Gold and Obsidian-Chapter 3 -Enemies to Lovers Fantasy Webnovel
Summary: This enemies to lovers fantasy webnovel follows Princess Neferet, the daughter to Cleopatra and the heir to the throne. She claims her throne and power, but not with the man chosen for her—only with the one who can truly match her.
Nef's black horse raced out of the palace gates at breakneck speed as the others took off after her.
The King of Tsekani stood with the other rulers in the Queen's Perch, with Cleopatra as Amoneh rushed to catch up to his future queen.
The doors opened behind them as the Tsekani War prince came in. Rameneb met Setetkh’s eyes as he stepped beside his father, hands settling loosely behind his back. Simply another morning spectacle, not a question about why the Black General of Egypt was breaking speed barriers.
“Chasing the port alarm, I assume,” Seti said.
“You assume correctly.” Cleopatra looked apparently calm. “Amoneh will watch her. But I do wish she'd leave the skirmishes to the soldiers,” she sighed.
Rameneb snorted. “You put too much faith in your hurricane and your peacekeeper.”
Cleopatra's eyes cut sharply to the king. “You think she's not enough to quell this?”
“With respect,” Seti interjected, “Prince Amoneh could not watch a cat cross a courtyard without writing a poem about it first.”
A few of the monarchs shifted.
“The question is whether he survives long enough to marry her.”
Cleopatra's jaw clenched. “He will. So it was written,” she said tersely.
Rameneb did not look convinced, but he met Setetkh's eyes in a clear, 'don't you dare.' The last thing he needed was his son embroiled in this idiocy.
“Well, it’s a nice day. I think I’ll go riding.” And without waiting for permission, Setetkh turned and walked for the stairs.
Cleopatra met Rameneb's eyes, and both parents fell silent.
Riding.
Of course he was.
***
At the port, Neferet dismounted amid the chaos.
The ship had landed, and the looting and screams were already underway.
A scarf wrapped around her head and lower face, she was a wraith in black, and it was just as well. She moved with the precision of darkness flaring, her black blades sending men screaming. They didn't know the princess was in the fray. They knew their best general was there.
Good, she liked it that way.
Smoke curled over the water like a black flag. By the time Setetkh’s horse crested the final ridge above the harbor, smoke had swallowed half the docks. Shouts carried on the wind. Steel rang against steel.
Setetkh slowed his mount.
He found her in the press. Face wrapped. Hair hidden. Moving through the pirates like a blade through cloth.
Amoneh was fighting beside the port soldiers, trying to hold ground. He was reacting. Neferet was driving the battle.
“Idiot,” Setetkh muttered under his breath. And no, he didn’t mean the pirates.
He kicked his horse forward. By the time Setetkh reached the first line of port guards, he was already drawing steel.
He swung down from the saddle in one motion and stepped into the fray like a man born for it.
Nef flushed them toward the boat. She'd already sent her people to plant the charges. Riders were on their way to the navy, but the ships needed time, and the pirates were meant to loot and escape in a fast invasion.
She hadn't planned for any of them to leave.
One carried a young woman on his back like a sack of grain, his hand under her skirt. Nef cut his legs out and wrapped the girl under her arm.
She didn't bark orders. She didn't shout what happened next. She'd given her squad all her instructions on the way here. She'd told Amoneh specifically to go home, but he lingered. She wasn’t happy because she'd had to leave two of her best to keep him safe.
Woman safe, she saw two men ransacking a home. She dove through the window. Cleared one house, then another, her team working to dismantle the attack and secure the port residents. She funneled the pirates back to the ship, not letting them take any precious cargo.
Which meant her people came first.
Across the field, Setetkh saw the trap closing. She was driving them exactly where she wanted them.
A second knot of raiders had broken away from the dock line and were circling the far side of the warehouses—exactly the sort of desperate maneuver men made when they realized the trap closing around them.
And exactly the path that would bring them straight behind Neferet.
Setetkh swore under his breath.
He shifted direction immediately, moving hard through the fighting toward that flank. Steel flashed again as he cut down another pirate.
Nef felt the stirring behind her, but his back pressed to hers before she could figure out she'd been flanked. Her vision caught the gold of his hair in the periphery as the pirates circled them.
“Setetkh!?” She kept her blades up. “What the hell are you... Right!” she barked when one lunged at him.
He shouted a warning, and she blocked to the left.
Eight men had come around the warehouses. Two lay dead between them. Nef stayed pressed to his back as the wild possibility of who had her flank was outweighed by the enemies' charge. For once, they weren't fighting each other.
Setetkh adjusted his grip on the sword, shifting his weight slightly so his shoulder pressed firmly into hers.
“Try to keep up,” he muttered under his breath.
A pirate lunged. Setetkh stepped into the strike, steel meeting steel with a violent crack. Parry, step, cut. The man fell. The man who had lunged for her never finished the motion. Setetkh heard the scream, short and sharp, and the heavy thud of a body hitting the planks.
