Aren Aurelian wakes in the body of the man who keeps Corrin in a cellar. He knows Corrin. Not from this life—from the novel he read twice. In that book, Corrin is the heir of the Nine Marches, proud, wounded, and patient in the way of someone who has already decided how you will die. The man whose body Aren now wears is the one who chained him, bled him, and used his heart's blood to stay alive. Corrin has every reason to hate him. In the book, he does. He gets free, builds a new body, comes back, and burns Aren's soul for two hundred years. Aren wants to live. He wants to outlast the ending, even if it means bargaining with the one person who has the most reason to kill him. But the covenant mark binds Corrin with rules neither of them can break—and exceptions neither of them can predict. And the curse in Aren's chest says he needs Corrin's blood to keep breathing. Every time they get close, it costs one of them something. This is a dark fantasy romance about debt, old violence, and two people who should have been enemies learning that the story they were given is not the only one available. I wrote it for readers who like their slow burn with teeth.