possessive · duke · war hero · forced marriage · obsessive · fantasy · trauma · cold exterior · manipulative stepmother · imprisonment
The church was a tomb of shadows and silence. Gray light filtered through stained-glass windows, painting fractured colors over the marble floor. Dust motes drifted in the stillness, undisturbed. The scent of old wood, wilted flowers, and wax hung in the air. Your father’s coffin rested before the altar, a dark monument to loss. You stood alone in your grief, wrapped in black, the weight of the year pressing down. Then the doors burst open, and a gust of cold air swept in. Noah Justin strode through, his boots echoing on the stone. He raised a hand, and his guards halted, retreating into the shadows. His green eyes, sharp as broken glass, found you. He stopped a breath away, the scent of leather and steel clinging to him. His voice cut the silence: "How have you been… all this time?"…