What He’d Burn

“He’d burn the world down for you” is the most romantic line in fantasy. Until someone actually does it.

Anna Iverson has spent her life proving she doesn’t need anyone — a useful skill when your mother abandoned you to chase a mythical fated mate bond that never materialized. Now twenty-four and clawing her way toward pediatric cancer research on no sleep and no money, Anna’s careful independence shatters the moment she shakes Jacob Tatum’s hand.

The bond snaps into place. Permanent. Intoxicating. Undeniable.

Jacob is brilliant, protective, and utterly devoted. He’s also a billionaire assassin who kills people for a living.

At first, Anna rationalizes. He only eliminates people causing active harm — traffickers, murderers, monsters the legal system won’t touch. The bond pulls her closer. His money solves problems she’s been drowning under for years. She tells herself she can separate the man she loves from what he does.

But Jacob’s devotion doesn’t have a ceiling. His protection doesn’t have a line. And the fated mate bond that promised her a fairy tale? It doesn’t come with an exit.

What happens when “he’d do anything for you” stops being romantic — and you’re the one who has to survive it?

WHAT HE’D BURN is a dark fantasy romance and the first in a duology. For readers who love Sarah J. Maas and Rebecca Ross but want their morally grey characters examined rather than excused.

Content warnings: violence, reproductive coercion, captivity, morally complex themes. This book goes there.

He’d burn the world for her. The only question left is what she’d wager to walk out of the fire.

A fated bond is forever. That’s the fairy tale: someone who will never leave, never falter, never let you go.

Nobody warns you that “never let you go” is a threat.

Anna Iverson finally understands that the penthouse is a beautiful cage, and she’s done pretending otherwise. Jacob calls it sanctuary. He calls the locked doors safety and the cameras devotion. The child she never agreed to carry, he calls a future. He loves her without a ceiling and without a line. Patient, gentle, and certain that time will bring her back to him.

Sometimes, the only way out is through. So she lets him believe it.

She smiles on command. She buries everything the bond would hand him. The woman who fell for Jacob Tatum is gone, and the one wearing her face is playing a longer game.

The most dangerous thing in that building isn’t the locks, or the names on Jacob’s desk. It’s the part of her that could still fall back in. Because the bond still pulls: every time he’s tender, every time he’s afraid, it floods her with a warmth she can’t refuse.

Then someone steps into the cage. Someone who doesn’t perform, who sees exactly what she is and offers a different kind of pull: one she’d choose, instead of one chosen for her. It’s the first clear thing she’s felt in months. It might also get them both killed.

Freedom has a price. Anna knows exactly what she’s putting on the line. She’s betting all of it that she can become someone a fated bond can’t reach. He’d burn the world for her. Everyone knows that by now.

The only question left is what she’d wager to walk out of the fire.

WHAT SHE’D WAGER concludes a dark fantasy romance duology. For readers who love Sarah J. Maas and Rebecca Ross but want their morally grey characters examined, not excused.

Content warnings: captivity, reproductive coercion, pregnancy and childbirth under duress, psychological abuse, violence. This book goes there, and then further.