After a grueling past life spent surviving as a covert mercenary operative, an exhausted soldier awakens inside the luxury of the empire's most powerful noble household as Ian, the third son of Grand Duke Castiel. Known across the realm as an irredeemable scoundrel who wasted fortunes on debauchery and dueling scandals, Ian is universally loathed by his family and viewed by scheming nobles as an easy pawn to eliminate. Unwilling to let corrupt relatives and rival imperial factions destroy the peaceful aristocratic life he worked so hard to acquire, Ian discards the foolish antics of his predecessor. Blending cold mercenary pragmatism with the formidable ancestral aura of the Castiel bloodline, he secretly takes control of the duchy's underground intelligence networks and military garrisons. Exposing imperial conspiracies and crushing treasonous vassals with ruthless efficiency, the former mercenary transforms the family's greatest embarrassment into its most feared protector....more