Before the Thread Breaks - Aaric Graycastle

The underground rings teach you the currency of your skin, but they can't buy back what's already been signed away. Athena Riorson survived her father's execution, abandonment, and the pits by clinging to a broken mantra: Never let anyone own you. But autonomy is a luxury she's already lost. Bound to a master before setting foot in the quadrant, her entire existence is a desperate act of defiance to reclaim her soul. At Basgiath's cutthroat Riders Quadrant, her strategy is to keep her head down. But Athena has never been good at staying unnoticed, especially not around Aaric Graycastle.

Steady where she is volatile and dangerously secretive, Aaric becomes impossible to avoid. The closer she gets to him, the more her world slips into unexplainable instincts, buried traditions, and a terrifying realization that something in her blood is not normal.

Athena finds herself fighting on three separate fronts: a war for the fate of Navarre, a war for the relationships she's forced to navigate, and a war for her own mind. Survival isn't just about avoiding becoming a dragon's breakfast-it's surviving the messy, forced bonds that claim you.