“Kiss… or rot in a dungeon among rats.”
I’m just a nurse. He is a ruthless dragon duke: his palm is corroded by black darkness, and his heart died along with his wife and child.
They declared me the killer of an infant and threw me into a damp cellar where immortal magical rats scurry around. And when I no longer had any hope, in desperation I begged for mercy—and his glove touched my lips. The curse wavered.
Since then, I am his personal healer. The only one whose kisses can draw the darkness out of his flesh… but the price is monstrous: each time it feels like it might be my last, and every glance from him pushes me to the brink of madness. He catches himself more and more often thinking, “She belongs to me.” And I—because the truth is, I really want to save him.
But the duke already has a fiancée: gentle, almost otherworldly, with golden сияние at the tips of her fingers and a smile that makes you want to cry.
In this house someone is playing with other people’s thoughts. Someone forces servants to do terrible things. I need to lift the curse, find who stands behind the crimes, and… hide the secret that could destroy everything between us.