Valmyr sprang to his feet immediately, hand on the pommel of his blade, but he didn’t attempt to draw it, clearly understanding the risks of turning this immediately into a fight.

Myrtresca glowered at him. “Are you alright, Ambra?” she asked, stepping between the two of them.

“Ah,” the warrior woman said, and then “Um. Myrtresca?”

“Yes. I’m sorry I didn’t put two and two together more quickly,” the sorceress said, trying to reassure her sometime-rival among the captains of Marnardine. “I only just heard from someone who recognised the man’s description. You can imagine how I felt when I realised he was leading these people.

“And then to hear of your capture…”

Ambra flushed. So news of her defeat had already spread - and widely - into the Marnardines, at least among the military. This was an embarrassment that hurt. The embarrassments that Prince Valmyr had been lavishing on her hadn’t hurt; instead, they had stung deliciously.

This was unacceptable.

*

Mystic energies were building around the tip of her staff as Myrtresca focused her will. “Still, we’ll be changing that,” she went on briskly. “And sure, you may owe me a favour or two for it, but really I’m doing this on principle.”

She locked eyes with the foreign captain. “That principle is, you don’t get to have my friend. Not through strength of arms. Not through charm. Not through trickery. Do you understand me?”

Threatening a Prince was exhilarating, she now realised. Her power would not let her defeat an entire regiment, but it wouldn’t have to. Even if she had to slay him, the Golden Lions would only need a little magical assistance to gain the upper hand, and the Marnardines might even step that little bit closer to true independence as a result.

And besides. “So, Ambra,” she said. “You remember my little proposition? I have it here. We can do away with him or you can get the upper hand with him. Which is it to be?”

The caution in his eyes had turned to alarm, which was delicious.

“You have it with you?”

“In my satchel. The scalloped bronze bottle. If you want to turn him, take it out for me.” Myrtresca was not willing to take her eyes off the enemy. It was the threat of her magic which kept her contained.

She felt the weight of the strap increase slightly, knew that was Ambra pulling the satchel open and starting to rummage. She’d have to check inside there after this was all done; her friend had a well-earned reputation for snaffling magical trinkets, and even having enchanted herself in some uncertain way was unlikely to have stopped that tendency.

That was what she was thinking about when a still-kneeling Ambra, the bronze bottle in her other hand, rammed her elbow into Myrtresca’s belly, doubling her over and driving all the wind out of her.

“Pardon me, Prince Valmyr,” she heard Ambra say, her voice shaking with emotion. “This needs to be done.”

Her staff was kicked from her hand, the power she’d been channelling into it discharging itself such that the inside of the tent briefly felt like dry desert heat, bright light suffusing everything, and then Ambra was on her.

Myrtresca was physically fit, even capable in most contexts, but a woman who trained for battle daily would always have the edge on her in a struggle, even if you set aside her understanding of how to grapple and restrain another.

The sorceress was brought down to her knees and her hands caught, one by one, then twisted behind her back, where Ambra used her bodyweight to sandwich them tightly between the two women, pinning them in place. Then she snaked one arm forward, wrapping it around Myrtresca’s neck tightly enough to control the positioning of her head.

“Do you trust me, Prince Valmyr?” the sorceress heard her erstwhile ally ask.

“Under these circumstances, my sweet, I would be a fool not to, wouldn’t I?” he asked. Myrtresca heard the warm amusement in his voice and understood how her friend could have been won over initially even without an enchantment, but she couldn’t imagine that it would have overturned her goals and intentions to this extent without magic involved.

“If you would hold her nose, then,” Ambra said, and her tone was not so much level as beseeching, “I will treat her with her own potion as she wished us to treat you.”

“And what potion is this?”

“Technically,” and Myrtresca could hear a light mockery dusting the words, “it’s a philtre. A love philtre. If she drinks it while looking at you, she’ll fall for you, Prince Valmyr.”

“Why are you - ah.” She watched him chuckle. “You can call me ‘my prince’ or ‘Sire’ if you prefer. Or even ‘my liege.” He grinned. “I suspect I’d like that.”

“As you wish, my liege.”

