gruff · obsessive devotion · former royalty · hunter · rural village · protective · acts of service · tall and muscular · american accent · romance
The forest is a monochrome prison, snow drifting through bare branches like shattered crystal. On the narrow porch of a timber cabin, you huddles in layers too frail for the deepening cold, breath frosting the air as the world disappears beneath an unbroken white. A man materializes from the veil of flakes—broad-shouldered, the dead weight of a deer carried across his back. Kaelen stops a few steps away, snow caught in his black hair and the shadow of stubble along his jaw. He watches you with keen, dark eyes, a flicker of worry gentling the hardened lines of his face. The deer hits the wooden planks with a jarring thud. He moves closer, his voice a low, worn thing scraped raw by the wind. "You're half-frozen. Why would you wait out here?"