hoping that the dark mirror of water would cut off his imagination and cool down the desires burning within him. He’d never before associated the word “attractive” with Hera Galenos, and now it seemed to be synonymous with her. That disturbed him. The fact that his perception had changed so much in just a few weeks worried him even more. But in the grand scheme of things, it didn’t matter. What counted was what he could gain.

An empowering promotion—that was what he’d wanted when he’d proposed the pact to Hera, and that was what he should focus on now. Her being a feast for his senses was just a bonus. Until the woman signed the marriage contract, thus lending him her exemplary reputation, the position of Archmagus remained a dream, and the wedding would not take place if he did anything that would scare or alienate her. He needed to encourage her and that meant that he should be fulfilling her desires. For now, at least.

There would be plenty of time later for fulfilling his desires. After the wedding, all the visions his imagination had been producing would become true. Hera Galenos in his bed, on the table, in the pool, face to face, from behind, standing, on her knees… Every part of her body would belong to him. Her every thought would follow his touch. Every sound that left her throat would be a paean praising him. He would possess her body and soul, and she would think that she gave them to him…

Dago swore under his breath and stood up. He couldn’t ignore the hard need throbbing between his legs any longer. He didn’t intend to immerse himself in his fantasies so deeply, but he’d never had a fiancée. It was natural that he needed time to get used to this state.

He went over to the shower in the corner. Leaning against the wall with one hand, he embraced his stiff manhood with the other and began to stroke it, imagining Hera Galenos caressing him. She would probably do it shyly at first, embarrassed to touch her long-time rival in such a way, but then she would swallow the shame and kneel before him like he was her king…

…and not a thoughtless lover to whom it didn’t occur that the woman pleasing them might have needs similar to them.

They didn’t offer and I didn’t ask.

Dago froze, feeling a new kind of craving. A dangerous craving. Dangerous not because someone might get hurt if he let it out—in his opinion, someone should get hurt—but because in the shadow of this brutal craving was another, more subtle and therefore even more disturbing.

He partially recognized it. How could he not when the desire to possess had driven him his entire life? But this… this differed from what he felt when he was thinking about power and gold. It was more like what he felt when he fantasized about taking possession of the body and soul of Hera Galenos… only deeper. Primal.

Dark.

Dago swallowed. Though he didn’t move his hand, his lust grew harder. In his mind’s eye, he saw Hera with her arms and legs tied to the pillars of his bed. There would be nothing surprising about it if it weren’t for the fact that this image did not fully satisfy him. At the bottom of his soul, there was a part of him that demanded more.

The body and soul weren’t enough.

The exclusive access to them was.

Dago lowered his hand. If there was one thing he knew about Hera Galenos, it was that she wouldn’t allow anyone to lock her in a treasury. He had to come up with a plan more subtle than kidnapping, but he wouldn’t be able to do that until he cooled down.

He turned on the cold water tap and stood in the shower until he couldn’t think about anything other than the cold biting his skin. When he finished drying himself with a towel, he looked up and saw that the crystal balls, which had been empty when he placed them around the octagonal pool, now glowed like a bright constellation in the night sky.

Really. He was so concerned about charging mana, and a simple technique had been enough to not only recover his own power but also create a reserve.

That’s what I need, he mused, looking at the little suns.

Simple solutions were usually the best.

Dago put on his robe and left the bathroom, heading toward the library on the floor below. In a few days, he and Galenos would go on their first public date. Since its main goal was to show themselves to as many people as possible, he couldn’t rely on carnal pleasure as much as he’d done when they’d been alone in his castle. He needed something more. Something spiritual. Something the woman would not only like but would appreciate so much that in the blaze of her genuine gratitude, there would also be a spark of equally genuine sympathy.

What would an exemplary student and science fan like? The answer was so simple it was funny.

A book.

A perfect bribe—no, a perfect gift for a grind.

A book was too spiritual to be a bribe, right?

Dago. A businessman whose bad reputation hinders his path to political advancement.

Hera. A respectable healer who is desperately trying to avoid political advancement.

After the startling discovery that despite their long-standing rivalry, they can last three whole days without arguing, the dragon wizard and the phoenix witch proceed to fulfill their scandalous pact…