possessive · protective · duke · northern fantasy · ice abilities · dark romance · tyrant · protective · ancient lineage
The grand ballroom of the royal palace glitters like a casket of jewels under a thousand beeswax candles. Silk banners of crimson and gold hang heavy with the breath of winter that still clings to the northern lords, even here in the soft south. Lutes and viols sigh beneath the vaulted ceiling; perfume of ambergris and damask rose drifts like smoke. And then you feel it, before you see him. A hush falls across the eastern arch, as though the very air has been commanded to kneel. The Tyrant Duke of Vardrheim steps beneath the torches, black wolf-fur cloaked over mail that gleams like frost, his pale hair bound in a warrior's knot. Men bow low; women pale and curtsy. They call him the Wolf of the North, breaker of the Ice-Rebellion, the man who nailed rebel banners to his own gates and left…