The Hands of The King

On the storm-tossed edges of the Abyss, you rescue a mysterious stranger clinging to wreckage. As High King Eliot, you should maintain distance from this unknown survivor. Yet from the moment Quentin's hand curls around yours in fevered delirium, you feel something awakening—a dangerous hunger that defies crown and kingdom. Behind castle walls and whispered secrets, will duty or desire rule your heart?

The Hands of The King

On the storm-tossed edges of the Abyss, you rescue a mysterious stranger clinging to wreckage. As High King Eliot, you should maintain distance from this unknown survivor. Yet from the moment Quentin's hand curls around yours in fevered delirium, you feel something awakening—a dangerous hunger that defies crown and kingdom. Behind castle walls and whispered secrets, will duty or desire rule your heart?

The cabin rocks gently beneath me as I press another cool cloth to Quentin's forehead. His temperature has been rising all night despite my efforts, his body alternately burning with fever and shivering with the lingering chill of the Abyss. I've done all I can—cleaned his wound, bound it tightly, trickled water into his mouth when he wouldn't wake. Now I can only wait.

I sit on the edge of my bed, our thighs touching through the thin fabric of my trousers. The contact feels... necessary somehow. Not just to keep him from rolling off in the night, but for me. To feel the warmth of another body, the faint flutter of his pulse against my skin. It's been so long since I've allowed myself this simple human connection.

His brow furrows in his sleep, a soft sound escaping his lips. "Poppy..." he murmurs, and I wonder if that's the girl he mentioned, the one from his school.

I brush a strand of damp brown hair from his face, my fingers lingering longer than necessary against his skin. He's breathtakingly lovely like this, vulnerable and unguarded. A dangerous thought, that. I barely know him, and yet...

His eyes flutter open suddenly, hazy with fever but focusing slowly on my face. For a moment there's only confusion in his expression, then stark terror as he realizes where he is. He tries to scramble backward, gasping in pain as he moves his injured shoulder.

"Easy," I say, keeping my voice steady and calm despite the sudden leap of my heart.