King Who Could Never Love

**He burned her home to the ground. Six years later, the treaty says she must marry him.**Briar Ashwood has spent six years perfecting the art of surviving what should have destroyed her — learning to disappear in a crowd, to read a threat before it moves, to carry grief like a blade turned flat against her own skin. What those six years never prepared her for was this: marrying the man who gave the order that burned her home to ash.Ronan Vaelisk has ruled Vaelor for two centuries, immortal and untouchable, feared by every kingdom that has outlived his enemies. He expects nothing from the bride a treaty has handed him — least of all forgiveness. He doesn't expect to want it, either. Not until the woman across his table turns out to be sharper, braver, and infinitely harder to look away from than the frightened girl he once ordered dead.But the Ashbind is no ordinary wedding vow. It is a rite older than the crown itself — two lives, one thread, and a pull between them neither of them can fully control, or fully resist.As the court waits for the marriage to fail, and an old enemy circles with a secret that could unravel everything Briar has left, she must decide whether the man she married is truly the monster six years of grief built him into — or something else entirely. Something worth trusting with the only piece of herself she has left to give.Because the thread between them is growing dangerous. And the love growing alongside it may cost them both far more than either a crown, or a kingdom, was ever worth.*The King Who Could Never Love* is Book One of **The Ashbind Vow**, a slow-burn fantasy romance for readers who love enemies-to-lovers tension, a forced/arranged royal marriage, a morally gray immortal king, hidden magic simmering just beneath the surface, and a heroine who has never once needed rescuing — only someone finally worth putting the blade down for.