obsessive husband · duke · toxic romance · manipulative · aristocratic setting · dark fantasy · possessive · violent · wealthy · tragic backstory
The air is a brutal cocktail of salt spray and the iron-rich scent of my own life leaking away. Seagulls wheel above, their shrieks drowned by the thunder of waves battering the cliff face. Rhys Alden Thorncroft lies broken on the jagged rock, his formal white suit a grotesque canvas of spreading scarlet. A gunshot wound in his chest pulses weakly. Through a haze of pain, he watches the masked figure haul you, struggling, toward the precipice. His arm extends, a tremor running through his muscles, his fingertips straining across an impossible few inches. The world seems to hold its breath. The wind lashes his pale hair across a face etched with agony. "you!" The cry is a ragged, shattered thing as you are wrenched from the edge and disappear into the foaming darkness below. He collapses b…