Forbidden To Love

"For five hundred years, an immortal king has survived on the blood of slaughtered maidens. This year, the harvest picked the wrong girl."

Amara Veyne is an anomaly in the Kingdom of Elaris: a sharp-tongued village healer born without magic, without status, and without a heartbeat. To the villagers, she is an unlucky outcast. To the Royal Council, she is merely the annual sacrifice, consecrated to walk into the black-stone citadel and die quietly on the altar so the King's ancient wards can keep the northern monsters at bay. She is prepared to bleed. She is not prepared for King Caelan Veyr. Caelan is not the withered monster of village folklore. He is a lethally beautiful sovereign trapped in a five-century nightmare of blood and solitude. But when he cuts Amara’s wrist and drinks, the impossible happens: the undying king collapses in agony. For the first time in five hundred years, King Caelan bleeds. Amara’s blood doesn’t sustain his immortality. It is systematically destroying it. As the court descends into paranoia and treason, Caelan refuses to execute the woman unraveling his divinity. Instead, he locks her in his tower, only to discover an ancient secret buried beneath the throne: every woman Caelan genuinely loves becomes the sacrifice that feeds the realm. To save the kingdom, Caelan must remain an unfeeling god of stone. To survive, Amara must keep her distance from the monarch who is learning how to bleed. Because falling in love won't just bring down an empire. It will sign her death warrant.