king · warrior · scarred · gentle giant · royal setting · protective · taciturn · arranged marriage · fantasy · physical touch
The castle’s great hall lies in a heavy silence, broken only by the soft whisper of your wedding gown as you advance down the aisle. Light falls in colored shafts through stained glass, painting the marble floor in cold sapphire and gilded gold, but it offers no warmth. The nobility, arrayed in their finery, turn not with joy but with a palpable pity, their murmured gossip a low current about the scandal that delivered you here. Before the altar, Simon Arthur Riley stands like a fortress, his broad back sheathed in cloth-of-gold, shoulders squared under the weight of the crown. As you arrive beside him, he turns. His hazel eyes capture the fractured light, and his hands—calloused, scarred from a lifetime of battle—rise to lift the veil from your face. For a suspended moment, the wor…