Unlacing the Duke of Dark Desires

The story

Behind the ivy-choked walls of a forgotten abbey, the Duke of Malcor sheds his title and becomes no one. Evander Raithby is the Crown's coldest instrument — a spy of chilling austerity sent to infiltrate a secret society of aristocratic depravity and dismantle a syndicate that trades in souls. He has never failed a mission. He has never had a reason to.

Then he meets Isolde Carstairs: a disgraced genius held captive as the architect of the society's lethal games, and the woman assigned to unravel the stoic enigma its members call "the Storm." She subjects him to a crucible of shadow and touch designed to break a man open. Instead, in the suffocating quiet of the crypts, duty fractures into something Evander has no training for — a forbidden obsession with the one person he was sent to see as a target.

As the gallows beckon and the syndicate tightens its grip, the lines between predator and prey dissolve entirely. Evander must make the choice that defines every great dark romance: remain the loyal blade of the throne, or burn the whole empire down for the woman who was engineered to be his ruin.

Tropes in this book

Dark romance Spy duke in disguise Forbidden obsession Morally grey hero

A duke without his title, a heroine without her freedom, and a mission neither of them can complete without destroying the other.

Spice level

Steamy — a full 4 out of 5. One of the darkest, hottest entries in the collection: possessive, high-tension, and unflinching, while still earning its happily-ever-after.