Seduce Me in Flames Read Free Page A

terror that the imperial Allay line had been subjecting the Allay people to for so very long now.
    “My most beloved brother,” she said, picking up her prayer book and holding it tightly between her hands and pressed to the place beneath her breasts. Perhaps she was trying to keep from losing her breakfast more than being devotional, but whatever worked in the moment. “I would do anything to please Your Eminence, I beg you to know that. However, if I sign this document I will lose something that is very precious to me. Not my succession to the throne, because I have reconciled that loss, along with my mother’s loss of grace and loss of life, since I was four years old. Our … 
your
most esteemed father—”
    “He will be long remembered.”
    Ambrea had paused for the response, though she did not join in it.
    “—saw fit to outlaw my rights to the throne that same year. To sign this document now would surely be redundant. And even our father never asked me to give up the right to my name. I am still the Princess of Allay. I am still of his blood. The blood of this line. Take from me what you will, but I beg you to leave me my name.”
    “Insolent girl!” Her uncle surged out of the shadows, glaring down at her as rage shook through him. “You talk so prettily, but what you say is ripe with sedition. You bear no love for your brother.”
    “That is not true!” She rose to her feet, unwilling to kowtow to a man who did not deserve her obeisance. In the scheme of things, disinherited or no, she was his better and regal law dictated that he show her respect. “Where is your proof, my lord? Why do you hurl these accusations at me? What have I done to deserve them?”
    “Do not think this crown is not aware of your plots to seat yourself on the throne. Your father had no stomach for ordering your execution, but this regency does not have such scruples.”
    “My father knew me to be innocent of all the charges laid at my feet! He knew he would one day have to answer to the Great Being, as he now most certainly has, and our Divinity has surely seen the wisdom in the emperor’s ways and has shown him mercy.”
    “Your throat will be slit and your seditious tongue cut out before you can even reach that door, girl,” he threatened her coldly.
    “Will it? And how will you answer the charge of political assassination when the Interplanetary Militia comes looking for you?” She was just as cold and seemingly fearless as she stood up to an uncle who was clearly as bloodthirsty as his brother had been. “Will you soeasily put my brother’s new rule in jeopardy by making such a hasty mistake?”
    Her brother paled and looked anxiously at his regent.
    “Uncle, we cannot risk being censured by the IM,” he said nervously.
    There were many countries on the Three Worlds, each boasting an individual political structure. Long ago all of those countries had signed a treaty that had created the IM, the Interplanetary Militia, an elite armed force that operated independently of any of the countries or planets, yet within an agreed upon set of laws and parameters. The militia did not interfere in the political growth and changes of any individual country, but there were limitations to what the rulers of a country could do. Anything considered a crime against humanity or a blatant crime as set out in the IM’s charter would evoke a swift retaliatory reaction, and the IM would then have the power to restructure the political scene according to the legal succession or the democratic guidelines put in place by that particular country.
    That could mean—
    Ambrea shook the thought away before it could even be born. She had no energy to waste on fruitless supposition. Right then, she was fighting for her life. Her uncle did not hide his fury, but neither did he lose control of it.
    “The IM has no power to judge who we throw in our prisons.” He smiled meanly at Ambrea before instructing the guards. “Throw her in the