Born of the Knight: The Moutrams, #1

By Mandy Greenwood

Not everyone gets a second chance at love, but King Avan refused to be one of those who missed out. In the five years since Sir Willem's disappearance, he'd not stopped searching for the errant knight. But finding Sir Willem meant discovering the secret the knight kept for five years, the existence of a child who bore a remarkable resemblance to King Avan.

 

Will the love they once held for each other be rekindled?

 

And will the kingdom accept an heir born of a knight?

 

Born of the Knight is 27742k word Medieval Mpreg novella

• Language: English
• Publisher: NaomiAoki
• Release date: Jun 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393465904

Mandy Greenwood

Writing Queer Romance with a Twist. Paranormal: Mpreg: Contemporary. A Kiwi born girl who spends a lot of time laughing at the antics of her three teenagers; disappearing into the worlds created by other authors or undertaking the often pointless task of weeding her garden. Of course, first she has to dislodge her cat from her lap. Keep informed with upcoming releases at facebook.com/MandyGreenwoodauthor

Book preview

Blurb

Not everyone gets a second chance at love, but King Avan refused to be one of those who missed out. In the five years since Sir Willem’s disappearance, he’d not stopped searching for the errant knight. But finding Sir Willem meant discovering the secret the knight kept for five years, the existence of a child who bore a remarkable resemblance to King Avan.

Will the love they once held for each other be rekindled?

And will the kingdom accept an heir born of a knight?

Characters

Moutram Family (ages at time skip)

Lord Zadkiel Moutram (54, married to Jere, Willem’s brother)

Sir Bauer (48, widower, Willem’s brother)

Sir Cirillo (42, Willem’s brother)

Sir Willem (36, Book One)

Sir Eion (33, Zadkiel’s son)

Sir Bayard (28, Zadkiel’s son)

Sir Novark (26, Bauer’s son)

Barric (21, Willem’s Squire, Book Two)

Ronan (20, Zadkiel’s son, twin, physician, Book Three)

Sama’el (20, Zadkiel’s son, twin, apothecarist, Book Three)

Llyr (18, Bauer’s son, Bayard’s Squire)

Asger (17, Zadkiel’s son)

Arawan (15, Zadkiel’s son)

Llylen (12, Zadkiel’s son)

Royse (10, Zadkiel’s son)

Alden (5, Willem’s son)

OTHER CHARACTERS

King Ailliard (deceased)

King Avan (37, married to Willem, Alden’s father)

Sir Jarret (36, Willem’s friend, Book Two)

Lord Belmont

Lord Belwitch (King Ailliard’s younger brother)

Fergus (Belwitch’s son, Avan’s former squire)

Chapter One

Forbid us something , and that thing we desire

Chaucer

Willem stalked across the encampment, weaving through the battle-weary soldiers gathered around the fire pits, the squires parked outside tents cleaning the armour they’d just removed from a knight and others who were cursing up a storm as physicians tended to their wounds. He hadn’t walked out of the battle unscathed himself, but his own wounds could wait. Willem had more pressing matters to deal with, like why Crown Prince Avan had chosen to step onto the battlefield without his knowing. He pushed a trembling hand through his hair and wondered what the point was in him planning the battle strategy on the prince’s behalf if Avan chose to blatantly disregard it? Every. Damn. Time.

He stopped at his own tent long enough to allow his squire to fuss over him and remove the heaviest pieces of his armour before heading to the crown prince’s tent situated at the rear of the encampment. Willem paused outside it to rein in his temper. It didn’t matter that Avan had chosen him for the job of strategist, nor that he’d known the prince since they were old enough to have hair on their balls, he still needed to afford the prince the same respect as anyone else. In public at least, but once they were alone Willem wouldn’t hesitate to give Avan a piece of his mind.

Lifting the tent flap, Willem stepped inside and narrowed his eyes at the squire attending to the crown prince. He thought the man completely unsuited for the task. Too old. Too green. Too damn slow. A man far better suited for a life behind protected walls than moving with an advancing army and dealing with the horrors of war. But Willem’s complaints mattered little to the prince and now he feared Avan bore the cost of that decision. Stalking forward, a snarl toyed with his lips and rumbled up his throat and Willem found he cared little for the appropriateness of the emotion being displayed. Avan caught his gaze, shoulders slumping as he sent the imbecilic squire away. If only the prince would send the blasted man scurrying back to the castle or whatever stronghold he’d come from.

