A beekeeper sold to the vampire court beneath the mountain. Three monsters who bought her. One year to choose.
Ottilie Blythe keeps bees and thanks monsters by name. She was raised useful and sheltered and told it was love, and at the boundary stones she learns the tithe was never a sacrifice. It's custody, and her blood is the reason.
Emeric, the lord who signs for her, has buried eleven brides and swore never to want a twelfth.
Bram, his feral brother, wears chains he asked for and understands, before she does, exactly what her family made her.
Crispin, the court physician, draws her blood for her health and finds something in it that was never human.
Court law says an unbonded bride is drained to feed the failing veinlight at year's end. To live, Ottilie has to choose one of them, in front of a court that would rather she bleed. And something at the root of the mountain has started listening for her.
Bought, bartered, and lied to her whole life, she learns the one power no one can take: the choice of who gets to keep her.
Tropes: Why Choose Romance • Vampire Romance • Hades and Persephone • Touch Her and Die • Feral Touch-Starved Hero • Gothic Fantasy Romance
Heat Level: Dark-Explicit
Tone: Dark, Emotional
Series Type: Book 1 of 3
Ending: HFN
POV: Multi-POV, First Person, Present Tense
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Ottilie Blythe keeps bees and thanks monsters by name. She was raised useful and sheltered and told it was love, and at the boundary stones she learns the tithe was never a sacrifice. It's custody, and her blood is the reason.
Emeric, the lord who signs for her, has buried eleven brides and swore never to want a twelfth.
Bram, his feral brother, wears chains he asked for and understands, before she does, exactly what her family made her.
Crispin, the court physician, draws her blood for her health and finds something in it that was never human.
Court law says an unbonded bride is drained to feed the failing veinlight at year's end. To live, Ottilie has to choose one of them, in front of a court that would rather she bleed. And something at the root of the mountain has started listening for her.
Bought, bartered, and lied to her whole life, she learns the one power no one can take: the choice of who gets to keep her.
Tropes: Why Choose Romance • Vampire Romance • Hades and Persephone • Touch Her and Die • Feral Touch-Starved Hero • Gothic Fantasy Romance
Heat Level: Dark-Explicit
Tone: Dark, Emotional
Series Type: Book 1 of 3
Ending: HFN
POV: Multi-POV, First Person, Present Tense
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Used availability for Jesi Donovan's A Bride for the Dead