BOUND TO THE SHADOW KING
Elara’s greatest shame is also her only power. In a dying human village, she hides as a simple herb-witch, secretly using slivers of her forbidden Siphon ability to drain the magical blight poisoning the land—and feeling the monstrous hunger it leaves behind. She is an abomination, hated by both humans and Fae, and exposure means death.
When the arrogant and devastatingly powerful Shadow King, Kaelen, arrives to offer a cure for the blight, the price is not gold or land. It is her. A political marriage to secure a fragile alliance. To save her people, Elara agrees, trading her crumbling home for a gilded cage in the treacherous Fae court.
Kaelen is lethally beautiful, colder than the shadows he commands, and certain the blight is a human weapon. He takes Elara as his bride not for love, but as a political pawn and a suspect to be broken. Every touch is a threat, every glance a calculated search for her secrets. Trapped in a world of lethal beauty and ancient schemes, Elara must navigate courtly daggers and her husband's icy suspicion while keeping the ravenous power within her firmly locked away.
But the blight is not what it seems. As a true, ancient evil stirs, leaving a trail of corpses and corrupted magic, Elara and Kaelen are thrown into a reluctant partnership. The lines between enemy and ally, suspicion and desire, begin to blur. His darkness calls to her hunger, and one kiss could shatter her control, revealing the terrifying truth.
As war looms and a conspiracy reaches the throne itself, Elara must make a choice: remain the hidden pawn, or embrace the monstrous power that could save the King who holds her captive—and destroy the fragile bond growing between them.