She looked at him like a drowning person spotting land.

Jax hesitated with a precision that was entirely calculated. "If you were to marry... me instead."

Her eyes went wide.

"Damian would never go against me. I am the only person alive who can calm his anger and reason with him. And if I tell him that I am taking you as my wife because you remind me of Yuline, because losing you would be like losing her a second time, he would never contest it. He would step aside. Not out of weakness. But because our friendship means more to him than any political marriage ever could."

Then Jax pulled back further and looked away as if disgusted with himself. "I am sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I am essentially doing the same thing to you that Damian did. Trading one forced marriage for another just because my selfish heart sees a ghost of someone I lost."

He stood from the bed. "Forget what I said. I will find another way. Even if it takes longer and carries more risk. I refuse to become the very thing I am trying to protect you from."

But Isadora was not hearing a man trying to trap her. She was seeing a man who had just gone against his own best friend to protect a woman he barely knew. A man who offered her a way out and then immediately took it back because he thought it was unfair to her. A man willing to sacrifice his oldest friendship so she wouldn’t have to spend her life behind a curtain.

She reached for his hand before he could take another step. "Wait."

Jax stopped. Didn’t turn. Let her hold his hand from behind as if he was trying to hide the emotions on his face from her.

She spoke with a trembling but steadying voice. "Did you really mean that? Are you really going to marry me to protect me?"

Jax turned to her with a face carrying emotions so convincing that it should have been illegal. "I mean every single word. If you choose this. If you choose me. I swear on my life I will give you everything I once dreamed of giving Yuline."

He held her hand tighter. "But the choice is entirely yours. If you refuse, I will still move heaven and earth to get you out safely. But if you say yes, you will never be a replacement. Never a shadow of Yuline. You will be Isadora. My wife. The woman I vow to cherish for the rest of my days."

She stood. Still holding his hand. Her face was a mess of tears and confusion and something else that was just beginning to take shape behind her eyes.

"Why would you risk so much? If you do this, you might destroy your bond with Damian completely. The chaos it will cause when the nobility and the public learn of a sudden change in grooms. You are risking the stability of the entire empire. Your friendship. Everything you have built together." Her voice shook. "For me?"

Jax brought his mouth toward her face. Deliberately. Her breath hitched the moment she felt his warmth approaching. His lips hovered near hers first. Close enough for her to feel every exhale against her skin. Then they drifted past. To her ear.

He whispered. "I already told you why. You are a carbon copy of the one I couldn’t save. If I let her slip through my fingers a second time, I don’t know what I will do with myself."

He pulled back. Their faces were close again. Noses almost touching. The bastard knew exactly what he was doing and he was doing it with the precision of a surgeon operating on someone’s entire belief system.

Isadora’s eyes searched his. Looking for the lie. Looking for the trap. Looking for any single reason to not do what every broken part of her was screaming at her to do.

She didn’t find one.

Her lips moved first. Slowly. Barely. Closing the last inch between them with the hesitation of a woman stepping off a cliff and choosing to trust the fall.

And Jax met her halfway.

Both of them were locked in a kiss now. It was slow and gentle at first. But with each passing second it turned rougher. Harder. As emotions and something else entirely started settling in.

Emotions for Jax? Not a chance. That bastard was enjoying stealing someone else’s bride-to-be with the same enthusiasm a child brings to unwrapping a gift that wasn’t meant for them.

—x—X—x—

Some time had passed.

Jax and Isadora were laid in the bed completely naked. She was resting on his chest with a face that was completely different from the devastated one she had been wearing an hour ago.

[A/N: The image of the scene is posted in the comments.]

She was satisfied. Thoroughly. By how well things were going for her new future and by the performance of Emperor Oberon. Or more precisely, the performance of the man wearing his body like a rental suit.

And at that exact moment Jax spotted something from the corner of his eyes. A familiar pair of eyes wrapped in knight armor peeking through a crack in the door. It was Echidna in his body.

And beside her from the window, looking at his bride’s naked ass turned directly toward him, was Emperor Damian.

Jax’s face shifted into a devilish expression that made Echidna twitch from across the room. Because she knew that face. And that face always meant something terrible was about to happen.

Meanwhile Isadora, completely oblivious to the two sets of eyes burning holes through the room, wiped a drop of semen from her lips and started hovering her fingers across Jax’s abs.

She said with a voice still carrying the afterglow. "Your Majesty, I don’t think it is Emperor Damian’s fault for dropping his manhood. I mean, anyone would fall for this body."

She kissed his muscles one by one. "Everything about you is perfect. I really hit a jackpot."

Jax felt the killing intent radiating from the window intensify to a level that could have peeled paint off walls. So naturally, he responded by grabbing Isadora’s ass cheeks with both hands and squeezing hard enough to make her let out a moan that echoed through the chamber.

He pushed himself back up while positioning Isadora on all fours in front of him for round two. And as he lined himself up behind her with Damian’s eyes burning through the window directly at the scene, Jax thought with a grin.

’Relax, buddy. That was just the opening act. The real show starts now.’