Book Four in the Verdantian Series - Standalone. Not a cliff-hanger. HEA 360 pages. M/F, Mild D/s themes, light spanking, and an over-sexed but sensitive prince with a hero complex.

Everything Adonia thought true either rejected or abandoned her, and she flounders to find her place in a world turned unfamiliar. Her only desire in life is to heal the sick, but on the sentient world of Verdantia, sexual rites grant the power to affect the greatest cures, and Adonia lacks the genetics to access the magicks used by the high born of her world. Instead, she throws herself into the application of practical, non-magickal, medicine.

Prince DeHelios, whom all mourned as dead in the wars, appears with a demand for medical help. While she knows she is less than what he requires, Adonia asks to return with him and her request is granted. So begins her perilous journey to an isolated place born out of fables and myth-the legendary mountain-city of Nyth Uchel. She had intended merely to treat their sick and dying, but in the arms of Hel, their highborn prince, Adonia discovers where she yearns to belong.

Noble born, a descendant of the greatest kings their planet has known, Hel willingly bears the burden of his dying city and its people on his massive shoulders-alone. Forced to watch helplessly as a dark evil locks the former utopia in permanent winter and attacks the very soil under his feet, he crushes his pride to summon help from rulers he considers illegitimate. He is staggered to discover the answer to saving his city, and perhaps all of Verdantia might lie behind a heavy fall of chocolate hair and the shy brown eyes of a commoner.

As their entire planet faces encroaching black death, Hel and Adonia, two seemingly disparate individuals, forge a partnership of love and sacrifice that alters their future forever.