He'd kill for me. I'll die without him.

My mother has promised me to a complete stranger. She says he is the doctor who saved my life when I was ill—but I've never known a doctor like Dr. Madsen. When I wake from my illness, he has marked my skin with the tattoo of a tree that spreads across my whole body—and heats at his mere presence, crying for his touch. We are married quickly, with no friends or family, and then he steals me away.

I dreamed of being an artist, and now I am the wife of Torvald Madsen, the lord of a northern keep at the edge of troll country. Although he is handsome and protective and encourages me to paint, he is keeping secrets from me. Why is it rumored that he had other wives? Why do I grow so cold without his presence? Why can't I go into the east wing? And why are his eyes full of such pain?

As I peek back my husband's secrets, the truth might kill me—or set us both free.