He's as lethal as he is beautiful, desired and feared by all.

She's big, bloodthirsty, and obliterates her enemies.

Never should they have met.

But they did...

With the Serpent God's ultimatum hanging over them, Honryn and Verdria know they are running out of time. The Festival of the Vine is only four months away. And on that night the deity will claim Honryn as his mortal vessel and Verdria as his consort—a fate they both want to avoid.

Yet one of the Serpent God's new 'gifts' to Verdria allows her to wield soul mage magic, and she discovers she can now create long-distance portal spells like Honryn.

This proves groundbreaking because Honryn has been building a secret settlement—a city situated between dragon territory and Verdria's own homeland—and with Verdria's help Honryn can now supply his secret new settlement twice as fast, thus guaranteeing he can evacuate all his people to the new settlement before he becomes the host for a hostile god.

But there is just one problem with his plan.

Honryn isn't planning to go with them.

He's going to stay behind and become the new Priest-King and the mortal vessel for the Serpent God. Because if Honryn doesn't stay behind, and he flees with his family back to the mountains, his uncle will send the might of the empire to crush Verdria's homeland and 'rescue' Honryn.

As far as Verdria is concerned, she only has two choices—find a way to free Honryn from the Serpent God or stay by his side and become his consort.

Because there's no way she'd abandoning him.