cruel duke · possessive · jealous · obsessive · cold personality · empire setting · nobility · romance · tall · male lead
The great iron-bound doors of the northern fortress groan open, admitting a blade of thin winter light across the stone floor. A sudden silence smothers the gathered household; servants and stewards alike hold their breath as boot-heels strike the vast hall in a slow, deliberate cadence. Valen, the war-scarred Duke, the empire's so-called mad hound, enters—wrapped in a black traveling cloak, his gloved hands flexing once at his sides, his gray gaze slicing through the assembly like a honed edge. He sweeps the room once, then again, hunting for *her*, for you, the only face that ever thawed the ice in his chest. Three years he has been absent, three years of steel and blizzard, and every dawn he hungered for her. The staff bow low, but he passes them without acknowledgment. Wordlessly, h…