MissKianaRae
Vårheim was never meant to fall.
Hidden in the mountains and guarded by old blood, sacred wolves, and the strength of its people, it was a realm built to outlast the world's hungers. But fire came for it anyway. Now Persephone Thorndalesdóttir stands in the ashes of everything she was born to inherit-daughter of a slain Jarl, descendant of a god, and one of the last living pieces of a kingdom the world was never meant to touch.
She has lost her home. She has lost her father. She has lost more than anyone knows. But she has not lost her will.
With vengeance in her blood and the surviving remnant of Vårheim at her back, Persephone rides toward war beside the Great Heathen Army, not only to answer Ragnar Lothbrok's death in Northumbria, but to hunt the uncle who destroyed her world.
Bound by an old oath between fathers, Björn Ragnarsson cannot turn her away. And Ivar-dark-minded, hungry, impossible to ignore-cannot look away.
He sees what grief has made of her.
He sees what power already lives in her.
And he becomes obsessed with what she could become in his hands, at his side, and above every man who would dare look down on her.
Ivar does not want to merely shelter Persephone. He wants to raise her higher. To meet Vårheim's laws and exceed them. To protect her people, strengthen her claim, and place a crown within reach of a woman made for far more than survival. Lawfully. Ruthlessly. Completely.
As old oaths tighten, kingdoms march to war, and desire twists itself through grief and vengeance, Persephone and Ivar are drawn into something far more dangerous than battle. Because some loves do not soften the people inside them.
They sharpen them.
And in the ruin of one kingdom, a darker one may rise.