It was good having more than one bathroom again. It allowed me to take a solitary shower, something of a luxury when there are four of you sharing a single bathroom, each eager to start the day. It gave me time to think. To centre my mind and prepare myself for what I was going to do in a few minutes.

As I walked down the corridor towards Artemis’ bedroom – our nuptial chamber – I set firm resolve to avoid another repeat of what had happened with Phobos and Deimos’ rushed first night. Tonight, I would try to put her at as much ease as I possibly could. Make her first experience as painless as possible.

Reaching my destination, I was just about to knock when the door to the room swung open with force and a red-faced Phobos rushed out of it. If not for both of our reflexes, we would have crashed into each other. Instead, I managed to hold her shoulders and curb her momentum.

“Whoa. Slow down, girl. What’s the rush?”

Looking up at me with burning cheeks, Phobos poked me in my chest with each word to emphasize her point. “Don’t. Go. Easy. On. Her… Give it to her, hard.”

Then she turned on her heel and strode away, leaving an extremely bewildered me behind. Entering the room and closing the door behind me, I heard the sounds of running water coming from the attached bathroom. Artemis was taking a bath.

Settling down upon the bed to wait, I rubbed the back of my head in confusion. “What the hell?”

---

As the warm water from the shower cascaded down upon her, washing the fatigue of the hectic day away, Artemis wondered why she had lied to Phobos. She was a Princess at the end of the day. Even if her female co-workers had found her attractive (They had… and they hadn’t shied away from letting her know...) they hadn’t had the courage to invite her to their beds.

Growing up, she had received the same sex education as her peers and developed the same curiosity towards the other gender. But her peculiar circumstances meant that she had a definite dearth of partners to sate that curiosity with. Those who were willing, she didn’t want to involve herself with as they were way too enmeshed in her social circle to have a fling with. And those whom she thought appropriate didn’t dare shoulder the ire of her parents for a single night’s indiscretion.

Even women, who she thought might be more amenable to her advances than men, refused her on the grounds that a relationship with her might tarnish their marks. In the end, it was to the point that unless she wanted to mess around with Venus, there wasn’t a single other option available to her.

So, she had shrugged and given up. After all, she wasn’t desperate enough to lay hands on her own little sister. Sex was something she had relegated far into the future. Something to be thought about after her world-changing goals had been reached.

Then why had she suddenly reacted to Phobos in such a sexually charged manner today? Even lying to her and implying that she was quite experienced?

She sighed and turned off the shower. Stretching her wings out, she vibrated the feathers at a high frequency to shake the water off them before walking over to the rack and picking up the towel.

If she was being honest with herself, then she knew why. It was because she felt challenged by the younger girl. The way Phobos looked at her with those hungry yellow eyes of hers made her feel like a prey being stalked by a predator. And she didn’t like that feeling one bit. Her bloodline detested it.

So, she had reacted aggressively, turning the tables on the panther-girl.

Wiping herself off with the towel, she sighed again. And where exactly had that gotten her? In bed with the girl sometime in the near future, was where.

Pulling on her underwear and hooking her bra, she donned the rather titillating sleepwear (probably of Phobos’ choosing) that had been laid out for her tonight. A sleeveless, silken shift in a sultry shade of red, whose bottom didn’t even reach halfway down her thighs. Backless to accommodate her wings.

Walking up to the mirror and wiping the steam off it, she studied her reflection. A face laden with nervousness and anticipation stared right back at her.

Well, her tryst with Phobos was a matter for tomorrow. A much more pressing issue loomed above her right now. Tonight, was to be her first night with Mars – her husband.

She wasn’t bonded to her sword anymore. She had felt that connection shatter as another, much stronger one took its place as Mars had inked their marking on her back, between her shoulder blades. Until today she had believed that her bond with her sword was just as binding as the one between a man and a woman. But it was only after experiencing both that she knew herself to be wrong.

They were incomparable. If one was a mere puddle, then the other was as vast as the oceans themselves. She couldn't imagine anything that could sunder such a bond without gouging out a huge chunk of the very essence of the individuals it connected.

At least, not forcefully from the outside.

From the interior, though, the bond was a fragile thing. Darkening and fading with the ebb and flow of its bearers’ emotions.

She turned around, her back facing the mirror. Reaching behind her back, she swept her hair to one side, uncovering her freshly marked skin. Turning her head, she caught sight of it with some difficulty.

Intricate lines came together to form a majestic falcon with its wings spread locked in eternal battle with a fierce tiger. While at the same time, they spelt out the words ‘inverse heaven’ in the looping letters of the old language.

The mark was symbolic of their first meeting on the grounds of the Duel Arena as well as of the unconventional combination of her bloodline and element. She was a Pluma, but her affinity was to the earth – the inverse heaven.

Mentally she commended Mars’ placement of the mark. This way, she could choose to either hide it or put it on display with a simple change of hairstyle.

Right now, the mark was a bright shade of red. It wasn’t fading away, but it wasn’t completely dark either. A middle ground. Artemis let her hair fall back into place, covering the mark. That was something to work on.

“Well, Artemis,” she told her reflection. “It’s time to see how well you do in this battlefield.”

Taking a deep breath, straightening her back, and pushing out her chest… the self-assured First Princess of Regiis was back. Crossing the room in a few confident strides, she unlatched the door and stepped out of the bathroom to greet the night.