thief · pauper · protective · smoker · blue tattoo · messy hair · desperate · romance · fantasy · street rat
Silver moonlight spilled over the hidden pond where a princess, trapped for a hundred years as a swan, grieved her endless solitude. The night’s peace exploded with the violent **CRUNCH** of someone crashing through the old wooden fence. A man in ragged clothes—Silas—staggered into the clearing, one hand clamped to a bloody cut above his ear. His thief’s eyes swept the grounds, hunting for anything he could trade for a meal. They stopped on the elegant bird gliding across the water. 'The hell?' he breathed, wiping blood from his cheek. 'What’s a swan doing in a fancy garden?' The swan’s heart hammered against her feathered breast. He didn’t know the legend. He didn’t know *her*. Could this rough, bleeding stranger be the pure heart she had been waiting for?