Romance trope
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The protective hero trope features a love interest who puts himself between the heroine and danger, often without being asked and sometimes at real cost to himself. Its sharpest form is 'touch her and die': a man who is calm about everything except a threat to her.
Dark Romantasy
with Torren of Cinders
You were only there to make sure the brides could say no, and then the city's dragon looked at you and every flame in the room went out.
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Dark Romantasy Vampire
with Severin Morcant
Your blood is the one thing every vampire alive would kill for, and the only one who won't take it is the man you came to kill.
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Modern Billionaire
with Reid March
On your first night as his crisis hire, the billionaire with a fire in his past tells you the man who ruined your career worked for his father.
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Wartime Enemies
with Colonel Anton Rhyse
You came through the enemy colonel's window to kill him, and your own side came through the door to kill you both.
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Xianxia romantasy
with Jing Lie
A war god answers your summons, and the one price he will take is the part of you that could still fall in love.
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Dragon romance
with Riven of the Red Vale
You went up the mountain to bind a dragon to the valley he was bleeding dry, and the spell bound him to you.
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Sci-fi romance
with Tavian Ardin
The object you've been restoring opens a door to another world, and the prince standing on the other side calls you by a dead woman's name.
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Medical romance
with Julian Mercer
You asked your surgeon what would happen if he weren't your surgeon, and by the next morning he had transferred your care.
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Paranormal romance
with Elias Vane
A man is kneeling in the rain outside your bookshop, and the first true thing he says to you is that he killed you.
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Pirate romance
with Rafe Blackthorn
Your father paid a pirate to carry you north and forget your face — and he turns out to be the first man in your life who ever asks you where you want to go.
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Fantasy romance
with Rowan Thorne
Someone wants your blood before the Blood Moon, and the only man standing between you and the arrows is the knight who has been in love with you his whole life.
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Superhero romance
with Theo Vale
Your best friend has caught you every time you've ever fallen, and the second another man calls you his partner, every object in the room hits the floor.
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Romantic suspense
with Eli Fontaine
He answers you at any hour of the night, every time, without fail, and tonight you find out what he deletes.
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Cowboy romance
with Beau Callahan
You dragged him out from under a bull, and he looked up at you from the dirt in front of the whole county and said marry me.
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Romantasy
with Soren
You have a week to kill the enemy's champion on the sand in front of both kingdoms, and last night he kissed you back.
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Romantasy
with Cassien Ward
He said don't come in after me in a voice nobody in this town has ever refused, and you are the only person alive it has never worked on.
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Dark paranormal romance
with Lucian Vale
One mouthful of your blood buys a vampire the sun. The King of this city had it on his lips and stopped — and now you have seven nights under his roof wearing his mark, and the only thing hiding you burns off every time he touches you.
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Medieval romance
with Ser Rhun
You ride out this week to marry a stranger, and your sworn shield still cannot hold your eye.
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Dark mafia romance
with Lazar Tsarev
You came to kill him and he already had your name printed on the folder.
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Regency romance
with Lord Ashworth
You have to be ruined before the wedding, so you pick the most notorious man in London and tell him to make you the twelfth.
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Shifter romance
with Caleb Voss
The new Alpha of the mountain is your best friend since you were nine. Tonight you reject the mate bond. He refuses.
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Sci-fi romance
with Silas Veyr
The enemy commander you were sent to outrun just took a sniper's bullets for you, and he already knew your name.
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Protection is a love language readers recognise instantly. He takes the bullet, stands in the doorway all night, or goes very quiet when someone lays a hand on her, and the whole room understands what she means to him before he ever says it. The trope lands best when his protection respects her: he keeps her safe without taking her choices away, and she is no less capable for being guarded.
Protective Hero stories on Almost Kiss include The Dragon's Undoing, Bloodbound and The Things We Burn. Chapter 1 of every story is free to read online with no sign-up, and a free account opens chapters 2–3 of two stories a month. In each story you make the choices, and the story remembers them.
It is the most intense version of the protective hero: a love interest who is controlled and even gentle until someone threatens her, and then becomes the most dangerous person in the room. The appeal is the contrast between his restraint and what he will do for her.
A protective hero is focused on her safety. A possessive hero is focused on claiming her as his. Many love interests are both, but protectiveness is about the threat and possessiveness is about the relationship.