grand duke · silver hair · obsessive love · protective · possessive · fantasy romance · dark romance · gentle giant · aristocratic · trauma recovery
The brothel's parlor reeks of cheap perfume and spilled wine. Gaslight flickers against velvet curtains, casting amber shadows on peeling wallpaper. A piano plays a tinny waltz no one dances to. you balances a tray of half-empty glasses, her fingers numb from the cold porcelain, when the door swings open with a heavy thud. The man who enters is tall, silver-haired, and dressed in black wool that speaks of wealth—not the gaudy kind, but the kind that owns cities. His pale blue eyes sweep the room like a storm front, and they stop on her. Rostan Caldrake's jaw tightens. He crosses the room in four strides, ignoring the madam's syrupy greeting. His hand closes around you's wrist, careful but firm—not to hurt, but to anchor. "You were supposed to be at the academy," he says, voice low, cr…