Valmyr pinched Myrtresca’s nose tight, forcing her to open her lips to breathe. Ambra took advantage of the opportunity, pouring the love philtre into her mouth, where she choked and gagged, but couldn’t help herself; reflex took over and she gulped and swallowed it down in spite of her own efforts to reject it.

Though there was no rosewater in it, it tasted of rosewater. Also absent from the ingredients were ginger and saffron, but there was a hint of both that seemed to scald the back of her throat with its heat. An image filled her mind of a way to soothe it, with a balm coaxed by her tongue from a willing cock; involuntarily her eyes flicked up toward the man who was holding her nose to force her to gulp the philtre down.

Myrtresca realised suddenly that she wanted to fuck him so badly. No; that wasn’t right. She wanted him to fuck her, just as often as he wanted, in whatever way he wanted. He could breed her, could use her, could simply fill her mouth and leave her to her business, and she would be content.

Whatever price he might choose to exact for this privilege, she would pay gladly and without question.

For the first time, as it took effect across her, she understood how deeply a lie was the word ‘love’ in these potions. It was desire, a desire so pure and concentrated that it changed your world.

And even knowing this, her holes ached for his use. Though she did not know it, her eyes were shimmering now, her irises ceasing to be filled with brown, marked instead in a glittering brass.

It felt so good, she suddenly realised. So good to be enchanted like this. Why was she fighting it?

And so instead of gargling and sputtering she began to gulp it down, as quickly as she could, until her mouth was all but empty and she was hungrily licking up the last drops, desperately drawing air back into her lungs, shivering at the thought of how close she’d come to not feeling this way, to never knowing this exaltation.

She gazed up at Valmyr, giggling softly to herself, and only then noticed that at some point, the two of them had released her from their holds, and she had simply been too enraptured to notice.

*

Ambra smiled bashfully up at Valmyr. “I missed you, you know,” she said softly. “When I turned you away. I…” She looked aside, not wanting to meet his eye. “I would gladly bed you again, my liege, now and forever.” If this is enchantment, she thought, it holds me fast now, more so than ever before.

But she wanted him for her bed, and she wanted him for her liege. It didn’t matter why.

“You would, would you?” He sounded amused, as if he was teasing her, as he looked between she and the sorceress. “Today has certainly developed in ways I wasn’t altogether expecting.”

“Yes, my liege?”

“Oh, I intended to capture you, at the least, my sweet. My plans beyond that were only vaguely formed. My father has taken it into his head that conquest of the mountainfolk - real conquest, where your fealty is to us, not internal - is to be the test he gives me. The Golden Lions were a problem. You had made them just good enough to stalemate me.”

“They are yours,” she said softly.

“Thank you, my sweet. But we were talking of my bedding you. You seemed enthusiastic.”

“Oh yes, my liege!”

He took hold of her by the chin and tilted her head up and inward, so her eyes could not help but meet his. “Beg,” he said.

Ambra’s eyes widened and she gasped. How recently had she been telling herself that as commanders they were effectively equals, albeit on opposite sides?

This was to admit otherwise in the most extreme way possible, and her head was dizzy with the prospect. The thoughts she had just been entertaining where she would accept him as her liege, where she would marry him, they were simply not at all the same thing. One made him her superior by a whisker, marking her out as being almost on his level.

But to beg to have him fuck her, and especially to do so in front of Myrtresca…

She shivered. Maybe he would make a condition of this that they fuck in front of Myrtresca.

She would never understand why it was that thought which pushed her over the edge.

She was glad she had not left her knees. Leaning forward, she placed her hands on the rugs lining the tent floor, then pressed her forehead to them too. “My prince,” she said, “my liege… Sire.

“I want you to fuck me. I want you to use me. I beg you to fuck me. I beg you to use me.” The words were spilling out of her, now that the dam had broken, and she was discovering them at the same time as Valmyr. “I want you to claim me. I beg you to claim me -“

“And if I do?”

“Anything,” she answered, her voice somewhere between moan and growl, but all promise.

“I want you,” he said. “I want your regiment. I want the nation that follows your mother.”

“You will have them all, Sire. This I swear.”

