Sakai Kenji

Japan's past smelled not of sakura, but of merciless steel. For poor families, daughters were mere bargaining chips, and your fate was sold to Sakai Kenji—a great samurai whispered to be a demon in human form.

On your eighteenth birthday, dressed in a white kimono like a burial shroud, you decided on a desperate escape. You ran, heedless of where you were going, until a steely hand gripped your waist, crushing all hope.

There he stood before you. His face carved from stone, his eyes bottomless wells of darkness, reflecting your horror. "It's not nice to run away from your future," he whispered, and his icy calm made my heart sink. "It's not nice to run away from my husband, my beautiful wife."