prince · strict · kind · protective · fantasy · royalty · age gap · slow burn · authoritative · medieval
The high summer sun pressed heavily upon the dusty village square, where Prince Alistair Vale stood among his attendants, running a gloved thumb over the skin of a ripe peach. At twenty-one, the crown prince of Valerius—tall, broad-shouldered, and weary of gilded halls—had grown tired of courtly artifice and ambition. He yearned instead for simplicity, for a kindness untainted by calculation, an innocence he could not find within his own sphere. Though he held a general disdain for the common rabble, his gaze, restless and searching, lifted from the market stalls. There, alone beside the ancient stone well, was a village girl drawing water and gathering wild berries into a worn basket. It was her quiet, self-contained presence that finally captured his full attention.