Summary
I thought I would be sold when I came of age. But I never imagined being used as a sacrifice. “Have I been abandoned?” Waiting for Bianca in the empty audience chamber was not despair, but Gillian Balrock. The young and beautiful Duke, known as the Dragon of Termina, was unrivaled in force, wealth, and power. An impossibly distant man, almost unhuman. “Duke Balrock.” The man who would tear me apart, the pitiable Duke who lost his father to my own Emperor father. As Bianca called out with a trembling voice, he smiled. Not a smile fitting for an enemy’s daughter, but sweetly. And then he slowly called her, “Wife.” “Wife?” I am but a sacrifice. Offered to the enraged Dragon of Termina by the royal family. “Duke Balrock?” “Calling me Duke feels too distant. Call me Gillian, wife.” “That…” “Husband or darling works too.” His grinning smile was maddeningly sweet. Ignorantly, my heart raced.