A Vow Written in Venom

To find her sister's killer, Mara Vale frees the creature her family buried alive.

When Celia is found dead in the river, everyone has an explanation. Mara has two puncture marks the undertaker tried to conceal, a silver key hidden in her sister's mouth, and a final message she answered too late.

The key leads beneath her childhood home.

Chained in the flooded cellar is Severin, an ancient serpent shapeshifter whose captivity has sustained the Vale family's power for generations. He knew Celia. He recognises the men who came after her death. And he intends to destroy the people responsible for keeping him in the dark.

Mara belongs to that family.

Desperate for answers, she offers him freedom in exchange for his help. Their bargain is sealed in blood, its protection temporary. Once their work is finished, she may have every reason to run.

Together, they follow Celia's evidence through a city where respectable names conceal locked wards, missing patients and decades of cruelty. Severin's violence opens doors Mara could never reach alone. Her willingness to use it begins to frighten her.

So does her growing desire for him.

Behind his terrifying control, she discovers wounds she cannot heal and a tenderness she never expected. But Severin's past contains victims of his own. Wanting him means confronting what he has done, even as revenge draws her towards choices she once believed herself incapable of making.

As their enemies close in, Mara uncovers another part of her inheritance: a claim on her life that was made before she could refuse it. Escaping her family's legacy will demand more than exposing its crimes. And whatever she and Severin become to each other must survive beyond the vow that holds them together.

A Vow Written in Venom is a standalone adult gothic paranormal romance featuring a serpent shapeshifter, a dangerous alliance, slow-building desire and a complete romantic ending. A story of revenge, grief and hard-won freedom, it explores the cost of loving someone whose capacity for tenderness does not erase his capacity for harm.

Contains graphic violence, captivity, torture, medical exploitation, coercion and bereavement. Romantic intimacy is non-graphic.