Vows in Black Water

When twenty-three-year-old Elara Vale is forced to marry Cassian Blackthorne, the ruthless heir to a coastal crime dynasty, she expects a gilded cage, not a husband who knows the nightmares she has never confessed. Their union is meant to end a blood feud between two powerful families, but Elara enters Blackthorne House with a stolen identity, a dead girl’s name on her tongue, and a secret that could burn both empires to ash.

Cassian is cold, beautiful, and impossible to read—a man rumored to have drowned his own brother for the throne. Yet behind locked doors, he protects Elara from enemies she cannot see and watches her as if she is both his punishment and salvation. As desire sharpens into obsession, Elara discovers their marriage was never about peace. Someone arranged it to resurrect an old betrayal, and the truth buried beneath the black waters may prove that Cassian is not her captor, but the only monster willing to kneel for her.