Elena Marchetti walks down the aisle to save her father's company — but the groom waiting at the altar isn't the man she was promised. Adrian Cole, the estranged, disowned elder brother, has taken his place without warning, forced into the same arrangement she never chose.Married to a stranger who wanted this even less than she did, Elena discovers that the wedding was only the beginning of the lies — hidden debts, buried family secrets, and a father-in-law willing to sacrifice them both to save himself. As Elena and Adrian fight to protect the families that used them, they find something neither expected: a connection that was never part of the plan.Two people chosen only as someone else's replacement — now learning what it means to choose each other, for real, on their own terms.Will being someone's second choice stop them from becoming each other's forever?

Exiled as a broken bride, she was never sealed at all.Elira was raised as the kingdom's "cursed" princess — born with magic so unstable the court sealed it away at birth, and married off to a rival prince as a political pawn nobody expected to matter. When he publicly denounces her for a stronger, "purer" bride and has the court mages strip what little magic she's allowed to show, he doesn't know the seal was never real. She let them believe she was powerless.Now, exiled to the kingdom's most dangerous border province — the place they send people to disappear — she's exactly where her true magic can finally wake up.

Two years ago, Arian disappeared without a word — and Lira thought he was dead.Tonight, he saved her life in a rain-soaked alley... with eyes that glow blood-red and strength that isn't human.He's not the boy she loved. He's a vampire — cursed, hunted, and desperate to protect her from something worse than himself.But when a mysterious mark appears on Lira's skin, she learns she's not just in danger. She's been chosen — bound by an ancient blood ritual to a vampire prince who will stop at nothing to claim her.Now Lira must choose: run from the man who broke her heart once already, or trust him enough to fight a war between mortals and monsters, choice and curse, love and possession.Because some bonds aren't written in blood.They're written in choice.🩸 A slow-burn paranormal romance about the vampire ex you can't forget, the love that refuses to die, and the price of forever.