They called her cursed long before she ever touched a dragon. At Dragon Rite Citadel — where riders are forged for war and nearly half the students die before graduation — dragons are everything. Your worth. Your future. Your right to exist. And Lyra Vale has none. Since birth, dragons have snarled at her, recoiled from her, even tried to kill her. Students whisper when she passes. Priests call her blighted. The academy waits for her to fail. Only her father believes the truth hidden inside her blood may be tied to an ancient legend buried beneath the Citadel itself. The Crowned Dragon. A creature older than kingdoms. Older than empires. A dragon so powerful that even other dragons bow in fear. When the sacred Dragon Bridge Rite begins, everyone expects Lyra to die in the caverns below the mountain. Instead, every dragon erupts into chaos. And then— Silence. From the darkness, the last Crowned Dragon awakens. Before the entire kingdom, the ancient beast lowers its massive crowned head before the girl the world called cursed. Now the academy fears her more than death itself. As kingdoms prepare for war and forbidden truths rise from the ashes of history, Lyra discovers the terrifying secret hidden at the heart of the Rider Order: Humans were never chosen by dragons. They enslaved them. And the dragons have been waiting centuries for someone to set them free.

At Noctis Academy, the empire does not train students. It creates weapons. After her father is executed for treason, Evelyn Valehart survives by becoming invisible. Quiet girls live longer in royal kingdoms. Especially at Noctis Academy— the empire’s brutal gothic war institution where noble heirs learn strategy, magic, and how to kill without hesitation. Evelyn arrives with nothing except: a scholarship, her dead father’s encrypted journal, and a dangerous suspicion that the empire buried something monstrous beneath the academy cathedral. She does not expect to attract the attention of Lucien Mordane. The crown prince. The empire’s most feared war heir. The boy whispered about in candlelit corridors like a curse. Cold. Untouchable. Violent. Students fear him enough to lower their eyes when he walks past. But Evelyn notices something nobody else does: Lucien looks exhausted. As political conspiracies tighten around Noctis and students begin disappearing beneath the academy, Evelyn uncovers terrifying truths about forbidden shadow rituals, dead royal heirs, and the horrifying experiments that transformed Lucien into something more weapon than human. The closer she gets to the truth— the closer Lucien gets to her. And the empire’s perfect prince begins unraveling in dangerous ways: watching her too closely, sleeping outside her door, threatening anyone who touches her, losing control whenever she’s hurt. Because Evelyn becomes the first person to look at Lucien Mordane and see: not a monster. Just a boy taught his entire life that love was weakness. But some kingdoms are built on blood. Some princes are born to destroy empires. And some love stories are less about salvation— and more about choosing who you’re willing to ruin the world for.

Stop it, I can’t take much more. It wraps around my waist in the morning, winds around my legs at noon, and by night, it slips right under my clothes—can’t shake it off. After a catastrophic research vessel accident in the Puerto Rico Trench, Elara thought her life was over. Instead, she woke up in a glowing, bioluminescent palace at the bottom of the world, kept as a "pet" by a creature who shouldn't exist. He is Kaelen—a colossal, silver-haired deity with golden slit pupils and endless, shimmering tentacles that never want to let her go. He tells her she can only breathe through his essence; to leave him is to embrace certain death. But as his heated coils wrap tighter around her each night, Elara finds herself fearing his absence more than his possessive embrace. Is it survival, or have the whispers of the deep finally claimed her heart?