Prior Claim

Sanctum Book 1 • MXM • Romantic Suspense • Second Chance Romance • International Crime • Found Family • Interracial Romance • Trauma • Hurt/Comfort

“You wouldn’t touch me, if you knew what I’ve done,” Sevastyan whispered.
Ellisandre’s fingers trailed over Sevastyan’s skin, certain and steady. “I know what you’ve done.”
“Impossible.”
“You’ve ruined lives. You’ve crushed dreams. There are souls that wake screaming to the memory of your face. You’ve failed. Again and again.”

Sevastyan shuddered. That was the Ellisandre he knew behind the mask. Honest to the edge of a blade. They had not so much found their way into him as cut their way in, bled him until there was room, and then set their throne up in the wreckage.

Ten years ago, Ellisandre tore a hole through the Eurasian criminal underground and disappeared, presumed dead. Now that same underworld is reaching out again, threatening the lives and freedom of Ellisandre’s new chosen family, and bringing back someone they had lost: their lover and submissive, Sevastyan.

Born into the fall of the Soviet Union, Sevastyan didn’t so much learn to survive as to persist. Restrained by a promise and shattered by the loss of Ellisandre, the criminal underworld dragged him under. Now, his greatest crime is also his greatest living love, the trafficked K-Pop trainee he rescued from fire and execution, Rei. But neither of them are free.

Once the leader of a K-pop group about to debut, Rei is now a veteran slave with a scared face. Masked and silent, he follows Sevastyan into the world’s most dangerous rooms, a breathing symbol of Sevastyan’s status. Now the same people who enslaved him are trying to sell his former members. But Rei remembers everything. And from his knees, he owns the heart of an assassin.

And Ellisandre was never going to be a footnote in the lives of others. They bathed the world in blood once, for righteousness. How much further will they go when they come to claim the man they lost and the slave he saved?

This serial is a dark, modern MXM+ chosen family romance for mature audiences only. While Ellisandre, Sevastyan, and Rei are the central triad, this is a firmly polyamorous romance.

This is a stand alone serial. It contains spoilers for Collin and Damian & Jun in The Residency Boys Universe. Read those first if you want to avoid finding out some things early. Sanctum Episode 1 starts roughly a week after Damian & Jun Episode 1. The two serials run parallel, but neither has to be read to understand the other. Collin: Episodes 1-3 is the very first book if you wish to read the entire world chronologically.