Verwandte Artikel zu Tethered: Book One of The Binding Chronicles

Tethered: Book One of The Binding Chronicles - Hardcover

Buch 1 von 4: The Binding Chronicles

Gallea, Elayna R.

 
9781039015067: Tethered: Book One of The Binding Chronicles
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 1039015069 ISBN 13: 9781039015067
Verlag: Random House Canada, 2026

Inhaltsangabe

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

The first book in The Binding Chronicles, Tethered is a darkly seductive romantasy for fans of A Court of Thorns and Roses and The Serpent and the Wings of Night, blending forbidden love, dangerous magic and a bond that defies fate.

What could be worse than an arranged marriage to a vampire prince?

When Luna is sold into marriage to the vampire Prince of Darkness, she expects cruelty, not temptation. Prince Sebastian was made to obey his queen, even if that means binding himself to a mortal he doesn't want and burying every trace of the humanity he lost centuries ago. But the moment their blood mingles during the Binding Ceremony, something ancient and forbidden ignites between them.

Now bound by a magic neither understands and incapable of going more than thirty feet apart, Luna and Sebastian are trapped in each other’s orbit—tethered but unwilling to surrender. As political schemes twist into betrayal and war brews on the horizon, desire becomes their greatest danger. Loving each other could cost them their crowns, their kingdoms and their lives.

Steeped in dark magic, aching passion and impossible choices, Tethered is a sweeping gothic romantasy about two enemies bound by fate and undone by love.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

ELAYNA R. GALLEA is a whimsical weaver of words, creating tales of romantic fantasy. Nestled in the enchanting land of New Brunswick, Canada, she lives with her husband and two younglings. When she's not writing fantastical stories, she eats copious amounts of chocolate and cheese, reads every day and plays with her dogs and cats.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Luna

The Worst Kind of Birthday

“Happy twenty-first birthday to me,” I muttered under my breath as I stared at the ornate double doors hiding the Great Hall from view. I shifted from one foot to the other, the carpeted floor absorbing the sound of my footsteps as I waited in the empty hallway.

Even the guards had made themselves scarce, giving me a moment of privacy before my life would change forever. As if that would help calm the nerves in my stomach. For all my preparation and research, nothing could have readied me for this moment. I was really being sold into marriage.

Somehow, it hadn’t seemed real until now. I wasn’t sure why, because I could vividly remember standing shell-shocked, my hands running down the corset of my favorite sky-blue gown, in front of the Council of Lords two weeks ago when they informed me I would marry the Prince of Darkness on the night of my twenty-first birthday.

Apparently, the “auspicious circumstances” of my birth were a sign. According to them, since I had been born beneath an eclipse that only took place once every 846 years, I was the perfect candidate for this marriage.

Auspicious.

As if the scientific movements of the sun and the moon were enough reason to send me to my probable death. Everyone knew that, along with not being able to go into the sun, vampires were especially cruel toward humans. It was fairly likely I wouldn’t survive the week.

Since receiving the news of my engagement, I had read as many reports about vampires as I could get my hands on. Not only that, but over the past two weeks, everyone I knew—and some people who were little more than acquaintances—had delighted in sharing every last terrible detail they’d ever heard about the people of the Northern Kingdom.

I could sum up everything I had been told in two words: blood and death.

Unfortunately for me, the word of the Council of Lords was law. Unlike the other three kingdoms on this continent, Ipotha had no ruler; its council, made up of thirteen lords—four elves, three shifters, three witches, two werewolves, and one human—was, for all intents and purposes, the ruling body. One did not argue with them, especially when it came to something like this.

Still, my marriage hadn’t felt real. Not when I’d been informed of the union, and not a week later when I visited my younger brother, Marius, and promised to write to him as soon as I arrived in Eleyta. Not yesterday, when I supervised the packing of my trunks. Not even this morning, when I woke up and watched the sun crest the horizon for the last time in Ipotha.

But it was real. All of it was real. The sun was setting, and tonight I was marrying the vampire prince of Eleyta. This would be the last time in the foreseeable future that I would see these stone walls, the worn carpets, the paintings of my ancestors. The last time I would be with my family.

