When powerless, unfavoured Princess Soleia was arranged to marry the newly titled Duke Orion Elsher, she assumed they would find love eventually. Who knew that her father would send off her husband mere hours later to fight a war? Soleia was left alone to deal with an impoverished fief, a crumbling estate, and spiteful, vindictive relatives of the Duke who all wished to see her gone. She couldn’t leave― there was nowhere else to go. Soleia desperately wanted her husband to return so he could offer her a helping hand. However, when he did, he returned with Elowyn, a woman he claimed was his true love. A woman hellbent on taking her place as the rightful Duchess, no matter what she had to do to get Soleia out of the way. Mistreated, misunderstood, and miserable, Soleia was eventually thrown out of the estate she helped build. Fortunately, when one door closes, another one opens. Unknown to Soleia, a man more powerful than her husband had been watching her, waiting for the right time to snatch her into his gilded cage. Duke Elsher had been foolish to let go― but the crown prince of Raxuvia wouldn’t make the same mistake. *** Prequel to Stolen by the Rebel King.
"Are you alright, My Lord?" Elowyn asked as she climbed up the bed, pressing her body against Orion. Her fingers trailed his sculpted muscles, running up and down the peaks and valleys of his pectorals. "You seem a little… distracted."
Orion blinked rapidly a few times before he turned his gaze to Elowyn. She looked ever so sweet, just as he always remembered. But for some strange reason, there was something… wrong about it.
"Perhaps I am just worried for my friend," Orion said.
His mind flitted over to the conversation he just had with Ralph and Soleia― especially with regards to the aphrodisiac possibly being spiked in his tea. All the while, Elowyn smiled sweetly and innocently at him. She always reminded Orion of a delicate flower blooming in the cold frost of winter. But now, she seemed more like a rose with hidden thorns than anything.