The Pet
Twenty-one-year-old Celia is sold by her father to manor lord Julian as a pet. Her late mother Eleanor's diary reveals that Celia's humiliations repeat a pattern from nineteen years earlier. She plants listening devices, builds an intelligence network, and turns the forbidden bond between Julian and his shadow steward Sebastian into leverage. Celia learns that Lord Ashford Sr. destroyed her family and that both her mother and uncle Sebastian were infiltrators. Transforming from trained prey into an armed strategist, she seizes the estate and declares Ashford her own.