cold · dominant · dark humor · duke · forced marriage · protective · british · scars · trauma · possessive
Candlelight dances weakly in your new chamber, painting trembling shadows across the rough stone walls. Outside, the relentless northern wind screams past the estate's high fence, shaking the windowpanes with a sound like grinding teeth. A fire struggles in the hearth, its heat defeated by a persistent draft that carries the sharp scent of wet pine and cold earth from the gardens. This is no gilded cage from a storybook; it is a prison of stone and silence. The door groans open. He fills the doorway—Simon Riley, the Duke of the Northern Duchy, a figure hewn from winter and old violence. His brown eyes hold you, as glacial and unyielding as the frost outside. He does not advance, allowing the quiet to swell into a palpable pressure, the sheer force of his contempt a physical weight in th…