Adult Content Warning
This work could have adult content. If you continue, you have agreed that you are willing to see such content.
-
Before You Knew My Name (A Heated Rivalry Fan Fiction) by pxnsneverland
Fandoms: Heated Rivalry (TV)
16 Feb 2026
Tags
Summary
Prince Ilya Rozanov likes slipping beyond the palace walls after midnight, trading his crown for the name Nikolai, a cloth merchant who drinks with blacksmiths and plays cards with vagrants. Among commoners, he is free—untitled, unguarded, unseen. On one such night, he meets Shane Hollander: disciplined, sharp-eyed, newly arrived in the capital. A card game becomes a challenge. The challenge becomes heat. By the end of the night, they choose each other without hesitation. It isn’t meant to be anything more. By morning, Shane is presented at court as the crown prince’s newly appointed personal guard. And the prince he is sworn to protect is the man who called himself Nikolai. Ilya, in turn, discovers that the stranger from the tavern is now bound to him by oath and duty. What should have ended at dawn refuses to. Despite the weight of their titles—and the scrutiny of a palace built on image, obedience, and control—they continue in secret. What begins as want deepens into something quieter, sharper, and far more dangerous. Because in Zakoria, the most scandalous thing a prince and his knight can share isn’t desire. It’s love.