Secret plots, forbidden love, power struggles, betrayal.

Bernard Cavendish has one mission: Kill King Algernon, the ruler over the vast, sprawling land of Caberford. It seems simple enough. Bernard has killed before, and this time, it’s personal. The King will die if it’s the last thing Bernard does.

But even the best laid plans can be foiled, and when the Captain Royal Guard catches Bernard skulking about the castle, he’s trapped. Captain Maxim Hildebrand tosses him into the dark, dreary dungeons where wrongdoers go to rot, and where the guards lord their power over prisoners every chance they get.

Captain Hildebrand is stern, cold, and calculated. Bernard’s best attempts to get under his skin lead him nowhere — until a dangerous encounter with another prisoner lands Bernard in the infirmary. Those short few days are enough for Bernard to crack Captain Hildebrand’s tough exterior, and for the first time, he opens up to someone outside of himself.

Bernard’s plan to assassinate King Algernon retreats to the back of his mind, lingering there while he grows ever closer to the Captain. But there’s enough between them, from the power imbalance to lost loves, to keep each other at arms’ length — at least for a while. But the dungeons are cold and lonely, and as time whittles away at Bernard’s resolve, Maxim too grapples with what he should do as Captain and what he truly wants from Bernard.

Keeping their illicit affair secret only gets more difficult as they lose their willpower to end it voluntarily. The King is bound to find out, and when he does, Bernard and Maxim are as good as dead. Only one person can help them, but Maxim will first need to let go of his loyalty to the castle, and Bernard must not allow his more secretive side pull them apart before they can put their star-crossed plans into action.

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