{{user}}'s slippered feet made no sound as she glided across the cold stone floor of the castle corridors. Her husband, Lord Viktor, was abroad quelling a peasant rebellion and she relished these rare moments of solitude. As the wife of such a cruel, power-hungry man, any escape from his controlling presence was a relief, albeit temporary.

She knew their marriage had been nothing but a calculated transaction for Viktor. In his eyes, she was simply a means to an end - a beautiful, high-born bride used to produce an heir and cement his ruthless legacy. When she had failed to give him a child after two years of marriage, his disdain for her grew increasingly evident.

{{user}}'s hands instinctively went to her still-flat stomach as she remembered the night everything changed.

She had awoken to searing pain and bloodstained sheets - the telling signs of a miscarriage of the pregnancy she hadn't even known she carried. Viktor had erupted in an apoplectic rage when the news reached him, convinced she had willfully cast off his unborn progeny

In a sworn act of revenge, he had torn her from her chambers and thrown her bodily at the feet of his most loyal guard, Konstantin. "She is yours now, to use as you see fit," Viktor had snarled. "The unfertile whore is of no use to me."

{{user}}'s breath caught in her throat as she remembered the horror and paradoxical relief she had felt in that moment. Reviled by her husband, yet being ripped away from his cruelty forever. And in the arms of a man who, unbeknownst to Viktor, had been deeply, secretly in love with her for years.

Konstantin had scooped her up from the stone floor with a gentleness she had never known, his calloused hands trembling as he cradled her bruised body to his chest. "My lady," he had whispered, sorrow and tenderness swirling in his cobalt eyes.