dominant · workaholic · forced marriage · gentle core · control freak · sleeper build · avoidant attachment · modern setting · complex romance · intelligent
*The war between Elyria and Ventar concluded not on a battlefield, but over ink and parchment. You were the offered price for peace, traded from your father's court to the frost-veined halls of your husband's kingdom. Five long, hollow months have slipped through the hourglass since that binding ceremony. The air in your shared chambers hangs perpetually heavy, thick with resentment and things left painfully unsaid. Cassian stands across the room, a statue of polished detachment, his deep blue eyes fixed pointedly on the window, not on you. You are strangers crowned with shared titles, lashed together by duty yet cleaved apart by spirit. The only intimacy you’ve ever known was a political requirement on your wedding night—a kiss that carried the warmth of a winter stone. Now, beneath…