# **ECHOES OF THE VEIL** ### *By Daisia Puyear* **Two worlds separated by blood and steel. One forbidden touch that shatters the cosmos.** In the rain-drenched glass towers of modern Chicago, Seraphina Cross lives by cold facts and hard truths. As an elite antiquities archivist, she handles relics of dead empires—convinced that magic is nothing more than ancient superstition. She has spent her entire life hiding the mysterious, burning ache beneath her wrist and the fragmented memories of a childhood fire she shouldn’t have survived. Across the Veil lies **Aethelgard**—a predatory dark-fantasy realm of lethal court politics, twin moons, and ruthless fae aristocracy. Kaelen Vance, the feared High Commander of the Night Sovereign, is a warlord forged in blood. Trapped in a loveless political betrothal to hold his realm together, his only loyalty is to his blade and the dying cosmic barrier holding back extinction. They have never heard of each other. They were never meant to meet. Until **All Hallows’ Eve.** At an exclusive billionaire masquerade atop an eighty-story high-rise, an obsidian relic fractures. When gunfire and shadow-blades collide in the dark, Sera steps into the line of fire. Flesh meets flesh through porcelain masks—and the impossible happens. An extinct, primordial **Twin-Star Mate Bond** violently detonates across their skin. Now, they are psychically linked across dimensions: feeling each other’s heartbeats, sharing phantom wounds, and burning with an insatiable proximity hunger that defies the laws of nature. But in Aethelgard, cross-realm mating is high treason punishable by soul-rending. And on Earth, the magical bleed-through is drawing bloodthirsty shadow-stalkers right to Sera’s doorstep. As political betrothals crumble, ancient prophecies awaken, and an eldritch void threatens to consume both worlds, Kaelen must choose between the realm he swore to defend and the mortal woman whose soul is tethered to his own. He was bred to conquer. She was born to survive. Together, they will either rewrite the laws of the universe—or burn both worlds to ash. *** > **"A breathless collision of modern suspense and lethal dark fae romance. If you crave enemies-to-lovers, forced proximity, forbidden royalty, and a mate bond that can crack the heavens, *Echoes of the Veil* will keep you up until dawn."** * **Tropes & Elements:** Forbidden Fated Mates • Dual-World Romantasy • Morally Grey Shadow Daddy • Lethal Fae Royalty • Hidden Bloodline / Reluctant Heroine • Forced Proximity & Mind-Link • High-Stakes Mystery & Action
