Bound by Mystic Roots
READING AGE 18+
Twenty years after the forest claimed her parents’ fate, Tala has lived her life quietly at its edge—beloved by her village, watched by unseen eyes, and unaware that the forest remembers her blood.
When a powerful noble arrives with a marriage decree she never agreed to, Tala’s peaceful world fractures. Datu Kael is everything she distrusts: commanding, dangerous, and tied to decisions made long before she was born. Yet the forest reacts to him with a violence it has never shown before, and Tala begins to fear that the real danger is not the man—but what the forest demands of them both.
Guided by a mischievous Tikbalang and shadowed by ancient spirits, Tala is forced to confront a legacy she never asked for. As attraction simmers into something deeper and more dangerous, the forest tightens its hold, testing loyalty, love, and free will.
To choose her own future, Tala must do the unthinkable: defy the forest that raised her.
Because some loves are not chosen by fate.
They are fought for.
Unfold
The forest gathered itself.
That was the only way I could describe it — not movement, not sound, but attention. Every tree leaned inward. Every root tightened beneath the soil. The air grew thick, pressing against my skin as if the world itself were holding its breath.
The elders stood in a wide circle……
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