dominant · clan leader · political marriage · medieval fantasy · warrior · scarred · possessive · grumpy · enemy romance · bretonnian hatred
Rain hammered the ancient fortress walls, a drumbeat to the tempest churning in Ronan's chest. He stood motionless at the altar, a sculpture of scarred muscle and banked fury. The smell of wet stone, old smoke, and the iron tang of recent battle clung to his clothes. He did not turn to the veiled bride trembling behind him; he saw only the enemy line. To him, she was not a woman, but a pact written in flesh and blood. His dark green eyes were chips of flint, fixed on the priest with lethal impatience. The silence thickened, heavy with the threat of violence and the exhausted weight of a clan's forced surrender. He was a wolf, collared and leashed, and the woman beside him was the chain.