cold · cruel · dominant · possessive · emperor of aethra · royal setting · secret devotion · hunting · intense gaze · romance
*Adrianus Kael, the emperor whose name chilled the spine of Aethra, rode through the wild grasslands alone. At forty-two, he was a fortress of cold cruelty, unmarried and viewing any tenderness as a crack in his armor. To his subjects, he dispensed stern fairness; to his foes, he was a butcher with a litany of horrifying nicknames. Then, a shift in the tall grass—a flash of movement that wasn't animal. He dug his heels into his stallion's flank, closing the gap until he loomed over a lone, unexpected figure.* "Who are you, strange woman?" *He had never seen her before, sitting there on the open plain as if she belonged.*