“You,” he said, and even without looking at him she could tell by the change in his tone that he was talking to the sorceress, “I trust I’ll have no trouble out of you?”

“Everything,” she said, and then cleared her throat awkwardly. “Everything Ambra has said goes for me, my liege.”

“Good. Undress her.”

“I - uh - should I undress also, my liege?”

“When you’re told to,” he said, with an amused patience in his voice. Ambra could tell how much her betrayal of Myrtresca had pleased him, how satisfied he was to have them both.

“Very good, my liege.” Her hands began, hastily, to find the buckles and straps of the armour that went above Ambra’s leggings, and while she was uncertain at points, in very little time she had the other woman stripped down to the choker and the headband.

Taking a handful of Ambra’s hair, Valmyr brought her over to his bedding, she crawling on hands and knees the whole way, and then lifted her and deposited her onto the soft quilting.

She was very conscious of Myrtresca watching as he pinned her down, barely using any of his strength, knowing she wouldn’t be able to find it in herself to resist.

And then he was in her and it was beyond her to think of anything else, to move in any other way than to maximise their shared pleasure, to be anything but an eager toy being fucked.

She lost track of everything except the way this felt. Lost track of who she had been, who she was, what a thought would even be. The snow pearls at her throat glowed white and so did her eyes as the enchantment completed itself.

When, at least, Valmyr filled her with his seed, she could feel the last of her dominance leak back out, becoming his instead.

He pulled out of her and flopped down by her side, exhausted. Ambra’s vision slowly cleared, a delicious smile on her lips.

She had rejected this man just a few days before. Told him to leave. And, true, it had been because at the time she feared she would fall hard for him. From the moment she inhabited just then, however, it seemed so ridiculous that she had ever denied him - or even tried.

Her new status seemed not just natural but inevitable, as if fate had operated somehow to bring her to this state.

She propped herself up on one elbow to examine his body properly for the first time, and her eyes were drawn to one part of him, sticky with his own gift but still stiff.

Her lips were dry. She glanced across to Myrtresca, who eyed her with jealousy.

Ambra slid her mouth over his cock and began to clean and worship him at once, tending to him with a passion that would help her to master the skill before too long.

After she had been kneeling there for perhaps half a minute, she heard Myrtresca shift and move, and the other woman came across and knelt beside her, then curled up next to the prince, as if they shared him. Ambra felt a flash of irritation, but it was not for her to make these decisions.

*

They went after Lonryn first, simply because if he didn’t know what the Golden Lions had become they could get in close enough to make the magelocks useless.

After that things began to shift surprisingly quickly. Word travelled fast in the Marnardines, but many of the people who would have been spreading that word were hesitant, confused by the activities of Ambra and Myrtresca. It was natural to wonder why it seemed as if they had turned against the mountainfolk.

It didn’t take long before they knew, either, but even then, allegiances were torn, and within a week Ambra was ushering her mother into Prince Valmyr’s presence.

“I present our leader, my liege,” she said, ignoring the snort of derision her mother couldn’t help but give out.

“Thank you, my sweet,” Valmyr said, and he looked up at the woman who, more than anyone, set policy for the Marnardines. “My lady. Please do sit.”

“Hmp.” She did as she was bid, but she was visibly unhappy about it. “Are you going to explain?”

“I don’t know everything myself in order to explain,” he said. “I should begin, though, with some business that concerns three of this within your room. I have taken your daughter’s hand.”

This was, of course, far from the traditional form when asking permission to wed, and she glowered at him. “I don’t think so,” she said.

“No? Fortunately, this is something I am negotiating, rather than asking. Your daughter has furnished me with a list of the remaining opposition I would need to stamp out to establish control of the Marnardines. I invite you to look at her?”

Ambra’s mother turned in her seat and studied the proud Lion, her long hair teased up into a beautiful, layered stack at the front while hanging down below her shoulders behind, her headband forsaken, but the enchanted, burnished breastplate still in place over a sleeveless dress.

“Do you believe,” Valmyr said, “that your daughter has lied to me?”

After a pause that seemed like an eternity, she sighed and said “No.”

“No. And I will not insult you by imagining you are any less well-informed about the two sides. So we shall be clear, my lady, if you please.

