Hold Still

By Megan Derr

Esen has spent his entire life an outcast, and he threw out his last chance at fitting in when he broke the engagement his family worked so hard to arrange. Sent to the royal palace to fulfill one last duty, he counts the hours until he is literally left homeless and destitute.

But hiding away in the royal garden, he accidentally overhears a private conversation and meets the mysterious Queen's Man...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Megan Derr
• Release date: Aug 23, 2019

Megan Derr

Megan is a long-time resident of queer romance and keeps herself busy reading and writing it. She is often accused of fluff and nonsense. When she’s not involved in writing, she likes to cook, harass her wife and cats, or watch movies. She loves to hear from readers and can be found all over the internet.meganderr.compatreon.com/meganderrmeganderr.blogspot.comfacebook.com/[e-mail]@meganaderr

Book preview

Esen has spent his entire life an outcast, and he threw out his last chance at fitting in when he broke the engagement his family worked so hard to arrange. Sent to the royal palace to fulfill one last duty, he counts the hours until he is literally left homeless and destitute.

But hiding away in the royal garden, he accidentally overhears a private conversation and meets the mysterious Queen's Man...

Hold Still

Natures in Harmony

By Megan Derr

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher, except for the purpose of reviews.

Edited by Samantha M Derr

Cover designed by Megan Derr

This book is a work of fiction and as such all characters and situations are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is coincidental.

Third Edition August 2019

Copyright © 2019 by Megan Derr

Printed in the United States of America

Hold Still

A Natures in Harmony Book

Megan Derr

Esen slipped outside, desperate to escape the stifling ball, the whispers that sprang up whenever he passed by a cluster of people, the reproving looks that he could feel like something slithering across his skin. He didn't need the judgment of strangers. They had no right to be accusatory, disappointed, or to spout twisted speculation as to why he had broken his engagement.

Not that it stopped any of them.

He just wanted to fulfill his obligation to Queen Marga and then…well, go, though he had no idea where he would go. Home was out of the question, and tempting though it was to return to Mount Chiron, he did not really want to become a hermit, alone and forgotten by the world. Bad enough he had spent his childhood that way.

There was some appeal to traveling, to seeing the world—but he had always imagined doing it alongside someone, traveling with a purpose. The idea of wandering around aimlessly because he quite literally had nowhere else to go…

'Fickle Wind' was the term he had heard most that evening, though anyone who really knew Sylphs knew they were no such thing. More than any elemental, Sylphs needed stability, needed someone who would ground them so that they did not succumb to the whispers of the wind.

He just wished…

Esen sighed and stared up at the night sky, the yellow half-moon shining down on the queen's garden. There was a sweet scent on the summer breeze, and he was tempted to drift into it, lose himself in it. Who would miss him? Certainly not his family, who had not bothered to recall him until he was sixteen. They had then crammed a thousand neglected lessons into his head so that he could be quickly married off to suit family ends, only to toss him right back out again when he had broken the engagement, sending him as a representative at the Gathering of Harmony with the understanding that he need not bother to return.

No family, no friends, and the entire court rife with gossip about why he would break such a fine engagement.

He fussed with the edge of his jacket, sad that after all the trouble he had gone to in picking out the dark pink fabric and the gold lace and the shiny buttons… It was so handsome and colorful, but all night people had looked at him as though he was wearing a flour sack.

Sighing again, he retreated to one of the stone benches set against the high garden wall, hiding himself from immediate view of the queen's summer palace behind night-blooming jasmine and roses. He closed his eyes, reminded himself of why the rumors and looks and his family's fury were worth it. After so much anger and pain, he would not doubt himself. He would not spend the rest of his life miserable.

But, an