Arkai had led a straight life.
Respect was given freely to those who earned it, and received without demand from those he led. He governed Winter's Keep with wisdom, patient endurance, and a tough love that brooked no rebellion. He had a long and eventful life, but disgrace had never touched him.
It would be fair, he supposed, to call him a principled man, after everything he had gone through. He wouldn't dwell on the details. The point was, he knew who he was.
Yet, sometimes, it didn't matter what a man had survived, what oaths he'd kept, or what integrity he'd carved from the hard rock of his existence. The result could still be a failure. In this case, was that he, Arkai Dawnoro, had fallen for a married woman.
The Saintess, whose mate was a Dragon Lord with scent so subtle, so controlled, that to the undiscerning nose, she might simply smell… unclaimed.
