The Blackbark Testaments Series by Kora Valeka

Each book in this series features a different couple and a complete happily ever after. She came to steal a tablet. She didn't plan to get caught. Sabine has lived under a dead woman's name for seven years. She enters the Blackbark archive-city with one objective: steal the lineage proof that will stop her half-brother's execution. She expects resistance. She does not expect that the blood-ledger lorewarden will scent her forgery before she clears the gate arch... moreEach book in this series features a different couple and a complete happily ever after. She came to steal a tablet. She didn't plan to get caught. Sabine has lived under a dead woman's name for seven years. She enters the Blackbark archive-city with one objective: steal the lineage proof that will stop her half-brother's execution. She expects resistance. She does not expect that the blood-ledger lorewarden will scent her forgery before she clears the gate arch. Ozul does not announce what he knows. He locks her inside his record house under formal inquiry — because the living resin answers to her fingertips in ways it should not, and his body has already made its claim without consulting his considerable judgment. Confinement becomes negotiation. Every truth Sabine surrenders makes her more legally claimable and more politically explosive. And then breeding heat strikes inside the Blackbark's resin-dense halls — the forest begins recording what they are whether they consent to documentation or not. He is the most dangerous kind of patient. She is the most dangerous kind of desperate. The fated mating bond does not wait for them to finish arguing about whether it's allowed. In a world where the archive records every false name, is there any version of survival that doesn't require becoming the pair the law was written to prevent? less

Each book in this series features a different couple and a complete happily ever after. She had two days and one job. She was not supposed to feel anything. Maren is a professional mourning singer — expert at performing grief she does not feel, giving every room the version of herself it wants most. She's arrived in the Blackbark's funerary quarter with a blackmail bargain: deliver a location, or her sister dies. Two days. Then leave before anyone scents anything wrong... moreEach book in this series features a different couple and a complete happily ever after. She had two days and one job. She was not supposed to feel anything. Maren is a professional mourning singer — expert at performing grief she does not feel, giving every room the version of herself it wants most. She's arrived in the Blackbark's funerary quarter with a blackmail bargain: deliver a location, or her sister dies. Two days. Then leave before anyone scents anything wrong. Heskul is the grave-scribe. The iron scars across his forearms came from years in human chains as a war-prisoner. He knows what a justified cage looks like from the inside. When he catches fear and falsehood beneath Maren's ash perfumes — and something devastating underneath both — he doesn't expose her. He confines her to the gravehouse instead. The more carefully he tends her, the worse she feels about the mission she hasn't yet abandoned. Her handlers still hold her sister. And the fated mating bond is asking her to burn her only leverage and trust a man whose one unforgivable sin is betrayal. She will have to tell him everything. Mean it. And be right about what he does next. In a world where the resin records every performance, what happens when the only person who wants the real you is the one you were sent to betray? less

Each book in this series features a different couple and a complete happily ever after. She came to get a signature. He won't give her a lie. Catrin has run Halden Vale for three years under her dead brother's name. She did not plan to become him — it was what the estate required when he died without issue and the law had no provision for an unmarried sister. Competence is not armor for Catrin. It is identity. The only thing she still privately owns... moreEach book in this series features a different couple and a complete happily ever after. She came to get a signature. He won't give her a lie. Catrin has run Halden Vale for three years under her dead brother's name. She did not plan to become him — it was what the estate required when he died without issue and the law had no provision for an unmarried sister. Competence is not armor for Catrin. It is identity. The only thing she still privately owns. Zheryk keeps the Blackbark's living boundary maps — root-drawn records of every territorial claim the forest has witnessed. Exiled for his father's treachery, he trusts root systems over declared loyalties. He scents Catrin's true sex, her hidden witness-blood, and the fated mating bond within thirty seconds of her arrival. He does not authenticate the boundary testament she presents. The living roots have already rejected it. He will not lie to the archive on her behalf. Not even for her. What follows is a forced legal partnership between a woman who has been someone else for three years and an orc incapable of confirming the fiction. When her cousin files a challenge that will reach judgment before the principality's next session, the only path that can save Halden Vale requires Catrin to stand in the canopy court as herself — her real name, her witness-blood, visibly claimed and impossible to erase. She spent three years becoming her brother. Can she become herself before the archive closes? less