A Suitable Bodyguard

A Suitable Bodyguard R. Cooper Copyright © 2023 R. Cooper All Rights Reserved Cover Art by Lyn Forester ISBN 9798215626559 Content tags: some drinking and intoxication, discussion of arranged marriage and polyamory (as both exist in this universe), threatened violence, off page violence, character death, on page sex, loss of virginity, magic, heats, magical body changes, inhuman physical traits, implied soulmates, accidental exhibitionism, biting kink, acts of service/service kink Table of Contents One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine Ten Eleven Twelve Thirteen Fourteen Fifteen Sixteen Seventeen Eighteen Nineteen Twenty Twenty-One Twenty-Two Twenty-Three Epilogue The End One Without standing on his toes, Zelli could see over the top of the battlement down to the valley below. On his toes, he could see as far as the river, which wasn’t terribly distant; it merely seemed so at night, with low clouds and fog obscuring much of the valley. The fog disappeared for the most part during the summer. To see fog now meant autumn was approaching, though the days were still sunny. Harvest would come soon, an important matter, even to those in the ancient Tialttyrin fortress who had never worked a field in their lives. Harvest, taking away labor as it did, and the slow approach of winter weather meant that business which should have been done in the summer could be put off no longer. Even The Tialttyrin herself knew this. Yet her health would not allow her to attend to the business personally, and anyone else capable was far from the old fortress, off in the capital or in the rest of the Tialttyrin holdings at the opposite end of the vast valley. Zelli’s cousin would be preparing for his own harvest, and though he might fulfill some magisterial duties near him, viewing the land, hearing complaints, and issuing judgments was the duty of The Tialttyrin and all knew it. This would be the second year without Zelli’s grandmother descending even into the sheltered village at the base of the fortress, much less riding out past the outer wall into the valley proper. People were counting on her and would be disappointed. Moreover, they would begin to doubt the ability of the Tialttyrin family to take care of them and to protect them. What then? It was not Grandmother’s fault that her health had worsened. If there was anyone to blame, it was the various cousins, aunts, uncles, and others who were content to live well in the capital but leave the running of the Tialttyrin estates to Grandmother. They claimed they could not travel because of the strife that had consumed the country, although to Zelli’s way of thinking, the workers transporting great casks of grains and wine from their fertile valley to the rest of the country had to face the risk, so anyone with the name Tialttyrin ought to manage at least one visit. But Zelli’s opinion did not carry much weight outside this fortress. It did not even carry much weight within it, he reflected sourly, although that wasn’t entirely fair. Grandmother had understood Zelli’s viewpoint; she just did not agree that Zelli should be the one to go in her place. Not as a mark against Zelli, she claimed. Zelli couldn’t argue for himself there, in any case. He was inexperienced and he was young, hardly past twenty. He could not look imposing if he tried, and he had barely left the fortress and the village below it, and that had only been for a journey down the length of the great valley when he’d been a child, before the old queen had been murdered, bless her memory and curse the Canamorra. And, even in a family known for its streak of fae blood, Zelli had unpredictable traits that made him a little too fae for many to be comfortable. More fae than human, thanks to his rather indiscreet parent. But he was not wrong in this. Even Grandmother had agreed with his argument, although that was all she had done. She had stood firm about everything else despite being barely able to hold herself upright with the help of a cane and Tahlen at her elbow to lend his strength. Tahlen, listening stone-faced to Zelli raising his voice when he should not have, had exchanged a look with Grandmother that only had made Grandmother more resolute against the idea of Zelli going anywhere for the foreseeable future. Zelli hadn’t seen anything in that glance; he never did. But Grandmother saw everything, and she and Tahlen were, as ever, in agreement. She had others to go to for counsel: her siblings and cousins, though they were as fragile as she was and not especially inclined to practical discussions, the Head of House, Nya, who had trouble these days recalling the tasks she’d been working on, which was why Zelli smiled for her while doing the tasks himself, the cousins across the valley, Zelli himself. But it was a guard whose opinion Grandmother valued. A guard sworn to protect the family and the body of The Tialttyrin, one good and dutiful and capable, but nonetheless a guard, one who had only been with their family a handful of years. And Tahlen did not think Zelli should go either, not even just a few days’ ride into the valley. It should not have hurt. Zelli didn’t think he had Tahlen’s respect, but he would have thought Tahlen would understand the need for The Tialttyrin’s duties to be carried out. Tahlen always understood such things, guard or not. That was why Grandmother looked to him as she did, why even Zelli had done it, his gaze catching on the upright, strong figure in armor, with small braids tucked into the thick, complex braid down his back. Elaborate weaving that no other guard had ever bothered with that Zelli had seen, and which likely would have done the noblest beat-of-four in the capital proud—not that any noble would have ever have kept their hair tied