The Regent's Knight

Chapter 1-2

Growing up, Amery had been given free reign throughout the castle. The only son of the King of Pharr, prince in title, and soon to be regent himself, nothing stood in Amery’s path. Whenever his tutors released him from his studies, he ran like a wild child through the castle, footsteps ringing off the stone floors, boyish laughter shrill in otherwise quiet corridors. He’d race through the gardens, around the stables, happy to be free from the dry books and dusty men his father hired to teach him.

During his tenth year, he grew mischievous and daring, testing the limits of his father’s—and the servants’—patience. On the first clear day of spring, the winter air had finally begun to warm up a bit, and nature’s siren-like call grew impossible for the young prince to ignore. He’d ventured out into the stables and found a small toad, which he brought back to the castle and tucked into the linens to tease a young chambermaid. As her shrieks chased him from the castle, Amery sprinted into the garden, his mind already wandering to his next trick…

The sound of clashing swords stopped him short.

Beneath an old weathered oak, four boys brandished weapons at each other, swinging short, blunt broadswords in dangerous arcs. They were all equally mismatched—a tall, thin kid fought against a big, brawny guy and, dueling beside them, a sturdy boy twice Amery’s height battled a short, squat kid. Their blades flashed in the dappled sunlight as Amery approached, mesmerized. When he came within earshot and they still hadn’t noticed him, he called out, “I am the Prince of Pharr.”

The thin, gawkish boy staggered back beneath the weight of his larger opponent’s blade. “So?” he sneered. “Go away. You’ll get hurt.”

Amery ignored the command. “I’ll not. Let me fence with you. I’m Amery. And you are…?”

From the other duo of duelers, the taller boy laughed. Amery found his whole body prickling at the sound, so sudden, so carefree. He wondered what he had said to elicit that laugh, and what he could possibly say to hear it again.

In a deep voice that had already changed to that of a man’s, the boy called out, “The prince has asked you a question, Loh. Best answer it before you incur his wrath.”

The boy called Loh snorted, derisive. “Yeah.”

When he said nothing further, Amery cleared his throat, lest they forget he was there. “Loh, is it? Are you guys knights?”

“Gonna be,” Loh’s opponent said. Sweat dripped from the boy’s dark hair, wetting down the start of a thick beard he already wore despite his young age. “That’s Lohden. He’s ignorant, don’t mind him.”

“Am not.” With the flat of his blade, Lohden slapped his sword against his beefy opponent’s arm. “You’re the ignorant one, Berik. You’d lie with anything for a moment’s pleasure. I heard they found you in the stables this morning…oof!”

Berik’s sword came down hard, the face behind it clenched like a fist. “You take that back! I was visiting the stable maid.”

Beside them, the handsome boy laughed again. Amery’s heart soared to hear him, and without realizing it, he drew nearer to their fight. “Loh’s just jealous,” the boy said, the tease sharp in his voice. “The horses won’t even look at him.”

“You’re next, Tove,” Lohden swore. “Once I best this beast…”

Berik’s rumbled laughter filled the garden like thunder. Ignoring it, the boy called Tove glanced at Amery over his shoulder. “I apologize for not bowing, Your Highness, but as you can see, you caught us in the midst of battling for our honor.”

“Please,” Amery said, feeling the heat rise in his cheeks, “just Amery.”

Those deep eyes twinkled with mirth. “Well,” he said, “‘just Amery,’ I’m Tovin. My less than worthy opponent is Giles.”

“Hey!” The short boy he fenced with bristled as he tried to raise to his full height. Amery snickered—the kid wasn’t an inch taller than he himself.

They were teenagers, all four of them, young knights in training. Almost instantly, the prince took a liking to the boys, older than himself and already immortal in his eyes. As they turned back to their swordplay, Amery watched in fascination—the motions their bodies made, the swings of their blades, the deft maneuvering that allowed their swords to dance against each other in a clatter of steel…

Sweat beaded on Tovin’s brow; his eyes were narrowed, his teeth bared, as he advanced with quick, hard thrusts that his opponent couldn’t parry fast enough. Amery found himself inching closer, holding his breath as he watched the fight between Tovin and Giles. Something inside him screwed up like a bolt in a crossbow, drawn tighter and tighter as he watched the boys, and when the rounded end of Tovin’s blade finally glanced off Giles’s chest, the young prince whooped in victory. “Yes!”

As he crowed, Giles lunged forward, a scowl on his pug-like face. “Shut it, you!”

Before his blade could touch Amery, Tovin’s sword knocked it clear. The tall boy stepped between his friend and the prince. “Giles,” he spat. Amery saw his shoulders shake with suppressed rage. “Do you know who this is?”

Giles didn’t answer. Beside them, Lohden and Berik stopped fighting, drawn to the quiet command in Tovin’s low voice. “How dare you strike the prince.”

“I didn’t,” Giles started. He looked around, helpless, but at that moment, Lohden and Berik seemed to find the grass and the sky much more interesting and refused to meet his gaze. Turning to Tovin, he tried to explain, “I was just kidding. This sword wouldn’t cut a loaf of bread, Tove. You know that. I wouldn’t—”

“Then don’t,” Tovin snapped.

One hand reached around behind his back, feeling for Amery. Without thinking, the prince caught Tovin’s hand and gave the fingers a tight, reassuring squeeze before letting go. There was a promise in that touch, a vow of protection that Amery intuitively understood. In that instant, they became friends.

Years later, when that friendship deepened into something more, something Amery had to hide from his father and the rest of the kingdom, he would be able to trace his feelings for Tovin to that moment in time. The love that smothered him from the inside, that made it difficult to breathe in the knight’s presence, that made him cry out with lust and passion and need whenever they coupled, everything he loved about the man, everything he wanted in him, from him, and more—all those emotions led back through their shared experiences, their shared lives, to coalesce in that one single touch.

* * * *

At the hands of those young knights, Amery learned more than all his royal tutors ever managed to instill in their years of training him to ascend the throne. Lohden Krale, a gangly boy with short blonde hair and a braying laugh, was the youngest of the group, but still two years Amery’s senior. Tovin was next, thirteen when Amery met him. Then came Berik Brohm, a year older, bear-like, with a roving eye for anything that moved—man, woman, or beast, to hear Lohden tell it. At sixteen, Giles Shanely was the oldest, but the runt of the bunch, and always the first to tease Amery. Time and again, his thinly veiled threats were parried aside by Tovin.

Tovin.

The broad shoulders that looked menacing on Berik were strong and sure on Tovin. His smooth, muscled chest tapered into a narrow waist above slim, lean hips. He had a head full of unruly corkscrews the color of river sand and deep eyes like sapphires. Whenever he looked at Amery, those eyes seemed to light up from within, and a slow, easy smile would spread across his handsome face, igniting a spark deep in the young prince’s heart.

Every touch from Tovin, every smile, every wink helped fan the flame set deep within the regent that first day they met. He’d gladly weather a hundred of Lohden’s stupid laughs, or any number of Giles’s barbed comments, if only for a chance to see Tovin’s smile or hear his voice again. Without even realizing it, he’d fallen in love.