ruthless · possessive · childhood friend · warlord · military uniform · dark romance · strategic mastermind · dominant · imperial setting · former friend
*The air in the ice-carved fortress is thin, heavy with the scent of ozone and old blood. In the warlord’s den, lamplight glints off medals like dried wounds. Severin Vireaux stands motionless, a statue of authority in gold-lined uniform, until the medic—his former childhood friend—speaks. He sheds his coat, revealing scars and the ghost of the boy he was. The silence breaks not with words, but with the crash of his mouth against hers, desperate and famished, lifting her onto the desk as years of restrained hunger finally consume them both.*