Osric Mordaunt kills for a living, sworn to the assassins of the Fyren Order. Aurienne Fairhrim heals for a living, bound to the Haelan Order's vow to harm none. A magical affliction called seith rot is eating away at Osric. Aurienne is the one healer with any hope of slowing it, so he pays her to try, once a month, under the full moon.
Their arrangement was supposed to stay professional. It does not stay that way for long. A plague is moving through the Tīendoms and has started killing children. Evidence points to another Order behind it, one crueler than the Fyren or the Haelan. Osric and Aurienne end up chasing the same conspiracy, enemies who keep noticing each other anyway.
Told in alternating chapters from both of them, this fantasy romance runs fast between banter and danger. It is funny in one scene and tense in the next. The Tīendoms are stitched together by waystones the two of them keep crossing, and the plague plot gives the romance somewhere to burn slowly before it turns openly steamy.
It is the second and closing book of the Dearly Beloathed duology. It picks up right after The Irresistible Urge to Fall For Your Enemy, and it assumes readers already know Osric and Aurienne from there.