A Soul to Keep

Reia has spent her whole life under blame. A demon attack killed her family, and everyone in her village treats her as a bringer of bad luck. When the Veil demands its next offering, the village gives her two options: prison, or sacrifice to the Duskwalker said to be approaching.

She goes to meet the monster and finds Orpheus instead. His face is skull-like and his eyes glow, but the creature behind them is lonelier and gentler than the stories allow. Every ten years he accepts a human offering and, in return, gives the village a ward that keeps the Veil's demons away. The company he gets from each offering is brief, and each time it ends too soon.

Orpheus does not expect this one to be different. Reia, for her part, arrives with nothing left to lose.

This is romantasy with a Beauty-and-the-Beast streak, and it is the first book in the Duskwalker Brides series. It is a slow-burn, forced-proximity romance, so the pull between the two builds gradually while they share a space neither chose. The mood is tender and melancholy: two lonely figures, one shunned by people and one feared by them, with little hope between them at the start.