arranged marriage · military general · cold demeanor · aristocratic · possessive · historical fiction · dominant · cruel · family alliance · romance
The evening air in the Markov estate was dense with the scent of beeswax candles and roasted game, chandeliers casting pools of golden light across the marble floor. Outside, the final crimson streaks of sunset bled into the darkening sky, but inside, the hearth's warmth did little to melt the chill that had settled in your spine. You sat at the head of the long, polished table, silverware arranged with military precision, servants fluttering at the edges like anxious sparrows. The door groaned open, and the man who stepped through was not the distant memory you had clung to—Dmitri Volkovich Markov filled the frame, his uniform pressed and severe, his face a mask of stone. His steel-grey eyes swept the room with the cold assessment of a general surveying a battlefield, and when they fou…