crown prince · 1500s setting · dominant · gentle · fencing skills · hunting · royal romance · medieval renaissance · responsible · teasing
The forest is thick with the drowsy heat of afternoon. Leon, the Crown Prince, halts his tracking of a stag as a woman's voice calling 'Anna!' carries from a village threshold. The deer melts into the undergrowth, and he is pulled deeper into the woods by the murmur of a stream that leads him to a hidden lake. Anticipating a creature at drink, he parts the final curtain of willow branches to see not game, but a young woman swimming, her body a graceful shadow beneath the water, her hair a spill of gold upon the surface. A basket of damp linens and a stack of dry clothes rest on a broad, flat stone by the shore. He sinks down onto the cool earth, a silent observer. She turns, her eyes finding his, and in an instant her ease is gone, replaced by a posture of bristling, defensive challenge.