Don't Run — A Dark Obsession Romance (The Watch)
The invitation came with one rule: Don’t run.
My sister owes the kind of men you don’t say no to. So I put on her dress, walk into the Night of Serpents, and plan to be invisible — sign, curtsy, disappear.
I manage two out of three.
He watches me from a throne the whole city whispers about, bored by everything money can arrange. They call him the Serpent. He doesn’t chase. He doesn’t have to. And when I refuse to kneel with the rest of the room, he does something no one has dared in a hundred years.
He claims me. One black rose, in front of everyone.
Now I live by his rules, in his house, wearing his mark — and the only thing he’s ever asked of me is the one thing I can’t promise. Because the longer I stay, the more I learn what my invitation really was. Who wrote it. And why the most dangerous man in the city built a cage out of my own choices.
They warned me: what runs gets hunted.
They never warned him what happens when I stop running — and start playing.
WHAT YOU GET
- The complete novel, 26 chapters — EPUB and PDF
- The bonus scene — a locked-door night that appears in no other edition
Tropes: masked heir · secret society / masquerade · he claims her in front of everyone · one rule: don’t run · touch-her-and-die · he falls first · morally grey anti-hero · pawn-to-player heroine · forced proximity · power exchange · old-money opulence · standalone with HEA
For readers of Corrupt (Penelope Douglas) and Kings of Sin (Ana Huang): a masked heir who won’t chase, a heroine who won’t kneel, and one rule neither of them survives intact.
Heat: 5/5 · Ending: guaranteed HEA · Length: full-length novel, around 61,000 words · Series: The Watch, Book Two — reads completely standalone.
Content Warning (18+): explicit sexual content, dominance and submission, power-imbalance themes, and on- and off-page violence against antagonists. All intimacy between the central couple is consensual and safeword-protected. Full content notes are included at the front of the book.