“You can see how a continued conflict will go as well as we can. The only reason you came here is to negotiate the surrender of the current ruling class of the Marnadines. Yes or no?”

Again, the foremost among the leaders the Marnardines did not have looked at her daughter. “You take his side entirely?” she asked, disbelieving.

“My liege asked you a question,” her daughter answered. Her tone was gentle but her words were matter-of-fact. “It is not a question of sides, Mother. As he points out.”

She made a grumbrling sound that was not truly a word as she turned back toward Valmyr. “Alright, then,” she said. “We can acknowledge this.”

Valmyr nodded. “My sweet,” he said, “would you bring us some wine?”

“Yes, Sire,” Ambra answered, with that purr from the back of her throat that delighted him every time.

*

Following the unconditional surrender of her responsibilities to Prince Valmyr, the biggest single difficulty in the annexation of the Marnardines was done, especially when she announced the engagement of her daughter to the prince, presenting the wedding as a fait accompli.

The wedding itself was set for a midwinter date, which prompted many questions from the mountainfolk, but allowed Valmyr’s father to attend without worrying about the Erithnian war that still raged on at the far side of the Valefic Kingdom.

Valmyr and Ambra worked obsessively in the time between to hunt down the remaining warrior bands not willing to pledge fealty to him, though several still remained when they returned to the city to prepare.

Many remarked on the bridal procession through the streets. It was the first time they had seen Ambra, as an adult, not in her thick armoured combat leggings.

Instead the bridal gown omitted sleeves and was backless, with a slit for each thigh, and a thin fur scarf draped over her shoulders. The watching mountainfolk all took home memories that day of her muscular body, soft glowing skin, and happily smiling beauty, as well as the dazedly happy smiles of her mother and the sorceress Myrtresca as they carried her train through the streets.

During the ceremony, Valmyr was announced Prince of the Valefic Kingdom and Duke of the Marnardines, and his father, the King, anointed him with perfumed oil and placed a circlet on his brow which would go on to be the crown of the Marnadines.

It had been Ambra’s enchanted headband, reforged hastily into something more decorative. In its place, Ambra now wore a length of blue silk ribbon tied in an elaborate bow.

The public celebration afterward was treated as the official victory of the Valefic Kingdom over the Marnardines, though the mountainfolk joined in with that celebration more than might have been expected, simply because Ambra was there.

For many of them, Valmyr’s choice of his wife for general, the sorceress for secretary, and his mother in law as his administrator led them to believe nothing would change. In years to come they would learn how much would be different, but generations after that, history would come to consider their rule a golden age.

Of course, this was not something felt at the time. There was still resistance.

As the evening wore on, Valmyr and his female cabinet met privately with his father. King Valfleid smiled. “Well, my boy, this is more support here than I expected.”

“Thank you, Father.” He bowed his head. “I had some luck.”

“A large part of command is taking advantage of luck,” Valfleid said. It was another comment his son had heard several times before. “You deserve a reward,” he continued, and Ambra felt Valmyr stiffen beside her.

“Respectfully, Father, I will not take one.”

At the half-amused, half-irked look on his father’s face he reached out and put his hand on Ambra’s hip, pulling her toward him. She squealed contentedly and allowed herself to be pulled. She squished against him, she considered, most fetchingly.

“I have my reward, Father. All the reward I need. And I have a duchy to make into a part of your kingdom.”

This prompted an odd look from the King, one that Ambra could not decode. After a few moments, though, he laughed. “Have it your way,” he said. “My attention needs to be elsewhere in any case.”

“Thank you, Father.”

“I’ll give you three years to bring this place properly to heel, the way you have her,” he said, indicating Ambra. “Then we’ll reassess. Maybe I’ll bring your brother along and we can compare deeds, while I decide on the question of inheritance.”

Ambra’s breath caught. She couldn’t have her new husband lose that competition. They’d have to pull out all the stops to deal with the last of the rebels. “Thank you, Father,” Valmyr said. “If you’ll excuse me?”

