Joy Oforah
"First came the nightmares, then came the blood, now comes the reckoning."
To the ruthless royal court of Pompeii, Valeria is nothing more than a fragile, timid outcast cursed by terrifying visions. They think she is weak. They think she can be broken, but deep down she's their worst nightmare, and immortal in human skin.
When her father drags her and her mother back to the palace, Valeria discovers a sickening betrayal, her mother has been bartered away as a pawn in a dark pact with foreign immortals. Thrust into The Hunt, a barbaric, multi-realm tournament where every breath is bought with slaughter. Valeria must hide her lethal prowess behind a mask of helpless submission.
To survive the arena, she forms a volatile, breathless alliance with Lucius, a dangerous shadow-wielder whose touch feels like holy fire and whose secrets rival her own. Their connection burns with a fierce, forbidden intensity, a fragile lifeline in a world built on deceit. But as the court's darkest lies unravel, Valeria learns the most agonizing truth of all, the man she is falling for may just be the devil in disguise.
Drenched in betrayal, grief, and a love that threatens to consume them both, Valeria must finally drop the victim's mask. She will unleash a dormant, terrifying power capable of burning kingdoms to ash.
Some sacrifices don't make you a hero. They just leave you hollow. So tell me will she save her mother from the dark, or let the world burn?
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