Damian knew, based on his siblings' fates as the personal knights to the royals, that his turn was coming. The youngest of the royal children had graduated from the Royal Academy at around the same time as Damian's graduation from the Knights' Academy. It was inevitable.

Duke Wayne was, after all, the richest man in the kingdom, and the Wayne family had traditionally served the crown as loyal knights for generations. Damian was half-certain that his father had only adopted that many kids because he needed to supply the kingdom with knights.

And Damian, the unplanned biological son, had been a happy surprise, because the king's youngest had also been a surprise, though it couldn't be called "happy." In fact, both of them had been conceived at around the same time as part of a ploy by a shadowy order of assassins to gain influence and power over the kingdom. Many prominent nobles had sired children with members of the order, unwittingly or no, as part of this plan.

Obviously that plan had failed, or these two wouldn't be here now, meeting again after years apart, no longer fellow assassins but rather royal knight and charge.

"It is my duty," Damian said, "to protect the royal family. My sword and my life are yours."

The words tasted like ash in his mouth. Damian hated the royal. They'd been at each other's throats from birth. And now here he was, humiliating himself, swearing allegiance to a brat. Of all the people he could serve, it had to be this idiot.

But his father and his siblings were his family. They'd raised him with the love he hadn't had growing up, not until Duke Wayne had taken him in. And their happiness, their futures, depended on Damian's loyalty. So he did it, for them.

"I am honored," Damian spat out, "to be of service to you, Your Highness."

Gods, he wanted to take that smug face and dunk it in a vat of acid.