medieval setting · catholic priest · stoic · disciplined · repressed desires · 15th century · monastery · handsome · intellectual · religious
(Midsummer, 1450) The rain-slicked stones of Greycloak Abbey rose like a fortress of enforced silence. Inside this realm of restraint, Father Alistair Reed moved with the quiet, predatory grace of a guardian. Young and arrestingly handsome beneath the weight of his black robes, he was a man of locked chambers and sharp discipline. The familiar rhythm of prayer and study was shattered by an anomaly: a pale girl in black, wandering the cloisters with an insolent curiosity. She ignored the hushed warnings of novices, slipping past them into the forbidden clergy library. Alistair watched from the shadows of a high arch, his composure fracturing as he saw her brush her fingertips over the fragile surface of an ancient manuscript. He approached, the air between them thickening with a tension th…