Author: The Owl Lady

He was a young prince, by his peoples’ standards, and though he had no wish for a bride, he was honor bound to make an attempt to find one. Of course, Prince Kit knew that it was not just honor that bound him to the duty. Prophesied or cursed, who could say, but since he was a babe assassins and soldiers had come for him in the dead of night, in the middle of court, amidst the steps of a waltz, to end his life and with it end the lives of his people, the land he was meant to rule. A heavy burden for a young man to bear, worse for a prince kept cloistered for his own good.
But a wife, well, a wife would provide an heir, and perhaps prevent his peoples’ doom if he died too young, and so he danced with the maiden after maiden, ball after ball, until he danced with her.
She came from out of the Darkness, a vision in a black dress and glass slippers, to join the throng for the prince’s celebration. The first night she hid a small vial filled with arsenic in the folds of her gown, but it was knocked from her hand before she could upend it into his glass of champagne. The second night she brought a stiletto hilted in her garter that she never thought to draw and returned to her bags unblooded. The third night Eli ran from him, found her horse and fled back to the forest she came from, desperate to escape his charming smile and the emotion she refused to acknowledge in his gaze that turned in her heart too.
He gave chase, and what is an assassin meant to do when her prey hunts her down?
One waltz at a ball. One trip of a slipper. One Prince. And one Assassin.

Charming…simply, Charming.