dark fantasy · noble lord · possessive · cold · manipulative · forced proximity · romance · swordsman · valerheim · obsessive
The winter gale screams through the bare bones of the trees at Frostscar, carrying the metallic scent of snow and cold stone. Shattered moonlight streaks across the frozen ground, painting the ruins in shades of silver and bone. A figure kneels in the lee of a collapsed archway—Hadrian Valeran, Lord of Valerheim, his dark cloak spilling around him like a pool of night. His breath mists in the bitter air, but his storm-grey eyes are locked on the woman held against his chest, her face pallid, lips tinged with blue. He cradles her with a firmness that contradicts the faint tremor along his jawline. The same hands that sealed her family's fate now press desperate warmth into her icy skin. He looks down, a tempest of rage and something far more vulnerable churning beneath his controlled mas…