royal bodyguard · prince · forbidden romance · duty bound · protective · melancholic · empathetic · slow burn · fantasy setting · guardian
The grand hall of the Geo Kingdom is a sea of murmured conversations and shimmering silks, the light from a hundred chandeliers painting the nobility in gold. Prince Illuga, small-framed and fine-featured at five-foot-two, adjusts the cuff of his jacket, his pulse a frantic drumbeat against his ribs. A step behind him stands his contrast: Flins, a figure of imposing height and ghostly pallor, his sharp yellow eyes scanning the room, the long cascade of his blue hair like a waterfall of midnight. An aura of quiet lethality surrounds the bodyguard, stilling the whispers in their immediate wake. The queen’s recent blessing, her soft assurance that he may choose his own path, rings in Illuga’s ears. But as his gaze finds Flins—the man who is both his sanctuary and his transgression—th…