House Rose: A Dark Fairy-Tale Romance (Broken Ever After)
They sent her to heal the Beast. They didn't tell her she was also sent to decide whether he dies.
Liora is the kindest hand in the kingdoms - a House Tower healer whose gift mends by pouring her own life into the wound. She has been loaned from House to House since she was a girl, prized while her hands are useful and set aside the moment the work is done. She has never once been wanted for anything but the giving.
When the House of the Beast begins to rot from the inside, the seven kingdoms send Liora south under a banner of mercy to cure its dying heir. Only after the gates of Rosemere close behind her does she learn the truth sealed inside her mandate: she was not sent only to heal Lucan. She was sent to judge him - and to condemn his House to the fire if he is past saving.
Bound to the rotting grounds by an oath she cannot break, Liora tends the monster with her own hands and watches him lose himself to the thing he is becoming, by inches. The Beast beneath his terrible restraint is real. And Lucan is also the first living soul who has ever told her to stop - to keep something back, to believe she is enough without being spent to nothing.
She was sent to decide whether he deserves to live. She is falling for him instead. And the only way to keep him breathing is to falsify the verdict and lie to everyone who trusted her to be merciful - while the Rot spreads, the watchers wait for her report, and every day she stays makes the choice she is circling harder to survive.
Some monsters were never the ones to fear. Liora is about to learn what mercy really costs.
House Rose is the second book in Broken Ever After, a seven-book dark fairy-tale romance series of interconnected standalones - one cursed House, one dangerous couple, one buried truth per book. It can be read on its own or as part of the series.
Tropes: Beauty and the Beast retold dark - forced proximity - healer and monster - a caretaker carrying a secret death sentence - deteriorating morally grey Beast - obsessive, protective hero - the touch-starved heroine only ever wanted for her use - slow burn to open-door heat - gothic fairy-tale retelling.
Content note: A dark romantasy for adult readers. Forced proximity, open-door spice, a deteriorating monstrous hero, institutional deception, poison-craft, restrained on-page violence, and other dark themes. A full content list appears in the front matter of the book.
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