Another came in low. Setetkh snapped a warning without looking.
“Low!”
She shifted instantly at his back. His blade caught the attacker before the man could recover.
The pirate’s strike went wide. “Two royals,” the man sneered in broken trade tongue. “Good ransom.”
Setetkh’s mouth twitched. “Too steep for you, I’m afraid,” he said calmly.
The remaining three charged together. One came at his throat, and he stepped aside, catching the man’s wrist and slamming the hilt of his sword into his jaw before driving the blade through his chest.
Behind him, Neferet twisted away from another attacker, her blade flashing black in the sun.
The last man hesitated. Too late.
Setetkh rolled his shoulder against Neferet’s back once.
“Left,” he said quietly.
Then he moved.
As the last of the pirates fell, Nef spun around and stared at him in shock. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“You’re welcome,” Setetkh said, flicking the blood from his blade before answering. “You’re sloppy today. You let yourself get flanked.”
His gaze dropped briefly to the black scarf around her face and the streak of blood across her side. “And you’re bleeding. Again.”
“It's not mine,” she snarled—a lie, but who cared at this point. “I wasn't sloppy; you were nosy! I didn't need you!”
That familiar, infuriating amusement flickered in his pale eyes as he stepped over the last pirate's body between them. “Very considerate of them to bleed on you in a straight line.”
“People bleed on me all the time in fun new ways,” she scowled and turned just as the pirate ship exploded in a blaze of orange and red that illuminated her, heat rushing over them. But she held her ground. Stood facing the inferno as the vessel began to sink, the few pirates that straggled, subdued.
She turned to Setetkh with a glare. “You were unneeded.”
“Next time I’ll let the pirates finish surrounding you before I interfere.” The War Prince looked from the burning mast to her.
“Why bother saving me?” She snorted and wiped her blades on her pant legs before sheathing them. “What's the matter, Seti? Getting soft in your old age?”
“I didn’t save you.” He stepped a little closer, close enough that the firelight caught in the gold of his hair and the sharp line of his jaw. “I prevented a diplomatic disaster.”
His gaze flicked briefly toward the soldiers dragging pirates away, then toward the distant riders where Amoneh was still trying to look useful. “Try not to bleed to death before the ride back,” he added dryly.
“Not my blood,” she ground through her teeth and lifted her hand to whistle. “Also, try not to trip over your ego.” A thunder of hooves sounded, and she lifted a hand as her horse blurred by.
And then she was on it as the Black General of Alexandria raced out of the ports.
Amoneh caught up to Setetkh on foot. “Where is she?” He looked winded.
Setetkh reached for his own horse’s reins. “You just missed her,” Seti said with polite indifference. Then he mounted smoothly, already turning his horse back toward the city.
Amoneh sighed and glared as the two horses headed away.
“I hate them both,” he muttered. “Good that I'm marrying only one of them.”
Then he called for his horse.
***
Nef listened to her mother's lecture with the rebellious dignity of a proper princess. She was dusty, sweaty and still swathed in black as the Queen cut her open with her words.
“You are reckless, impatient and stubborn!”
The princess sighed. “You forgot disobedient.”
“And that!” The queen glared just as the doors opened and Setetkh stepped in. “Three future monarchs to quell one pirate looting! Do you realize what this looks like?”
Nef's shoulder stiffened when she realized he was there.
Setetkh stopped inside the doorway.
“Efficient,” he said mildly. “The port is secured. The pirate ship is gone. The civilians are alive.”
Rameneb glared at his son. “You did not need to rush there, Setetkh. Cleopatra is right. It looks ridiculous that we needed the three of you to secure a damned port on a spit of land.”
Nef crossed her arms and huffed. “I meant to go, Amoneh followed, and I still have no idea why Crown Prince Setetkh had to be there. I was perfectly capable of handling it.”
“Were you?” Cleopatra glared.
“Actually,” Setetkh said calmly, “she was.”
Nef's eyes snapped to Set when he said she was capable.
“The pirates were already being driven back to their ship when I arrived. The charges were placed. Civilians secured. Your daughter had the situation under control.” Setetkh glanced toward his father. “As for why I was there... the port was on fire. I assumed that was relevant.”
For a moment Neferet looked like she'd forgotten how to breathe.
Did he really...
Cleopatra sighed. “I am not doubting her capabilities. Nor yours, Prince Setetkh.”
Then she huffed much like her daughter. “Enough. It is done. Go clean up, you look like a drowned cat.” She waved her daughter away. “You both smell like smoke,” she muttered, wrinkling her nose.
Setetkh inclined his head slightly when Cleopatra dismissed them.
He stepped aside.
But as Neferet passed him, he leaned just slightly closer—close enough that the smell of smoke and saltwater still clung to them both.
“Next time,” he murmured, just for her, “try not to get surrounded. It makes the rescue look intentional.”
Her elbow landed in his chest, and then she was stalking off, her side on fire but refusing to even flinch in front of him. To be Continued...
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