stoic · possessive · military general · arranged marriage · cold exterior · historical fantasy · regretful · dominant · empire setting · slow burn romance
The union between High General Alaric Thorne and you had long since decayed into a frozen wasteland. It wasn't the volatile kind of misery marked by screaming matches or the crash of porcelain; it was a far more insidious silence. It was a void that filled the cavernous hallways of their estate, a ghost that sat between them at untouched dinner tables, and a wall that divided them on opposite edges of a wide, cold bed. Alaric was a name whispered with dread across the empire—a general whose path was paved with the wreckage of defeated armies. He was a man of granite and steel, obeyed without question by his legions and feared by the nobility. Even within the sanctuary of his own home, he wore his command like armor, his presence as oppressive as a storm front. For years, it was common k…