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M/M, Historical Romance, Friends-to-Lovers [Coming Feb 13, 2025 / 8,000 Words] Apple / BN / Kobo / SW / All Buy Links As chamberlain to the sixth son of the royal family, Lirren's relationship with Prince Ector has always been unorthodox. Theirs is a longstanding friendship, as irreverent as it is improper, a devotion that cannot be denied. When a childish scuffle escalates to reveal uncomfortable truths, Lirren is shocked by his own reaction. Confusion, fascination, desire: suddenly he is craving intimacies he's never considered before, with an urgency that leaves him breathless. But Lirren isn't the only one wanting scandalous things. Ector started this. Now Lirren just needs to persuade him to see it through. Even while he fails to put a stop to the absurd escapade, Lirren recognizes that this is not the sort of thing a chamberlain ought to be doing with his prince. On the other hand, surely there's no harm in a bit of roughhousing between two grown men, behind closed doors where no one can see them behaving like unruly children. Plus, Prince Ector—sixth out of the kingdom's seven heirs, mischievous and brash, with no fear of ever actually inheriting the throne—started it. By deliberately spilling a goblet of water down the back of Lirren's shirt. Never mind what might have provoked him to such an act of spite. Lirren is clearly the wronged party here. This behavior is still ridiculous. It's a display beneath both of their stations, royalty and high-ranking servant alike, and they ought to scrounge up a scrap of decorum between them. But then, surely Prince Ector—a man perfectly capable of maintaining the gravitas and dignity of his position, at least when he's not letting Lirren rile him up—should be the one to declare a truce. He's in charge, after all. Ector is Lirren's prince, his employer, not to mention the man to whom Lirren is more fiercely loyal than he ever intends to admit. Lirren is just a servant, albeit one who gets away with insolence Ector would tolerate from no one else. They've always had a strange relationship. Lirren reflects on this, as he scrambles and squirms and tries to keep from being pinned. The stone floor is uncomfortable beneath his back, cool in the absence of a hearth fire, especially given the damp material of his tunic. But Lirren is breathless with laughter and can't bring himself to care. Ector looks delighted too, the sharp lines of his face softened with humor, eyes bright with cunning, thick eyebrows raised so high his forehead has gone crinkly. Lirren sputters an indignant gasp when Ector pulls his hair, a blatant attempt to bully him into stillness. "That's cheating!" Lirren protests, wriggling in defiance of the cheap maneuver. Ector already has an unfair advantage, considering the warrior's bulk he's grown fully into after his years of clumsy youth. Lirren is all gangly limbs by comparison, small and quick but no match for the prince's strength, though he's at least a year older. Lirren has never known his own exact age, but at something like twenty-three years, he's long past hoping for a growth spurt. More than once, Ector has offered him combat training. Though Lirren will never be a knight, he wouldn't be the only member of the royal household given special privileges in that regard. But his duties keep him far too busy. Despite Ector's modest rank within the royal family, the prince maintains an even busier schedule than his numerous older siblings, balancing duty as a knight alongside diplomacy and the local responsibilities that come with managing a kingdom and a castle. And when Ector is busy, Lirren is kept busy right alongside him. Some days, they see more of each other than of anyone else in their respective lives. Perhaps this makes it inevitable that they should be close. After practically growing up together—Lirren remembers only distantly the time he spent as a stableboy before coming to work for Ector—how could they fail to become friends, after a fashion? Ector has confessed more than once, in quiet moments when the two of them are alone—when Ector is in the earnest mood that sometimes follows a difficult day—that Lirren feels more like a brother to him than any of his actual siblings. Lirren never knows how to respond to this, let alone how he feels about it. He never knew his own family. He's never had a brother. But if he did, he can't imagine their relationship would be anything at all like the way he feels for Ector. Throughout this unhelpful distraction of thoughts, Lirren continues to put up the best fight he can. It's a hopeless battle. He can feel himself losing what little leverage he's managed to cling to, what little advantage his quickness and unpredictability have held so far. Ector's got a hand firmly around his wrist now, and is pinning him so easily on his back that Lirren's pride gives a plaintive pulse. Then the grip on Lirren's wrist abruptly unwinds and Ector's center of gravity shifts. Not much. Just a little. Just enough for Lirren to give a hard shove and upend him, reversing their positions with startling ease. He doesn't stop until he's sitting astride Ector's stomach, knees digging into ribs as his hands curl tightly in the loose fabric of Ector's tunic. The shirt is softer than any of Lirren's own rough-spun garments, but it's not the texture of the material that interrupts his triumphant grin. It's the tense planes of Ector's chest beneath his hands—the undeniable strength—the immovable wall of muscle that, no matter what happened to Ector's center of gravity, should not have allowed Lirren the victory he just achieved. "Did you just let me win?" Lirren demands, affronted. His eyes narrow and he glares down, ready to insist that he's not a fool and he doesn't need Ector's pity. He's so prepared for denial that he blinks in confusion when instead Ector answers, blunt and without elaboration, "Yes." There is something strange in the caginess of Ector's answer, and in the way he has gone abruptly and completely pliant. His arms rest on the stone floor to either side of his head, a pose of such deliberate surrender that Lirren can't make sense of it. Ector never gives up on a challenge, no matter how ridiculous or immature. Not from his brothers, not from his fellow knights, and certainly not from Lirren. Now, staring down at his prince, Lirren tries to conjure up some reason Ector might leave off their impromptu wrestling match so close to victory. When he fails to imagine any plausible reason, Lirren furrows his brow and spreads his palms flat across the prince's broad chest. "Why?" Ector's answering smirk looks too deliberate. "Maybe your efforts were so feeble I couldn't bear to watch you struggle." Then, after a hitching hesitation, "Go on, Lirren. Get up. We've both got obligations that won't be helped by rolling around on my chamber floor." Apple / BN / Kobo / SW / All Buy Links |
Cover design by Yolande Kleinn ISBN 978-1-946316-55-4 |