The Prince Watches His Shadow
Author’s Note: This part of the story is written from Prince Elias’s point of view.
It should have been nothing.
Just a touch. Barely even that. The brush of a thumb against fabric, the faintest pressure at my collarbone as Damian straightened the lapel of my jacket before I descended the ballroom stairs. A professional gesture. Routine.
And yet….I hadn’t stopped thinking about it since.
Not the touch itself, but the way it lingered afterward. How I’d felt it for hours, even as I smiled for photographs and shook hands with donors whose names I would never remember. My body had betrayed me, cataloguing every detail. The size of his hand, broad and sure. The warmth of his skin, even through layers of silk and cotton. The calm steadiness in his eyes, so infuriatingly unshaken, as though he hadn’t noticed that my heart had kicked against my ribs like I’d just sprinted the palace gardens.
It was nothing. It should have been nothing.
And yet it was everything.
The next morning I tried to smother the thought under habit. A prince doesn’t dwell. He moves forward. He works, he smiles, he obeys the rhythm of court.
Except I found myself doing something I rarely did: watching.
Not the parliament, not the endless stack of documents requiring my seal. I watched him.
Damian Holt. My aide. My shadow.
He stood at the far side of the chamber, positioned with military precision. Straight-backed, dark suit tailored to his frame but never constraining it. A soldier dressed as a secretary. Always alert, eyes scanning the room with focus.
I told myself I watched because I was annoyed. He unsettled me. He refused to flatter, refused to bend. He wasn’t like the others, and that should have irritated me enough to make him forgettable.
But instead, I noticed things. Stupid things. Things I had no business noticing.
The way his jacket pulled tight across his shoulders whenever he shifted. The way his forearm flexed subtly when he adjusted his cuff. The faint scar near his wrist, pale against tanned skin.
His hands…fuck, his hands.
They weren’t court hands. Not delicate or polished, not softened by leisure. They were veined and scarred, the knuckles rough. Soldier’s hands. Hands that looked like they’d broken bones and steadied triggers. And yet last night, those same hands had brushed the silk of my collar as gently as if it were glass.
I tried to smirk it away, hiding behind sarcasm even in my own mind. Infuriatingly serious. He probably irons his socks. But the joke didn’t hold, because the truth was lodged too deep: those hands did something to me.
And when he leaned over my desk later that day, pointing something out on a briefing document….
I forgot to breathe.
His body was close enough that I caught the scent of him, faint but unmistakable. Soap, leather, the ghost of steel. Clean, sharp, undeniably male. His shoulder brushed mine as he shifted the paper, his sleeve tugging back just enough to reveal the ridge of veins trailing across his wrist.
I stared. I actually stared. Me. Prince Elias of Corwin. Reduced to watching the way his veins shifted when he tapped the page with a finger.
He spoke…something about the schedule, the security risk, the names of attendees. I didn’t hear a word. I was too busy watching the way his lips formed the syllables, the way his jaw tightened when he concentrated.
And then he looked up.
Our eyes met.
The silence stretched, charged, heavy in a way I’d never felt before. His breath brushed my cheek. My pulse thundered, loud enough I wondered if he could hear it.
I smirked to cover it, leaning back lazily in my chair. “Careful, Holt. People will start thinking you actually enjoy this job.”
His expression didn’t change. Calm, unreadable. But his eyes…God, his eyes didn’t move from mine. Not until I looked away first.
I told myself it was harmless. Just curiosity. A game. The same game I’d always played with the people sent to watch me, only now the board was different.
But that night, when the corridors had emptied and the palace had quieted to a hush, I couldn’t resist.
We walked back toward my chambers in silence. His footsteps followed mine at the exact same measured distance as always. Always there. Always steady.
It should have annoyed me. It always had before. Tonight, though, I felt a pull instead of irritation. A pulse of heat in the quiet.
Halfway down the corridor, I stopped. His footsteps stopped too.
I turned slowly, deliberately. He was a few paces behind, dark suit catching the dim glow of the chandeliers, broad shoulders cutting an imposing silhouette against marble walls.
For a moment I just looked at him. Really looked. The sharp carve of his cheekbones, the faint sheen of sweat gathered at his temple, the rigid discipline etched into his stance. Even standing still, he radiated a kind of danger; not wild or reckless, but contained, caged, waiting.
My gaze slipped lower, unbidden. The strong line of his throat, the way his collar gaped open by the smallest margin, revealing skin flushed from the heat of the palace corridors. The faint pulse there, steady and restrained. My stomach tightened, coiling with something I had no business feeling.
I let the silence stretch, until the air between us grew taut and fragile. He didn’t move, didn’t fidget, didn’t drop his eyes. He only watched me with that unyielding steadiness, the kind that made my chest itch, my palms twitch.
I stepped closer. Not enough to touch, but enough to feel it; the hum of his presence wrapping around me like heat. His scent caught me then, maddeningly clean and sharp, tinged with leather and something darker, something sweat-warmed and alive. It slid into my chest before I could stop it, and my pulse skipped recklessly.
His jaw tightened. His eyes tracked me as if measuring every inch I stole.
I leaned in, just a fraction, close enough to feel the whisper of his breath against my skin. Close enough that I knew he could smell me too… the faint trace of bergamot I wore, the polished veneer I cultivated. I wanted him to notice. Wanted him to falter.
His breath hitched. Just slightly. Subtle enough that anyone else would have missed it. But I didn’t. I felt it.
“I can’t tell if having you this close makes me safer…” I whispered, my lips grazing the air just above his ear, “or if you’re the danger I should be guarded from.” I let the words linger, soft but deliberate.
The silence snapped taut, hot, electric.
For the briefest moment, I thought I felt him lean or maybe it was only my imagination, hungry to believe he did.
I pulled back before he could breathe a reply. My mouth curved into a smirk, practiced and sharp, like it all meant nothing. Like I hadn’t just set fire to the air between us.
And then I turned, walking the rest of the corridor without a glance back, though my chest was tight, my pulse reckless.
Behind me, I could feel him standing still. Jaw locked, unreadable. But I knew.
I knew I’d gotten under his skin.
And for the first time, I wasn’t sure who was really doing the testing anymore.
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