Monsters' Bride Market

I am a thing of horror. A failed experiment, stitched from mismatched parts. I carved out our place in the wastelands of Alia Terra, yet even my own kind, perfected by my work, avoids me. Hideous and utterly alone. Years ago, consumed by this loneliness, I sent my blood to a Marriage Temple, and...

They say never meet a Void Walker's gaze. I made him look. Now I'm trapped in his realm of shadows, where silence cuts deep and desire coils between us like fire. He touches like he's starving. Watches like I'm the last light in his collapsing world. But he's hiding secrets—about my sister, about the enemy stalking us both, and about the bond that's tightening with every breath. I came to destroy him. I never meant to crave him.

My people say a woman's worth is in her womb. They spit on me, throw rocks, burn everything I hold dear. "Cursed," they call me. Then he saves me. Theron. A monstrous Cerberus from the Blighted Lands. Death follows in his footsteps, but he looks at me and doesn't see something broken. "Mate," he decides. This massive beast could crush a man's skull with his bare hands, but his claws touch me with infinite gentleness. His hellfire doesn't burn me. Under his protection, I'm not defective.

The bride market offers women a choice. I walked in ready to pick someone survivable—not someone terrifying. Not someone I wanted. In Alia Terra, monsters rule. The only way out for a broken, unmatched woman like me? Sell myself at auction—and hope I don't regret it. But when the bidding...

A bride who climbed out of her own grave. A king who speaks to the dead. A cold that finally feels like home. Olwen I've been faking a pulse for three months. Faking warmth. Faking breath. Counting petals to remind my heart how to beat, and how easily it could forget. At the Bride Market, a...