Every debt is paid. Every tithe is kept.
An interconnected series of standalone dark romance novellas set within The Rite — an ancient, elite brotherhood where debts are settled the old way. With women. With silence. With devotion that looks like destruction.
Each novella follows a different pairing. A different shade of captivity, power, obsession, and dark love. The institution doesn't crumble. The system doesn't break. No one is rescued.
The Ashworth Series — Book 1
She was taken to settle a debt she didn't owe. He was waiting — patient, controlled, and certain she was his. Ashworth doesn't let go. Neither does Corvus.
Wren built herself a clean, controlled life. One phone call burned it to the ground. Now she's inside the walls of Ashworth Estate, and the man who claimed her doesn't use cruelty. He uses kindness. From the same hands. That's worse.
He never wanted the seat, the title, or the woman they gave him. The horror isn't that he was forced to be a Keeper. The horror is that he becomes one — willingly.
She spent her career helping people conceive by choice. Now she's inside a program that took hers. The stolen choice is worse than the stolen body.
He engineered the debt. He watched her long before she arrived. The brotherhood gave him permission, but he didn't need it. She was always his.
She is the only Tithe who ever escaped. She is also the only one who walked back through the gates on her own. The Rite's greatest victory isn't keeping women who want to leave. It's creating women who choose to stay.
He's not a member. He has no claim, no authority, no leverage. Just money and a growing willingness to destroy himself for a woman who belongs to someone else.
The Tithe the conditioning could not finish. The Keeper who clawed his way up from Handler. They don't soften. They don't go tender. They crash into each other because the crashing is the only honest thing either has ever felt.
Seven more stories are coming. New seats at The Table. New Keepers. New Tithes. The Ashworth Series isn't finished with you yet.