King Valfleid gave a benevolent half-wave and Valmyr steered Ambra from the room, past Myrtresca, her braids abandoned now in favour of a huge curly dome of hair that would take anyone without magic hours to maintain, her loose robes abandoned in favour of a taut blouson, straining against her breasts and displaying her midriff, which her apprentice had to stitch her into each morning, a skirt running halfway down her thigh so tight it compelled her to take only small steps, and knee high boots that were impractical outside the city’s paved streets.

Myrtresca followed them as they swept away, leaving Ambra’s mother to discuss any matters of practicality the King might have on his mind. They did not return to the party, however; Valmyr was steering them to their bedchamber, newly decorated and selected in the city building they had chosen to be the new ducal palace.

She looked over her shoulder at the man steering her with a thumb hooked in the low V backline of her dress, remembering how at one time she’d steered her conquests by their belts, and remembered how good it had been to have him break down her resistance.

Meeting his eye, she smiled coyly. “This may be our wedding day, Sire, but you still need to earn me,” she purred, and Valmyr’s contented smile became a smirk.

“Is that right?” he asked. “Did you hear that, Myrtresca?”

“I heard the insolent pup, Sire,” Myrtresca offered, her lips set in a smile as she caught the mood of the procession.

“What should I do with her?”

Myrtresca gave a low moan. Ambra, who had by now heard something of the true effects of the philtre from the women affected by it, knew she would be thinking of things that she would want him to do to her.

Knew also the sorceress was too devoted too him, bound too strongly by desire, not to volunteer those ideas for use on Ambra.

"Break her, bend her over your bed, and breed her, Sire,” came the answer, Myrtresca’s voice breathy with excitement. Ambra wondered if Valmyr knew what his question had done to her. Then she wondered if getting that reaction had been his plan.

“Hm.” He swept the door to their bedchamber open with one arm, holding Ambra by a handful of hair with the other, and then he swept the arm that had held her forwards with gusto. Ambra took two teetering steps from the momentum he’d given her, stumbling from the unexpectedness of it, and after those steps what little balance she’d retained ran out and she fell forwards onto the bed.

Valmyr was on her before she could push herself back off the bed and upright, one hand in her hair keeping her pinned down. She made noises of excited protest, reaching back with one hand to beat a fist against his shoulder. Even with her muscles, this angle meant she could only hit so hard, and she could feel that his grip didn’t change at all.

With her pinned down under him he gathered up the skirts of her dress with his other hand and hauled them out of the way, exposing her bare legs and making it clear she’d opted on her wedding day not to worry about underwear.

He took her from behind with Myrtresca eagerly cheering him on and making ribald comments as Ambra squealed, trying at first to twist and struggle free but finding herself entirely unable to do so.

Was that the enchantment? Valmyr was a strong warrior but she’d always been proud of her own muscle. She couldn’t be sure whether she was compelled to underperform when struggling with him or not; all she could know for sure was that it didn’t help either way.

Bracing her arms against the bed she found herself humping back against him as hard and enthusiastically as she could, crying out with every thrust, letting him completely master her again, feeling as if he was breaking her one more time.

He stopped just before spending, one hand still in her hair, and shifted position, lifting his hand to steer her up and round. At first she thought he was going to get his cock deep into her mouth, but he had complete control over the placement of her head and she quickly found herself on her knees on the floor as he wrapped a handful of hair in a loop around his cock, beckoning the sorceress over to join them.

Myrtresca likewise was guided to her knees, his other hand in her air, kneeling just the other side of Ambra from him, and her lips were placed just touching the tip of his cock.

Valmyr then proceeded to fuck Myrtresca’s mouth, his cock pumping in and out of Ambra’s hair en route, keeping them both firmly under control, making them both part of his celebration. The powerlessness that Ambra felt radiated throughout her, and she shuddered with happiness.

Only…

“I thought she told you to breed me,” she said, her voice trembling with excitement.

Valmyr laughed. “In my time I will,” he said. “If my brother doesn’t get caught up, it’ll be just another reason for Father to rule in our favour. But you, my sweet, will be bred when I choose. Am I clear?”

“Yes, Sire,” she said, smiling contentedly.

*

Ambra now found herself in the unfamiliar position of not being permitted to go to battle. The Golden Lions had followed their leader into a fascination with merging muscle and beauty, and their status as an elite fighting force was now questionable in a way even their defeats at the hands of the Order of the Black Spear had not achieved.

