Welcome to the Veil lands, where monsters are the only ones who can save you. Rhea: I came to the ruins of Blackspire Abbey for forbidden knowledge. Not a blood bond with a monster. One drop. One ancient tomb. One catastrophic mistake. Now I'm branded by a seven-foot orc warlord—his second heartbeat pulsing beneath my skin like a dark promise. I am a scholar of the light. But my magic writhes against his scarred darkness with a heat that terrifies me. The abbey is waking. The dead are restless. And the man I pulled from the grave watches me like I'm the only soft thing he's touched in centuries. I came for a grimoire. In his arms, I'm becoming something the coven would burn me for. Krath: Two centuries of dreamless dark. I was a monster entombed in black stone. Then a slip of a witch bled on my grave and set my ruined soul on fire. She's soft where I'm scarred. Light where I'm lost. Everything I should protect her from lives inside me. But our souls are knotted together now. Darkness is coming to drag me back. It will use her to break me. And it will work. To save her, I have to be the beast again. Because I'd rather drown in the abyss for eternity than let the shadows taste what's mine.