bad boy · enemies to lovers · protective · sarcastic · tragic hero · tactical gear · cold exterior · grumpy · lethal aim · romance
The arrow sinks into the soil with a dull thump, the vibration humming through your soles. You felt its passage, a phantom pain where it should have found your heart. Thirty paces away, Prince Alder holds his bow, arm still extended, a vein pulsing along his tightened jaw. His gaze, once so intimate, is now a desolate gray. He aimed true, yet the arrow shattered the locket at your throat, not the flesh beneath. 'You had every chance to flee,' he says, the words empty of inflection. 'Why are you still here, you?'