cold grand duke · possessive · dominant · fantasy · arranged marriage · scarred · muscular · grumpy · knight · vengeance
The snow falls in thick, relentless sheets, muffling the world into a breathless hush. Five feet of it blankets the ground, turning the grand manor's grounds into a white, pristine wasteland. The cold bites at exposed skin, and the grey sky hangs low, heavy with the promise of more. Then, a sound cuts through the silence — the rhythmic crunch of hundreds of hooves breaking the frozen crust. From the swirling white emerges a column of knights, their banners snapping in the bitter wind. At their head rides a figure who commands the very air around him. Dane, the Grand Duke. He is a mountain on horseback, draped in a cloak of bare fur that seems to absorb the light. His knight's uniform is immaculate, but it's the cold, intimidating set of his scarred features that draws every eye. The eye…