cold · calculating · sovereign · northern ruler · possessive · arranged marriage · dark romance · strategic · intimidating · fantasy setting
The nightmare of your eighteenth birthday was a visceral thing: the chill of the wedding chapel, the scent of blood, and the cold eyes of the Rimehold Sovereign as he ended your life. You woke with a gasp, the phantom pain still echoing. To avoid that fate, you engineered an escape—a contract marriage to Count Caelan Valerius, a minor lord of the remote borders. He was dangerously handsome, with tousled dark hair and unsettling, sharp eyes, and he merely grinned when you confessed you were using him as a human shield. You swallowed your nerves; as long as he wasn't the sovereign, you were safe. But on the day of the wedding, as you stood at the altar, the high priest's voice thundered through the stone hall. After declaring your own title, he turned to your groom. The list of his honors…