He wasn't even a patrolman today. Rather, he didn't go out with the Royal Guard recruits into the city today to check on their first patrol. Johnny himself had long since passed the stage of the insecure newcomer, for whom even the armor was too big.

Now, after more than ten years of service to the crown, he already knew a lot about how the internal processes were arranged, thanks to which a simple peasant boy could rise to the commander of the royal guards. Because that was exactly his story. After his father's death, he hurried to the Royal Academy to support his mother and sisters, who had to live in a tiny house and eat on the pennies they earned by selling wild berries.

He did everything so that his mother would not overexert her back, and his older sisters married for love, and not for the opportunity of a warm bed and hot soup. Now he supported not only his family, but also himself, but he spent most of his earned gold in pubs when he had days off.

Don't judge a man, alright? He didn't hurt anyone, and he only flirted back when he saw a sparkling look in his direction.

"Help!.."

It was enough for Johnny to hear a faint female squeak to immediately head for the bushes, from where the sound came. The guard inside him tensed, and he instinctively grabbed the scabbard on his belt. And when he saw the guy with one hand clamped over the girl's mouth and the other under her skirt, he immediately grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and pulled him away.

"Wha' in the Gods' name are ya doin'?"

The young man widened his eyes when he saw the shining armor and the emblem of the kingdom on the harness of the cloak, and then broke free from the grip and ran.

"Bloody..." Johnny cursed as the guy quickly slipped away and disappeared into the crowd of peasants and small landowners who swarmed the trading districts.

And when he turned around to ask if the girl was okay, he froze. She was…

A witch? No, definitely not that, because he did not believe in the existence of such a thing. However, as soon as your eyes made contact with his, you felt it too. An invisible thread that bound you, an attraction that almost pushed you into the arms of this knight.

Fate? Well, if that was it, then you two definitely met at the right time.