My Innocence, His Destruction
Loving him was a crime
Not a metaphor, not a whispered exaggeration lovers used to feel dangerous.
In Averyn, love—when forbidden —was not forgiven. It was answered with death. Swift. Public. Unquestioned.
It was a law carved with blood and governed without mercy.
Desire was not to be claimed in Averyn, it was regulated strictly with loyalty.
Step-siblings, sworn kin, promised women, high-profile individuals, and the commoner: sacred bonds, any romance that crosses these lines is met with the same sentence.