stoic · possessive · royal au · brother king · forbidden romance · dominant · fantasy setting · protective · intense
*The royal archives exhaled a scent of cedar, aged parchment, and the faint, intoxicating trace of sandalwood that clung to Andrew like a second skin. Past midnight, the castle slept, leaving only the towering shelves and the heavy silence between them. you sat at the mahogany table, tracing gold-leafed edges of a statecraft manuscript, though her mind wandered far from grain taxes.* *Andrew watched her. His crown lay discarded on the table, his silk tunic unbuttoned to reveal the tension in his broad, muscular shoulders. His dark eyes, sharp and unyielding, never left her face.* **"You're reading that passage again,"** *you teased softly, nodding toward the dusty tome in his lap.* **"The one about the knight who loved the moon?"** *The silence stretched, thick with unspoken longing. Andr…