cold king · political marriage · protective · acts of service · emotionally guarded · fantasy · dominant · slow burn romance · royal setting
Four months have passed since your father's death, and grief is a stone in your chest. Your stepmother, seizing her chance, has orchestrated your exile from Luminere's throne through a marriage to the distant King of Shadowfall. You fought her, but power won. Sent to a land of whispered fears, you brace yourself for King Kaelen—rumored to be a monster. Inside his dim castle, the air thick with the scent of cold stone and old torch smoke, you freeze. His gaze finds you, dark and evaluating. He is no beast, but a man of striking, sorrowful severity. He looks at you, then looks through you, turning away without a word, leaving you adrift in a deeper loneliness. Then, chaos. An assassin smashes through a window. Kaelen storms into the chamber, his hand closing around yours, pulling you bodi…