Bed_of_roses

Marina had spent her life clawing against poverty, illness, and desperation. With her mother and brother gravely unwell and her family barely surviving, she makes a dangerous choice. To become a royal consort. Trading her body and freedom for the power to save the people she loves. It is not romance she seeks, but leverage. King Xanthanius was murdered by betrayal and brought back from the dead by a single, fatal error made during his killing. Immortal but incomplete, half of his life force was stolen, leaving his resurrection imperfect and his existence unstable. Determined to reclaim what was taken, he rules with calculated cruelty and a singular obsession. Restoring his immortality at any cost. When Marina enters his court as a consort, Xanthanius initially sees her as nothing more than a crowd to his space then a disposable pawn, useful for navigating political traps and accomplishing delicate tasks beneath a King’s notice. But Marina is not as expendable as he assumes. Her presence is an untold key to the missing half of his immortality. She is tied to the very power Xanthanius needs to survive. Bound by mutual exploitation, desire, and distrust, Marina and Xanthanius use each other to pursue their own ends until ambition blurs into intimacy and manipulation gives way to something far more dangerous. Because falling in love with Marina may cost Xanthanius the immortality he’s willing to kill for and Marina must decide whether saving her family is worth destroying the man she’s come to care for.