"The Price of Mercy"

Wooing a new patron at the emperor’s ball had been Jarrin Lestrave’s only hope after being discarded by the Baroness. He finds the perfect subject, but in the end, he doesn’t follow through on his plans. Yet the next day he discovers he’s been marked a traitor to the realm-for defiling the emperor’s daughter. Something which he did not do. The Twelve, the emperor’s secret guard, are sent after him. And when they catch him, they do not kill him. A worse fate has been set aside for him. He is to lose his humanity and become enslaved to the empire for eternity. Then he meets his accuser-Princess Yolandra. As he battles with his rising hatred and the invisible chains thrust upon him, he begins to see that all is not as it seems-his fate tied to the possible return of the madness which once before decimated the world around them.