Living in a four-by-four wooden box was rapidly deteriorating my Lordly mystique.
It had been three days since the heated-floor catastrophe. My back was locked in a permanent, agonizing slouch. My knees clicked every time I walked. I smelled faintly of wet straw and old lye soap, no matter how much warm water I splashed on my face in the mornings.
It was mid-afternoon. The Keep was relatively quiet. I had sneaked away from the Great Hall under the guise of "reviewing the seasonal ledgers," desperately needing a nap to fix my pounding headache.
I checked the dark corridor to make sure it was empty, quickly opened the supply closet, folded my mattress in half, and crawled into the dark, freezing wooden box. I pulled my knees to my chest, closed the heavy door, and closed my eyes, listening to the soft, rhythmic scratching of the rats in the walls.
Just ten minutes, I told myself. Just ten minutes of sleep.
Suddenly, the wooden latch clicked.
The heavy door swung open, flooding my tiny, miserable sanctuary with harsh torchlight.
I blinked against the sudden brightness, completely blinded. As my eyes adjusted, two silhouettes filled the doorway.
It was Elara and Sienna. They were holding wooden buckets and dusting rags, clearly on their afternoon cleaning rotation.
They stood frozen in the doorway, staring down at me. I was curled up like a pathetic, freezing shrimp on a taco-folded mattress, wearing my Lordly velvet coat, surrounded by three wooden mops and a bucket of dried soap.
The silence stretched for five agonizing seconds.
"My Lord," Elara said slowly, her voice laced with absolute bewilderment. "Are you... living with the mops?"
My mind raced. My pride was on the line. I couldn't let them know I had ruined my own bedroom because I didn't know how chimneys worked.
"I am conducting a structural integrity audit of the cedar paneling," I lied flawlessly, my voice muffled by my own knees. "The cold preserves the wood. Close the door, please."
Sienna looked at Elara. Elara looked at Sienna.
The 'simp-hustler' personas they used for the tavern completely vanished. A slow, knowing, highly predatory smirk spread across Elara's face. She looked at the freezing stone walls of the closet, and then down at my shivering, cramped form.
"It looks very cold in there, Lord Elaric," Elara murmured. She tossed her dusting rag into the hallway.
"A Lord should not freeze," Sienna agreed, setting her wooden bucket down outside the door. She rolled her broad, athletic shoulders back. "He requires proper thermal insulation. For his health."
Before I could say another word, Elara stepped into the closet.
The four-by-four box was designed for brooms, not humans. The moment Elara stepped in, there was absolutely zero space left. She had to press her bare, muscular thighs directly against my legs just to fit.
"Wait," I gasped, suddenly completely overwhelmed by the sharp, intoxicating scent of her working sweat and the sheer, radiating heat of her body. "What are you doing? There is no room—"
"Make room," Sienna whispered.
Sienna squeezed into the closet right behind Elara. She reached backward and grabbed the heavy wooden door, pulling it completely shut.
The closet plunged back into pitch blackness.
But it wasn't freezing anymore. The temperature in the tiny wooden box spiked instantly. With three adult bodies crammed into sixteen square feet, the air was immediately thick, heavy, and sweltering.
I couldn't move my arms. I couldn't move my legs. I was pinned against the back wall, completely surrounded by the heavy, scratchy wool of their shortened dresses and the searing heat of their skin.
"Sienna, your elbow is in my ribs," Elara whispered in the dark, her voice husky and breathless. She shifted her weight, her thigh sliding heavily over my knee.
"I can't move backward," Sienna breathed. She shifted forward, her chest pressing firmly against my shoulder. "The Lord's mattress is in the way."
"The mattress is staying right where it is," I managed to say, my heart suddenly hammering against my ribs.
The claustrophobia was completely intoxicating. Every single tiny movement they made in the pitch black resulted in a heavy, unavoidable friction. If Elara breathed, her chest brushed against mine. If Sienna adjusted her footing, her muscular leg pressed into my hip. The complete lack of vision amplified every single sensory detail to an agonizing, electric degree.
"You are shivering, My Lord," Elara whispered. In the dark, I felt her hot breath against my neck. Her hand, calloused from lifting heavy tavern tables, slowly slid up my chest in the cramped space, her fingers curling into the fabric of my shirt.
"I'm warming up," I rasped, my hands blindly finding the frayed edges of their wool dresses in the dark.
"Good," Sienna murmured from the other side, her hands pressing flat against my shoulders to brace herself in the tight space. "Because the floors in your bedroom are going to take a very long time to cure. We should probably establish a permanent heating schedule."
Elara let out a soft, heavy exhale in the dark, leaning her entire body weight against me.
The rats in the walls could scratch all they wanted. The King could get overthrown every Tuesday for the rest of his life. I closed my eyes in the sweltering, pitch-black heat of the tiny closet, surrounded by my two S-tier maids, and made a firm, Lordly decision.
I was never, ever fixing that bedroom floor.