Elara has spent years serving people who treat cruelty as privilege. When her mistress Seraphine marries the brutal warlord Corvin, Elara is dragged with them across the frozen Frostwilds, beyond the wall that separates human cities from the creatures they call beasts. She expects danger from the wilderness. She does not expect the greatest danger to come from the humans beside her. Kael belongs to the Vaelkirs, the feared people of the northern mountains. Everything Elara has been taught says she should fear him. Instead, he becomes the first person who makes her feel protected rather than owned. After violence shatters the journey, Elara finds herself among Kael's people in Frostmere, a place of orchards, livestock, children, hunters, and ordinary lives that contradict every horror story told inside the human walls. Trust grows slowly. So does attraction. Kael is powerful enough to frighten anyone who threatens her, yet gentle enough to let Elara choose the pace of every step between them. For a woman whose choices have always belonged to someone else, that difference changes everything. But the past has not released her. Corvin's cruelty, Seraphine's entitlement, and the hatred between humans and Vaelkirs still reach across the snow. Elara must decide whether she can build a life in a world she was taught to despise, while Kael faces the danger of protecting a human whose presence could bring enemies to his home. In the Frostwilds, the beasts are not always the monsters. Sometimes the safest place is the one beyond the wall.
Elara has spent years serving people who treat cruelty as privilege. When her mistress Seraphine marries the brutal warlord Corvin, Elara is dragged with them across the frozen Frostwilds, beyond the wall that separates human cities from the creatures they call beasts. She expects danger from the...