The Butcher's Favourite - Aeressa

"Give me ten minutes."

At four in the morning, Lady Sera Voss loses everything.

Her father is executed for treason. Her title is stripped. Her home is seized by a brutal empire that devours its own. With sunrise comes exile-or worse.

Then the Crown sends Wick.

Silent, scarred, and feared across the capital, Wick is the empire's most terrifying instrument: an executioner whose name clears rooms and whose hands have ended countless lives. She should be the final punishment in Sera's downfall.

Instead, Wick offers escape.

Dragged from gaslit aristocracy into the shadow roads beyond the empire's reach, Sera must survive a political purge, unravel the machinery that destroyed her family, and decide whether the woman escorting her to safety is a weapon... or the first real choice she has ever been given.

As cities burn, records vanish, and rebellion stirs beneath the Crown's iron order, Sera finds herself dangerously drawn to the woman who was meant to erase her. But Wick is built from violence, secrets, and impossible loyalties-and loving her may be the most treasonous act of all.

In a world where belonging is conditional and survival demands reinvention, can a ruined noblewoman and the empire's deadliest blade carve out a future before the state hunts them both down?