Rise of the Gods: Vardor’s Destiny by Bella Blair

Fated to a Goddess. Bound to a Mortal.

Roweena I am supposed to be a wife. A countess.
A silent, obedient, proper woman, devoted to a husband I do not love.
My father has already signed away my fate, selling me to the Earl of Dunmere, Thomas Ashford, a man who smiles at me in public but speaks of locking me away behind closed doors.
I know what awaits me after the wedding.
A life in a gilded cage—if I am lucky. A madhouse if I am not.
Then he comes.
A barbarian, a warlord out of ancient legend, brutal and terrifying. He rips me from the altar before I can say my vows, cutting through the wedding guests like they are nothing, black eyes burning with madness.
He tells me I belong to him.
That I have always belonged to him.
I think he is insane.
And yet, for the first time in my life, I am not trapped.
For the first time, I see a path that does not end with a locked door and a stolen life.
Because this warrior, this brutal, terrifying man, offers me something I have never dared hope for.
Freedom.
But freedom comes with a price.

Vardor My life belonged to a goddess. For centuries, I fought in her name and conquered in her honor. Yet when she deemed me unworthy, she cast me into oblivion. I should have hated her. I should have forgotten her.
But I never did.
Then she returned to me—not as the goddess I had worshipped, but as a mortal woman named Roweena. Flesh and blood. Soft and untamed. Everything Vaelora had never been.
She awakens something in me I thought was long dead. But she is not meant to last.
Because Roweena is more than she appears. And when the moment comes, I will have to make a terrible choice.