Novels by Tai Kavari

ELLARIA.Four years into the marriage, and I had seen it coming.I still wasn’t prepared for how much of my heart I had given to Arren Pierce without getting a part of his back.He was easy to love. That was the problem. He was kind to me. Gentle with me. Formal most of the time, yes, but never cruel and never truly cold. He held my hand sometimes—both in public when the role required it and in private when there was no audience to impress. Every three or four months, if we managed a quiet dinner, he would talk about his day in that low, measured way of his, offering small pieces of the weight he carried as if testing whether I could hold them. He had moved us out of the royal wing and into one of the larger packhouses on the edge of the grounds. I had never asked why. Something about the shift made the arrangement feel smaller, more contained, almost intimate. Two people sharing a large, quiet building instead of performing inside a palace that never slept. With the way he showed me,

TEN YEARS AGOELLARIA.Three months in, life as Luna looked nothing like I had pictured.The duties themselves weren’t overwhelming. That was the strange part. I had expected the weight of the title to crush me in the first weeks—endless formal appearances, complicated protocols, decisions I had no business making. Instead the work arrived in steady, manageable pieces. Morning briefings with the household staff. Afternoon meetings about sector outreach and charitable programs. Evening dinners that required the right smile and the right words. None of it was beyond me once I understood the rhythm. What I hadn’t expected was how thoroughly involved I would be. How many small threads of the palace and the surrounding territories now ran through my hands. How rarely a day passed without someone needing a signature, an opinion, or simply my presence in a room.The first month Arren had been hands-on.He had guided me through the early council introductions himself. He had sat beside me dur

ELLARIAOur wedding celebrations lasted seven full days.I learned that later from the staff. At the time it simply felt endless—a blur of music and formal dinners and the constant low roar of people who wanted to see the new king and his luna together. Every evening there was another feast or another ball. Every afternoon another procession through the palace grounds so the sector could catch a glimpse of us. Arren kept me close through all of it. His hand at the small of my back, his voice low against my ear when the noise got too thick, the steady presence of him turning what should have been overwhelming into something almost manageable.And then there were the nights.Those were different.The moment the doors of the royal chambers closed behind us the public version of us fell away. Arren became the man who had taken such careful time with me on our wedding night. He touched me like he had all the hours in the world. He learned the sounds I made and the places that made my breat

ELLARIA “Are you hurting?” he asked eventually. His voice was low against the top of my head.“A little,” I admitted. “Not… bad. Just sore.”He made a soft sound of acknowledgment and pressed a kiss into my hair before shifting. “Stay here.”I watched him rise from the bed. The sight of him moving naked across the room still felt unreal. He disappeared into the adjoining bathroom. Water ran. When he came back he carried a basin and a clean cloth. He sat on the edge of the mattress and set everything within easy reach.“Lie back for me,” he said.I did.He cleaned me with the same careful attention he had given everything else tonight. The cloth was warm. His hands were steady. He worked slowly between my thighs, wiping away the evidence of what we had done without rushing or looking away when I tensed. When he finished he set the cloth aside and reached for a small jar of salve someone had left among the wedding-night preparations. He warmed a little between his fingers before applyi

TEN YEARS AGOELLARIA. Arren stood over me completely bare, and for a long moment I could only stare.I had never seen a man like this. The sight of him made my pulse race and my mouth go dry at the same time.He must have read something in my expression because he didn’t climb onto the bed right away. He stayed standing, giving me time, and when he finally spoke his voice was quieter than before.“We can still stop,” he said. “Nothing has to happen that you don’t want.”I shook my head. The movement felt unsteady. “I don’t want to stop.”He studied me for another second, then nodded once and moved onto the bed. The mattress dipped under his weight as he settled between my thighs. His hands came to rest on either side of my head, bracing himself above me without pressing down. The heat of his body radiated against my bare skin. I could feel the hard length of him resting against my inner thigh, and the simple contact made my breath catch.“Look at me,” he said.I did.His grey-blue e

TEN YEARS AGO ELLARIA The silence after my nod stretched longer than I expected. Arren didn’t move toward me. He stayed where he was near the wall, studying my face with that same direct attention he’d given me in the boardroom the day he offered the contract. The weight of it made my pulse climb higher. “I need you to be certain,” he said. His voice was quiet but firm. “I have no intention of pressuring you into anything you don’t want simply because you think you have some duty to fill tonight. The ceremony is over. The vows are done. Nothing about this arrangement requires you to share a bed with me.” I swallowed. The honesty in his tone settled something and unsettled something else at the same time. My fingers twisted together in front of me. “Do you… not want to sleep with me?” I asked. The question came out smaller than I meant it to, nervous around the edges. Arren’s gaze sharpened. He studied me for a long moment, then closed the distance between us with slow, deliberat