What the hell were you doing out there, Avan? He snatched up the blood-soaked the rag the squire had dropped, wringing it out before dabbing at the ragged wound stretching up the prince’s arm. And how did you get injured? You were in full armour for fuck’s sake!

Despite the blood seeping from the wound, Willem quickly realised it wasn’t deep, a mere scratch caused by a glancing blow of a sword or lance, and yet, that brought him little relief. Spend enough time on a battlefield and one quickly learns that even the smallest of injuries can have dangerous consequences. Willem had witnessed the death of fellow knights and soldiers—brave men whose presence in battle could turn the tide of combat in their favour—weeks, months after suffering minor scratches from a blade. No one truly understood why. Theories were plentiful, from the use of witchcraft to enchant blades with death magic, to the existence of small beings from another dimension that polluted the blood—a theory that his young nephews Ronan and Sama’el spoke at length about with anyone who’d listen. Willem, however, chose to believe the enemy dipped their blade in poison before the battle began, and it wasn’t as though their knights didn’t do the same.

How nice of you to join me, Sir Willem, not that I recall requesting your presence.

Willem snorted, pulled back the cloth to check the bleeding and then pressed it on the wound harder. Since when do I need an invitation to enter your tent, your royal highness?

Maybe I’ll need to change all that if you insist on playing the role of nursemaid. If I wanted one of those, I’d have stayed back at Castle Ailith far from the battlefield.

Well, Sire... I’d almost prefer it if you had! Then you might not have stumbled onto the battlefield like a green-arsed foot soldier and gotten yourself bloody hurt! He stepped back, threw the cloth across the tent knocking bottles off Avan’s desk. "And don’t think I haven’t noticed, Sire, that you haven’t explained how or why you were in a position to be injured by an enemy’s blade."

I wasn’t going to be left out of it, Willem. Avan stood, and tugged off his shirt, dropping the tattered, blood stained garment on the ground. I’m the Crown Prince! My people, the men who fight for the Kingdom of Suevi expect to see me leading from the front, not cowering at the back of the battle lines like some arrogant fool. There are enough cowardly men amongst the aristocracy that surround my family, and I do not ever plan to be one of them!

He wanted to point out that Avan would one day be required to marry one of those cowardly fools whether he wanted to or not. Princes didn’t marry men like him, Sir Willem of Moutram whose family had only been granted lands and titles three generations back. Sons of the borderland lords didn’t get the chance to bear the kingdom’s future heirs no matter their unwavering loyalty to the throne. Words that sat on his tongue filled with vehemence and jealousy, but Willem swallowed them back down.

It was hard to stay angry when the man bared his body like this.

But while he might have lost the mood to argue the cowardice of the nobility that surrounded Avan, Willem couldn’t let slide the crown prince’s disregard for his battle plan—an action that had ultimately seen the prince injured.

Be that as it may, you still had no place entering the fray as you did, Sire. He stumbled back as Avan stalked toward him, hands grabbing at the washstand behind him. Willem wasn’t going to let Avan distract him from his argument with a promise of something else... something more carnal in nature. How can I expect others of a higher birth accept my battle orders when the crown prince doesn’t see fit to obey them?

I’m sorry, Willem. I promise to do better... but you know I dislike being sat on the side lines as though I’m in capable of wielding a sword in battle. Avan stopped in front of him and reached out to stroke his bearded jaw, thumb brushing across his lips as his other hand grabbed Willem’s hip and dragged him closer.

You keep saying that, Sire, he muttered, but all the heat had bled from his words as his gaze dropped to the prince’s soft lips. Lips that he hadn’t kissed since he’d left Avan’s bed before the dawn’s light had broken over the encampment.

He might have free rein to come and go from the prince’s tent with his rank and position within the Suevian military but that didn’t quite extend to sharing Avan’s bed even if their affair was a badly kept secret. His place in the crown prince’s bed tolerated so long as Willem remembered he was only a placeholder until Avan agreed to wed another more suited to be