Valmyr had solved the problem of what to do with them by recognising the lack of a civil guard for what was now his capital city. Good-looking, single minded guards who could still win a scuffle with a local gang made that far less of an issue immediately, especially as their appearance made many locals trust them immediately.

However, a condition he had laid on this was that Ambra would no longer lead them or fight with them, saying she had much more important tasks as his consort.

Instead, while he and the Black Spear, led by various local guides, hunted for the last few warbands still flying their colours for the free Marnardines, Ambra was putting the palace to rights. This called for many skills she had not already had, but she found she was learning them surprisingly fast.

A lot of it was household management; when word reached her that her husband’s banner had been sighted returning to the city, she went down to the kitchens and supervised the cooks, rather than cooking his meal herself.

Ambra it was, however, who hastened to dress in the tight fur-lined dress that echoed the cut of her armour, her bracers replaced with long blue silk gloves, the blue lace ribbon banded between her fringe and the tall beehive stack her hair was styled into, the boots rising just over the knee to show off her thighs, and Ambra it was who welcomed him from the door, who took his cloak from him and removed his armour, bringing him a comfortable cotton shift to wear, then led him through to his chamber where his dinner awaited.

Myrtresca was there also, a thin sheaf of papers against a backboard clasped in her hand, a modern quill with its own ink reservoir resting in her curls for easy access, to hear his observations and provide him with reports and insight into his duchy. But Ambra paid no heed to her friend, for this was not what was needed.

As Valmyr ate she kept the full intensity of her focus and desire on him, standing by his side holding the silver carafe of wine, bending over to give him an enticing view as she poured, something which had become a private joke between the two of him, and eventually drifting behind his chair where her strong hands found his shoulders.

Valmyr was finishing his meal when she began his massage, her affection, her expertise, and her own power all dedicated to finding the knots of stress in his own muscles and loosening them.

As she moved from one muscle group to another she would let her fingernails, now longer than had been practical for her as a warrior, graze along his skin. The Prince made noises when she did this that made her, in turn, weak at the knees, satisfied with her own success.

She took great pleasure in the reaction to those noises she saw from her friend the sorceress, too; it was well established now between the two of them that Valmyr would use whichever of them took his fancy at the time, and as their hearts’ desire was that he be happy, they had no issue with this and, in fact, were delighted at the thought.

Not that this stopped Ambra seeing her husband’s affections as a contest to win as often as she possibly could, of course. When it looked like he was almost - but not quite - done with his plate she moved out from behind him and threw one leg elegantly over his lap, briefly straddling him, her fingernails raking hungrily down his chest as their eyes met.

Leaning in, she planted a kiss on his lips; his teeth nipped her lower lip for a moment when she broke it, slithering down his body to kneel, mostly beneath the dinner table, between his thighs.

She had felt, during her descent, the fruits of his efforts erect as it ground against her. Now it was before her eyes, a tent in the fabric of his shift, which she nuzzled aside until his cock was visible in front of her.

She gave it a long lick up the shaft, from balls to tip, and watched it twitch in response with a delighted grin before opening her mouth wide and plunging herself down onto it, where she began to suck enthusiastically.

One of his hands crept into her beehive; as always, just his grip was enough to control her, regulating her pace, keeping her moving the way he wanted her to move. Ambra was delighted to receive his guidance in this way. It reassured her that her service was correctly directed.

And this time she was further delighted when, after she had coaxed him almost to the edge, he used this grip to pull her head back off his cock. Myrtresca moaned at the implication of the ‘pop’ sound when the seal of her lips was broken, but Valmyr did not change partners; instead, standing up, he brought Ambra up to standing with him, then pushed her onto her back on the table, where he began to fuck her next to his dinner, drinking from his wineglass.

Her hands found table edges she could use to grip and brace herself and she bucked back against him with an enthusiasm that she doubted anyone unlucky enough not to be enchanted could match, humping him with a need that was more than just her own.

Perhaps, she thought, this would be the time that made their heir.

If not, she would keep trying, just as long as it took.