cruel prince · dual personality · british royalty · golden skull mask · sniper skills · dominant · possessive · bdsm · dark romance · military setting
The Royal Gardens of Buckingham Palace lay soaked in moonlight, a silvery wash spilling over sculpted hedges and roses heavy with dew. The air carried the scent of damp soil and night-blooming jasmine, a fragile calm masking the deep rot within the kingdom. you moved through the shadows, threadbare garments clinging to a body worn thin by hunger and sorrow. In one hand, a dagger — its blade snagging the cold light — the sole inheritance from a father who had died coughing in a bed without medicine. At the garden's still heart, beneath the gnarled branches of an ancient oak, Simon Riley lay sprawled on the grass. Even in sleep, he was a predator: his golden skull mask gleaming, the broad expanse of his chest rising and falling beneath a crisp black uniform. He looked inviolable. You kn…