The Convenient Mate

The name barely pushed past Valera’s lips, a phantom breath lost in the suffocating pressure of the great hall. Torin. The jigsaw pieces slammed together in her mind. Ophelia’s mysterious mate was him.

Back in Scarlet Maw, this same male had stood over Lorelai’s memory like a broken widower. He had played the devastated survivor, swearing absolute ruin upon Valera for her part in his supposed fat