City of Gods and Monsters

Loren Calla survives in Angelthene by staying unnoticed. She is one of the few humans left in a city where vampires, witches and other supernatural power holders treat people like her as the lowest rung. When the Darkslayers, bounty hunters who track prey nobody else can find, come for her, they seize her best friend instead. The price for getting her back is Loren's own life.

She turns to Darien Cassel, leader of the Seven Devils, the city's most feared Darkslaying circle. His orders are to bring her in, not to help her. Instead he becomes her way through Angelthene's supernatural underworld, and their search for her friend uncovers a string of missing women and a conspiracy the city's rulers would rather keep buried.

This is dark urban fantasy romance, the first book in the House of Devils series. It is built on a slow burn between a hunted human and the hunter meant to catch her. Loren and Darien's pull grows out of shared danger, closer to bodyguard romance than instant attraction, and it only turns physical once the case against Angelthene's missing women is close to broken.

The city carries as much of the book as the mystery does, from its supernatural courts to the human quarter nobody protects. The setting stays gritty and the romance stays patient, right up until the plot has earned the payoff.