Their Dark Queen

Queenpin Giuliana Vescovi has ruled Varenna's docks alone for nine years no husband, no council, no one close enough to bleed her. Now the treaty she wrote is expiring, and the clause she buried in its fine print has become law: share her seat, or forfeit it. Four factions send four claimants the captain who has guarded her for nine years, the rival heir who courts her with a price tag, the old lion with three buried wives, and the pirate who proposed to her drunk five years ago and never withdrew the offer. They came for her crown. She decides to keep them all. One woman. Four men. No choosing.