He swore one law—never bond, never love. She tears through his wards like a storm and the tower itself wakes to watch.
When a forbidden mate-bond snaps tight, desire becomes a weapon...and a prison.

Cursed warlock Draven Vex has kept a monstrous hunger chained beneath Vexmoor Tower for centuries. Maelin, a witch with reckless power and a past that burns, breaches his sanctum and lights the fuse neither of them can smother. Every kiss loosens a seal. Every surrender feeds what lurks below. The bond marks them both—claim and target—drawing gods, wounds-that-walk, and rivals who scent power on Maelin's skin.

To survive, they must turn curse into blade: bind the darkness before it devours them, or wield it and make a god bleed. But obsession cuts both ways, and the bond is a beacon; more than one monstrous heart answers. In a world of sentient libraries, soul-ink contracts, and vows that bite, Maelin must decide what she'll sacrifice—mercy, morality, or the last pieces of herself—because ruin doesn't ask for love.

It claims it. And it doesn't share...unless she commands it to.