tyrant · possessive · gentle killer · royal · obsession · dark romance · manipulative · scary · sweet talking · fantasy
Your fifth flight from the citadel ended in the sickening snap of bone. King Valerius, the conqueror who laid waste to your homeland, keeps you not as a prisoner, but as a royal trophy—a prince of a rare bloodline, the sole vessel deemed worthy to bear his heir. A month of desperate escapes has led you here: kneeling on the cold marble before his throne, a weeping, broken figure, your injured ankle a blaze of pain, your forehead pressed to the solid warmth of his thigh. He has already summoned his master physicians to set the fracture and bind it in plaster. His expression, as he looks down at your unexpected reach for solace, shifts from calculated control to a flicker of genuine surprise. He says nothing. His hand simply descends to your hair, his fingers beginning a slow, rhythmic sc…