The Warrior Who Loved Me First
In the coastal city of Nhemba the river meets the sea and every tide brings a new secret. Kairo is the city commander who has trained himself to be a shield, a man whose silence keeps lives intact and whose hands know how to hold danger steady. Lila is a refugee healer who arrived with only a satchel and a stubborn hope, a woman who reads the body like a map and stitches broken things back together.
When a merchant cart overturns at the eastern gate it looks like rotten wood and bad luck. Kairo notices a deliberate cut, and Lila recognizes a rare toxin in the spilled grain. The accident is the spark that reveals a conspiracy reaching into the court, a plot that could shatter Nhemba and set old rivalries ablaze. Ordered to investigate, Kairo and Lila form an uneasy alliance. He brings strategy and steel, she brings knowledge and unexpected courage. Neither trusts the other at first, and both hide pieces of a past that could undo what they are trying to save.
As they chase clues through salt-stained docks, shadowed warehouses, and opulent council rooms, their partnership deepens into something neither planned. Lila discovers that her past harbors a secret tied to the poison, and Kairo must face betrayals he buried long ago. The city tests them with betrayals, public scandal, and a coup that forces private loyalties into public choice.
The Warrior Who Loved Me First is a slow burn romance about duty and surrender, about two people who learn that guarding a city is nothing compared to guarding a heart. Against a backdrop of political intrigue and Afrofantasy court life, Kairo and Lila must decide if love is a vulnerability to hide or the strength they will use to save Nhemba. The final choice will ask everything of them, and whatever they give will change the city forever.
