1 Chapter 1

Prince Amery Llewellen, heir to the throne of Pharr, heard the fanfare as each of his knights arrived at the castle. But he waited for the knock on his chamber door before rousing himself from his pensive stance by the fire. “Come in,” he said, turning as his young page entered. “Well?”

“They’re here, Your Highness.” The boy bowed low before the regent, his long blond-white ponytail sliding over one shoulder. His hair paled against the blue and silver cloak he wore that matched Amery’s ornate coverlet.

Amery frowned to belay the sudden excitement coursing through his veins. His old friends had responded to his summons, as he had expected. As he’d hoped.“All of them?”

Of course, all of them, he chided silently. He’d counted four separate trumpets before the sun set, had he not?

Still, the boy nodded in confirmation. “Yes, Your Highness,” he said. “Sir Giles from the westlands, Sir Berik from the north, Sir Lohden—”

“And Sir Tovin?”

Watch it, Amery warned himself. No one’s to know, and you’ll damage all the two of you have carefully built over the years just because you’re too eager to see him again. You know the servants talk. You’ve heard the whispered rumors when they think you don’t hear. You don’t need to confirm that gossip.

Scowling to cover his emotions, Amery glared at the page and spat, “I’m sure he’shere, as well.”

“He is,” the boy confirmed. Glancing up at the regent, he frowned slightly, as if he bore bad news, then in a rush, he whispered, “They’re in the drawing room, Your Highness. The maids fear there will be words between you and Sir Tovin again, like last time.”

Amery grinned. Last time…how long had it been since he’d seen the knight from the southland? A few months, easily. The last time, Tovin Raimus had come to the castle under the pretense of defense plans for the southern border, but he and Amery had spent more time hidden in the bedroom than the war room. Only the servants don’t know that.All the chambermaids had heard were angry shouts and loud arguments that rang through the halls, a scuffle here, a fistfight there, anything to keep them from suspecting that their regent spent his nights in the arms of his favorite knight.

And admit it, Amery told himself, straightening his coverlet. You like the fights. They turn you on—they turn you BOTH on. It’s so much sweeter when you must kiss and make up.

Everyone in the kingdom knew of the “bad blood” between Prince Amery and Sir Tovin; their fights were legendary, at times ringing through the castle halls and spooking the servants into hiding. The arguments had started early, just after Amery came of an age to assume the throne, and had only grown worse in the years since his father, King Adin, had disappeared among the battles to the north. As long as no one suspected it was all a farce, Amery saw no reason to change the common belief.

“Your Highness?” his page prompted. Amery roused himself from his musing, frowning into the flames that guttered low in the fireplace as he smoothed his hands down the front of his coverlet. “They’re waiting.”

“Right.”

Amery glanced at himself in the battered shield that hung above the fireplace. The shield and the sword displayed beneath it were all that remained of his father; they had been found on the battlefield two years prior, their bearer’s body still not recovered. The man of twenty-three summers who Amery saw reflected back in the shield was a mere shadow of the king—he often wondered how long he’d be able to hold off barbaric invaders his father couldn’t even control. King Adin had often spoken of putting the populace first, a trick Amery hadn’t yet learned. Yes, he loved the castle, with its opulence, its silent halls, its bevy of servants to wait on his every whim. He loved the throne, the position it gave him in others’ eyes, the way it straightened his spine. He’d proven himself a fair ruler, just and kind…‘accessible’ was how the people referred to him, his advisors said.

But his heart burned for one thing, one man, and he’d give up the castle and all its trappings, the throne, the entire land if he had to, if he could, just to make Sir Tovin his.

Running a quick hand through his long, smooth hair, as if a strand of the dark red thicket would dare stray out of place, Amery frowned at himself before turning away.Just have to keep up appearances until tonight, he thought as he followed the page from his chamber. Just until I can get Tovin alone again.

He couldn’t wait.

* * * *

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 freefrom 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, “Iam 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 lookat 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 knowwho this is?”

Giles didn’t answer. Beside them, Lohden and Berik stopped fighting, drawn to the quiet command in Tovin’s low voice. “How dareyou 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 needwhenever 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.

2

Thirteen years later, little had changed among the friends.

“Touché!”

Sir Tovin’s triumphant cry echoed off the stone walls of the drawing room as he brought his sword down on Sir Berik’s exposed neck. Commanding troops in the southland gave him little opportunity to gather with his old friends; to pass the time waiting for the regent, they’d decided to spar, to test each other’s mettle and see who reallywas the best knight of the kingdom. It was a familiar jest between them, a title Tovin secretly knew belonged to him, if the way he could make the regent beg for his touch in bed had any say in the matter.

The first round of the swordfight was Tovin and Berik; after a playful display, Tovin brought Berik to his knees under a barrage of quick, cutting blows. Now he stood over his friend and resisted the urge to rub in his victory. “I win. Next.”

“No fair,” Berik said, pushing the sword away. “Best of three, what do you say?”

Sir Giles slapped the back of Berik’s bushy head as he stepped onto the plush carpet they had dubbed the sparring field. The fact that Berik knelt was the only reason Giles could reach. “I say move your fat ass,” he snapped as he took an opening stance in front of Tovin. Raising his sword in a challenge, he added, “It’s my turn.”

Berik sighed and hauled himself to his feet. “Your ass is getting pretty chunky, too,” he said, tapping his sword against Giles’s backside.

Giles turned to swing at him, but Berik laughed and danced out of reach of his friend’s sword. “You would look,” Giles growled.

“I would,” Berik conceded. His conquests in the bedroom far outnumbered his triumphs on the battlefield, as he was the first to admit. Moving to the sidelines, he stood beside Sir Lohden, who was busy ignoring the whole lot of them, an open book in one hand that he tried desperately to concentrate on while the others sparred. Berik leaned over his friend’s shoulder and whispered loudly, “Now youhave a nice ass, Lohden.”

“Shut up,” Lohden told him. When Berik took a step closer, he added, “Touch my ass and die by my blade, knight.”

With a bored sigh, Tovin leaned on his sword. He’d hoped to beat all three of them before Amery made an appearance. “Are you guys quite through?”

“Quite,” Giles agreed. Leveling his sword at Tovin, he grinned. “En garde!”

Without further warning, he attacked. Tovin managed to get his own sword up between them and he parried the first thrust, but Giles came at him fast, using his small stature to his advantage. For a few breathless moments Tovin thought he would fall beneath the blade, and he gave ground until the carpet disappeared and the heels of his heavy boots rang off the stone floor. If he left the carpet completely, he’d have to concede the fight, and Giles was the older knight, more experienced, Tovin would give him that—

He heard the chamber door scrape open and from the corner of his eye saw the regent enter the room.Amery.At the sight of his lover, strength flooded his body, a sudden rush of adrenaline that gave him the edge he needed to push Giles back. I can’t lose now. I’ll never hear the end of it.Bad enough to be teased by his fellow knights, but by the regent himself? There’d be no end to the comments Amery would make in the bedroom.

The tide of the battle turned as Giles tried desperately to dodge his blows, but Tovin gave into the heat of the moment and the thought of lying in his lover’s arms later as a victor. He could almost feel the regent’s hand brush across his brow, twining through his shoulder-length hair, straightening his curls between those long, tapered fingers as they made love. That was all the edge he needed to turn the fight in his favor.

Behind him, Amery called out, “Gentlemen.” When no one responded, the regent clapped his hands to get their attention.

Not NOW.Tovin lunged for Giles. Not when I’m winning.