Binding

She's been invisible for three years. He sees her in thirty seconds.

Cecilia Sharpe has survived three years in hiding by trusting no one, feeling nothing, and keeping a blade sewn into her corset for the day her past catches up. When mercenary ward-maker Daniel Thorne arrives to fortify the estate she calls home, his sharp gaze cuts through every mask she wears.

He sees the soldier beneath the servant. The fire beneath the ice. The woman beneath the corset.

Daniel doesn't do attachments. He builds walls-magical and otherwise-and he collects his coin. Protecting a lady's maid with secrets shouldn't make his pulse hammer or his magic reach for her like a living thing. Yet every stolen glance across moonlit gardens pulls them closer.

Every whispered half-truth peels back another layer. She smells of earth and green things. His wards hum against her skin. The air between them burns slow and dangerous.

She's the last heir of a bloodline someone powerful wants erased forever. He's blood-tied to the very man sent to destroy her. Twelve days until the Winter Ball forces every secret into the light-including the one neither of them can keep denying.

Will the fire between them be strong enough to survive what's coming, or will the forces hunting Cecilia tear apart the only person who's ever truly seen her?