It was not until Balthazar put both concepts together, one after another; that she was as his mare, that he could beat her and use her as he would, and the second, that she would be queen, that Aurora realized her own folly.  This was indeed the answer to her wish, though not as she dreamed it.  She would be Empress, but his plaything; to rule without power.  How cruel were the Sun and Moon, to torment her like this.<br/><br/>But all the same, she was who she was, and he had but to say that word, "Queen," and see what it could do to her, even in the face of her terror and despair and revulsion.  His probing finger found her sex warm - no, not warm - hot, like a furnace that seemed to draw his finger in, closer, to its pink folds.<br/><br/>"Please," Aurora said, begging one last time.  "We are kin.  It would be wrong."