Footsteps came from behind me, and I turned as my father approached. Dressed in a white ruffled linen shirt and velvet breeches, he extended his arm.

I slid my hand into the crook of his elbow. My lips brushed the stubble on his cheek, and I whispered, “Hello, Papa.”

“Lulu,” he said warmly, somehow managing to make me feel like a child again with that one word. Patting my hand where it rested on his arm, he smiled. “You look like a princess in that golden gown.”

I glanced down at myself. He was right. Somehow, that made this even worse. After tonight, I would be a princess. But what good was being a princess when it meant you had to give up everything else?

The moment those double doors swung open, I would lose everything. My home, my studies, and everything I’d ever known. The twelve encyclopedias I’d been given for my sixteenth birthday, which I adored, my favorite laboratory set, all the notebooks I had filled with musings, notes from classes I took, and sketches I drew when bored. Even the hundreds of books in my personal library were staying in Ipotha. They were remnants of my past now. Nothing more.

Other than my clothes—most of which I wouldn’t be able to wear in the snowy north—the only piece of Ipotha coming to Eleyta with me was my maid, Julieta. The Light Elf had been my constant companion since my first stepmother, Kinthani, died, and she was more like a best friend than a maid.

Even with Julieta’s comforting presence, tonight was still changing everything. Twenty-one years of life in Ipotha, and all it took was one marriage agreement to rip it all away. No one had asked for my agreement to marry the prince. My opinion didn’t matter. Not about this.

I was born for this very purpose.

Marriage had never been my dream. But this wasn’t the moment to say that to my father. After tonight, I didn’t know when I would see him again. If I would see him again. So I cast out all thoughts of doom and gloom and focused on the present. Leaning toward Papa, I whispered, “Thank you.”

“Did you sleep well last night? I know you were having some trouble . . .”

His voice trailed off, and he glanced at me.

“I . . . not that well,” I said evasively, shaking my head and avoiding his gaze.

Three, maybe four hours of rest per night did not count as sleep. The ticking of my clock had kept me company ever since I’d found out about this match.

How could one sleep when all their dreams were dead?

Looking back on it, it had been fanciful of me to think that, as my father’s youngest daughter, I would be safe from the call of “duty.” I should have known this would happen, but for some reason, it still took me by surprise.

Foolishly, I used to think that if Papa forced me to marry, my husband would probably be a kind, hopefully young, human lord. After bearing him a few children, I would then retire to academics, where I could spend my days in sunny libraries and laboratories.

But my husband-to-be was a vampire, and none of what I had envisioned would come to pass.

Papa’s lips tilted down. “I’m sorry to hear that, pumpkin. Maybe tonight you’ll find some rest.”

“Perhaps,” I said, chewing on my lip.

I doubted it, though. Who could sleep well when they had been sold into marriage? When it might be their last night alive?

Even as I thought it, I knew that, technically, the term “sold” was too strong a word. The legal terms presented to the Council of Lords by Her Majesty Queen Marguerite’s representative were “being brought together under the unity of matrimony.”

But no matter the terms, the reality was that I was chattel, and being treated like a marketable good. The Prince of Darkness needed a wife, and Ipotha needed an alliance with Eleyta.

A shudder ran down my spine that had nothing to do with the late hour. What kind of killer was I marrying?

If the rumors whispered in the darkest corners of the castle held even a drop of truth, my future husband was the cruelest, most black-hearted vampire to ever live in the Four Kingdoms. They said he drank the blood of infants to break his nightly fast, and that no one, human or vampire, ever dared cross him and lived to tell the tale.

I would find out soon enough what kind of being he was.

“Do you remember the plan?” Papa asked, straightening the lapels on his shirt.

“Yes,” I replied. A knot formed in my stomach as I met my father’s eyes. Like mine, his skin was perpetually tanned, and we both had dark brown hair. His was short, but mine reached my waist when it was...

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Verlag
Random House Canada
Erscheinungsdatum
2026
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1039015069
ISBN 13 
9781039015067
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
440
Kontakt zum Hersteller
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Verantwortliche Person
Yeepin GmbH
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