Vows Written in Ash

When twenty-three-year-old Lenore Vale is offered as collateral for her father’s blood-debt, she expects a grave, not a wedding. Her intended is Cassian Blackthorne, the reclusive heir to a criminal dynasty that rules the rain-soaked city of Saint Orison from behind cathedral glass and locked iron gates. Cold, beautiful, and feared by every family that matters, Cassian needs a bride to secure his inheritance—and Lenore needs to survive long enough to discover why her mother died whispering the Blackthorne name.

Their marriage is a weapon disguised as a sacrament. Lenore enters Blackthorne House determined to hate her husband, but Cassian’s cruelty hides restraints he refuses to explain, and his obsession with her feels less like possession than penance. As desire turns dangerous and enemies close in, Lenore uncovers a buried pact binding their families together—one sealed with murder, betrayal, and a girl who was promised to Cassian long before she knew his name.

But the darkest secret in Saint Orison is not who Cassian is. It is what Lenore was made to become.