Embrace the Snow (Expanded Version)

Nila is astute, multilingual and far too perceptive for a Gupta maid. She once saved Mihirana's life.
Now the ruthless Hun warlord repays that "debt" the only way he knows how - by abducting her.
Torn from the colours, etiquette and sophistication of the Gupta court, Nila is dragged into his frozen steppes of war, conquest, and endless white.

Mihirana calls it protection.
But the truth is far more dangerous.
He's obsessed.
He doesn't try to break her-
he studies her, challenges her, learns her...
waging a slow, deliberate conquest of her mind with incisive probing, forbidden poetry in a foreign language and moments that blur the line between captivity and choice.

Nila refuses to be conquered.
She observes.
She schemes.
She quietly gathers secrets that could destroy him and save her people.
Only for her own resistance becomes a battlefield of its own. Her body wars with her own mind. She is not supposed to desire him but she is, she is supposed to hate him but she can't.
Because this man - this Enemy awakens something fierce, primal and irresistible within her.
A raging fire that not even his icy world can extinguish.
She hates what he is.
She fights what she feels.
But his possessive touch?
His quiet claim?
They break apart her defences, piece by piece

He will never beg for her love.
She will never admit he's winning it.

And yet...
the closer she gets to freedom-
the more surrender begins to feel irresistible.