The Last Mercy

They say witches deserve to die.
Lucien Vale has spent seven years making sure they do.
As the Crown's executioner, he's taken hundreds of lives without hesitation. He stopped seeing faces years ago. Stopped hearing the screams. Killing became a duty, and duty was easier when the person beneath the hood was a stranger.
Until he sees her.
Seraphine Veyre.
The woman he thought was dead.
The woman who disappeared from his life without leaving him an explanation.
Their reunion is anything but gentle. Old wounds have a way of surviving, especially when neither person knows the truth of what happened.
Seraphine has returned to Veyr carrying secrets of her own, and the Crown has no intention of letting her leave with them.
When she is condemned as a witch, Lucien is given one final order.
Execute her.
But the woman standing before his axe knows the man beneath the executioner's hood better than anyone.
And if Seraphine is willing to die for whatever she came back to uncover, Lucien will have to decide how far he's willing to go to stop the Crown from taking her from him a second time.
Some loves are forbidden.
Theirs was condemned.