Tidebound: A Dark Romantasy Novella

Mara the storm-witch sells weather for coin, and the sea owes her a debt.The fishing fleets of Saltmere are dying. Eleven ships gone in three weeks, tides running backward, nets coming up heavy with things that were never fish. The merchants' guild will pay five thousand crowns to anyone who can break whatever has woken in the deep water off the Needles.Mara knows exactly what waits for her out there. Seven years ago the smuggler-captain Veyrin pulled her from a storm and left her with a debt unpaid. Now the sea owns him - a drowned ghost bound to a black-sailed trawler, feeding ship after ship to something older and hungrier stirring under the reef. He is the storm, and he is the only thing holding back the dark.The bargain is simple: a year and a day to break his binding, or Mara becomes his bride in the deep. She trusts contracts, not men. She trusts silver, not promises. But the sea does not honor paper, and curses do not break for coin. They break for the choices you drown for.Tidebound is a standalone dark romantasy novella featuring enemies turned allies, a morally grey drowned hero, forbidden magic, bargain-bound love, and the slow, dangerous burn of a debt that cannot be paid in silver. For readers of ghost ships, storm witches, coastal gothic, and the sea as a character with teeth.