Page 20 of A Chill in the Flame
He’d never met the princess, save for the occasions where the royal guard had been summoned in its entirety to appear before the royal family. She’d seemed informal compared to the firstborn heir, but surely, her reputation couldn’t be nearly as bad as the gossip that rippled through the ranks.
“Harland, I take it?” A fae man in his seventh century of life offered a casual salute as a greeting. “I’m August.”
“Caris’s personal bodyguard,” Harland noted. August smiled apologetically in response. Perhaps the regrets stemmed from the permanence of August’s position; meanwhile, the turnover rate in watching Ophir had provided unprecedented advancement for Harland. He knew that no one expected him to last, but he didn’t let their doubt deter him. Her previous guards had been quite old, after all. Perhaps his youth would allow him more flexibility in adapting to her mercurial nature than their traditional ways.
“I hope to serve alongside you for many years to come,” Harland replied.
“I do too,” August said on an exhale. “For everyone’s sake.”
His first few days were uneventful. Promising, even. Ophir seemed content to remain confined to her rooms, leaving Harland to occupy himself in the hall with thoughts of lasting success in the castle. He spent two days, then five, then seven, wondering if Ophir was in fact a very well behaved heiress who’d been sorely misrepresented in public opinion.
Her looks certainly didn’t win her any favors when it came to demure conformity, and perhaps, he thought, an unfair culture had punished her for it.
Caris may have been conventionally lovely, but Ophir had the terrible, fierce beauty of a white-capped stormy sea, and she knew it. Her movements demanded respect and awe, even if the wise knew enough to fear her. Every expression she made was worthy of its own museum, he thought. Her bravery, her wit, her bold, clever disregard for convention were a natural disaster in a perfect, fae body.
He tried not to think such thoughts about her, but, if he wasn’t mistaken, she returned several too-long glances in the hall, a smirk as the door closed, a wink, once, unless he imagined it. The love between a princess and her guard was a fairytale in the making, he thought. He reminded himself for a week, then a month, then four months, that these thoughts would not serve him, but he had little to do aside from think. So he allowed himself the reprieve of his imagination.
Her gold-brown hair was a marvelous shade of caramel, with the sort of ochre, gilded eyes that demanded that anyone who looked upon them tumble, utterly lost, into their carefully interwoven depths. Her mouth was quick to reveal her impishness, both in speech and in the crooked way her lips would twitch with delight. She relied on her wit and charm, and they did not fail her.
Four months into his new position, he fell victim to her guiles.
“Harland?” She said his name with such innocence.
He was quick to respond. The man opened her door to see what she needed, abandoning his post in the hall.
“Would you help me with this?” She fidgeted with the buttons at the back of her bodice near her armoire.
Heat crept from his neck onto his cheeks. “I’ll fetch one of your maidservants, Your Highness.”
“That’s unnecessary. Please don’t bother them. Just shut the door behind you and give me a hand?” She made her voice so innocent, like cream and milk and sunlight. She twisted to look at him over a bare shoulder.
“I don’t know if I…”
“Just here,” she insisted, jiggling the top of her clasp. “Please.”
He obliged. His thumb grazed along the skin along the side of her throat as he summoned the sort of gentleness required for tiny clasps and fine bodices. He blushed at the unintentional intimacy, muttering his apologies at the touch, praying she couldn’t see how his manhood pressed against his pants.
“Oh, wait,” Ophir said quietly.
Harland froze, terrified he’d done something wrong.
“Lock the door, would you?”
She feigned fumbling with the bits that were meant to interlace as she beckoned him further into the room. Having locked the door, he returned to the space beside her with all of the gallant helpfulness of a knight and the discomfort of a saint.
“I really shouldn’t.” Harland’s voice was low as she grabbed his hand, guiding it to the buttons.
He’d barely begun to connect one side to the other when her hand met his again, this time to still him. She looked into his eyes until he felt his resolve melt. She twisted until she was facing him.
She lifted to her toes, parted her lips, and leaned toward him. It was an invitation, but he’d have to accept her bid.
Harland feigned resistance, though he did so in a way that begged her to see through his words, to read his body language, the want in his eyes.
It was a dance he needed to do. He made murmured excuses about his station that he longed for her to refute. He held the back of her neck while he breathed into her shoulder about how he couldn’t be with her, though his expression begged her to continue. He prayed her sensitive ears hadn’t heard the thundering change in his heartbeat when she pulled at the threads of his tunic. She dragged her fingers over his chest, then her mouth over his neck. He knew he was lost the moment her fingers ran along the seam of his britches. Her mouth moved to his neck, dragging the flames of hot kisses along his bare throat. He attempted one last utterance about duty, honor, and respect, all the while digging his fingers more deeply into her flesh and needing her to know that she could—and probably should—stop at any moment.
Harland wanted her. He knew it. She knew it. He hoped she knew he never would have so much as looked at her with disrespect, let alone live out his darkest, most passionate fantasies if she hadn’t initiated. But here he was.
Harland would be the first to admit that he’d been primed to fall.
