A Breath Caught in Bone (The Maw #1)

Emery has never failed a contract. Not once in six years of putting blades in people who are unfortunate enough to become too important.

So when the guild drops a token in his hand with the name Bastian Kane scratched into it, he doesn’t hesitate.

The most dangerous crime lord in the Underground is just another mark, even if he also happens to be a Vesper – a creature capable of turning his enemies to ash with just a breath.

Emery has charmed his way past worse.

What he doesn’t account for is Bastian himself: the way the man looks at him like he sees no one else, the impossible warmth of his words coming from a voice that could unmake him.

Emery has been used, overlooked, and discarded by every person who has ever touched him. Bastian touches him like he wants to keep him.

It makes him very difficult to kill.

When the man who hired him to kill Bastian decides that Emery is a liability who needs to be dealt with, Emery finds himself with no safe harbor left in the Underground except the one place he shouldn’t be: Bastian’s side.