Marked by the Veil

Rachel Wren, a forensic psychologist with a fractured past, and Tom Harlow, a disgraced investigative journalist drowning in his own demons, return to Hollow Ridge, the town that almost swallowed them whole. Bound by shared trauma, buried secrets, and an undeniable hunger that has never faded, their return unearths more than just the Veilkeeper's legend-it awakens something ancient, ravenous, and watching.

The Veilkeeper, an entity older than time, feeds on fear, desire, and suffering, twisting reality and ensnaring its victims in a labyrinth of nightmares. Every thirteen years, it demands blood-a sacrifice from the descendants of Hollow Ridge's founders, an offering to keep the veil between worlds from collapsing.

But Rachel and Tom's return isn't coincidence. They were always meant to come back. The Veilkeeper is inside them, watching, whispering, waiting. Their bodies burn with an attraction that feels too strong to be natural-too consuming, too raw, too wrong. In the dead of night, Rachel dreams of hands brushing over her skin, breath against her throat, shadows curling around her like lovers, their touch leaving bruises. She wakes to find her body aching, as if touched by something that should not exist.

Tom, unable to resist the pull of her, finds himself losing control. He watches her in ways he never did before, drawn to her pain, to the haunted look in her eyes. He knows it's the Veilkeeper. He knows it's inside him, threading hunger through his veins. But the more he resists, the more he wants.

Their connection-violent, desperate, inescapable-may be the key to either breaking the curse or fulfilling it.

As the Veilkeeper tightens its grip, Hollow Ridge warps into a waking fever dream of lust and terror, where desire and destruction are one and the same. The closer they get to the truth, the harder it becomes to tell whether they're fighting the Veilkeeper... or becoming part of its legend.