Forbidden Games (The Unmentionable #1)

They say blood ties are unbreakable, but no one tells you what to do when those ties wrap around your throat and choke you.

Ebonwood Manor wasn’t meant to be mine. It was supposed to devour me, the way it devours everyone who dares to step through its doors. My grandfather’s will made sure of it—a house of shadows, a game of control, and a year trapped with the one man I should have run from the moment I saw him.

Julian Hawthorne. My tormentor. My undoing.

We were never supposed to be more than blood and bone, never supposed to share anything but a name. But Ebonwood has a way of twisting things, of turning want into need, and need into obsession.

I wanted to hate him. I tried. But Julian is everything this house was built on—darkness, power, seduction—and he pulls me under like the lake on a moonless night.

Every challenge we face together pushes us closer to the edge. Every secret uncovered binds us tighter. And every whispered confession, every stolen touch, feels like a sin we’re destined to repeat.

Edwin thought he could destroy us with his games. But he underestimated one the way we burn.

This isn’t a love story. It’s a confession. A sin. A choice.

And when the year ends, I’m not sure who will walk away unscathed—if we walk away at all.