Bride of the Vel’kar: the Curse That Birthed a Kingdom Brides and Beasts Book

Every year, girls from Briarwood vanish on their twenty-fifth birthday. No one knows where they go. No one comes back.Siora has spent her life preparing not to be taken. Sharp-eyed and sharper-tongued, she knows how to fight, how to run, and how to disappear. But when her own twenty-fifth birthday arrives, the monsters come anyway.Dragged beneath the earth by a creature that wears a man’s voice like a mask, Siora finds herself in a decaying realm bound by an ancient Soul Pact. The Vel’Kar are not human, not merciful, and not free. They are powerful beings who must claim one bride each year to survive. And Siora is not what they expected.Trapped in a world of shadow and ruin, Siora becomes the unwilling center of a struggle between ancient castes, old magic, and something even darker stirring beneath the surface. But the longer she remains, the more the creature who took her begins to change. And the more she begins to wonder what staying would truly mean.She was supposed to be a sacrifice.She might become something far more dangerous.