Throne of Secrets

Throne of Secrets, the second installment in the Prince of Sin series, is set in the Seven Circles, an Underworld realm where seven immortal demon princes each govern a territory defined by a different cardinal sin. The story follows Prince Gluttony, known publicly as Gabriel Axton, whose sin encompasses not just excess in food and drink but an insatiable craving for adventure and danger. It also follows Adriana Saint Lucent, a gossip columnist who has spent a decade attacking the prince in the press, harboring what she believes is justified hatred for the demon who broke her heart.

The novel opens with Gluttony leading a hunting party in the frozen wilderness beyond Merciless Reach, a walled outpost he built a century earlier to monitor the northern territory where ice dragons dwell. These hunts are governed by a peace treaty Gluttony negotiated: The dragons remain in the north, and Gluttony arranges monthly sparring matches where neither side may kill. During this hunt, a dragon violates the pact by attacking Gluttony's brother Wrath, tearing out his throat. Though Wrath is immortal and will recover, the breach triggers the rest of the pack to turn on the hunters, marking the first violation of the treaty in over a century.

Adriana works as a columnist for the Wicked Daily, struggling to support her younger half-sister Eden and her spendthrift stepmother Sophie Everhart on meager wages. Her animosity toward Gluttony stems from the All-Sinners Ball ten years earlier: She remembers the prince seducing her, sleeping with her, then abandoning her for a viscountess, humiliating her publicly and causing her to lose a bracelet inherited from her mother. When she begins investigating the dragon attack, Gluttony visits the newspaper and pressures her editor to reassign her from gossip to a romantic advice column called "Miss Match," keeping her too occupied to dig further.

Adriana's friend and coworker Ryleigh Hughes convinces her to visit the Seven Sins, a mysterious, invitation-only pleasure club where patrons are magically disguised and masked. On the rooftop garden, Adriana meets a masked stranger whose witty, respectful manner captivates her. They share an intense first kiss, and the stranger gives her a key to return. The stranger is Gluttony himself, who owns the club, though Adriana does not know this.

When Gluttony's brothers Envy and Lust learn of the dragon crisis, they propose a distraction: Gluttony will host a realm-wide competition to find a wife, with each House of Sin appointing a suitor. The spectacle will dominate the scandal sheets while the princes secretly investigate. Gluttony reluctantly agrees and offers Adriana the role of official royal reporter, but she refuses on principle.

Over several nights at the club, Adriana and her masked stranger grow closer. Gluttony begins to suspect his mystery lover is Adriana based on subtle clues and commissions a distinctive cloak to confirm her identity. Meanwhile, Gluttony enlists Sascha, a witch allied with his court, to cast communication spells as part of the investigation into the dragons' behavior. The crisis worsens when Jackson Rose, an initiate in Gluttony's hunting guild, is abducted and killed in a second attack. The princes wound and capture Silvanus, a dragon Gluttony hand-raised from a hatchling, whose eyes have turned an unprecedented crimson. Gluttony obtains royal vampire venom from Blade, the new vampire prince, and administers it to Silvanus, but the dragon awakens only briefly, chanting "kill" before collapsing.

Sophie uses a spell to ensure Eden is chosen as the House Gluttony suitor, and Adriana moves into the castle with her family, intending to investigate the prince's secrets. At the Seven Sins, Adriana and her stranger seal a six-week courtship with a blood oath that binds their desires and prevents either from acting against the other's interests. When they remove their masks, Adriana recognizes Gluttony. Horrified that he knew her identity, she recoils and topples over the railing. Gluttony catches her mid-fall and flies her to a hidden cavern, where she refuses to join the competition, unwilling to displace her sister.

Late one night, Gluttony confesses a radically different memory of the All-Sinners Ball: He remembers wanting to court Adriana but being met with hatred before he could speak. Neither detects deception from the other, meaning both believe their contradictory memories are true. Adriana theorizes that the Hexed Quill, a sentient dark magic object created by Sursea, the First Witch imprisoned at House Pride, was used that night to rewrite events. At a meeting with Prince Envy, this theory is confirmed: Such hex magic creates a "rift" that takes years to manifest, and because Gluttony is the target, the hex draws power from the strongest beings in his circle. The dragon attacks are a direct consequence of the hex draining the dragons' vitality and driving them mad. To end the crisis, they must destroy the document on which the rewritten event was recorded.

Gluttony gives Adriana his royal mark, a rare bond allowing each to sense and summon the other, and they consummate their relationship. He shares his true name, Gabriellis, a deeply guarded secret among demon princes. When evidence links the Hexed Quill to Ryleigh, who inherited it from her deceased lover, the Duke of Oleander, Gluttony plans a grand ball to end the competition, propose to Adriana, and confront Ryleigh.

At the ball, Gluttony accuses Ryleigh of wielding the quill and drops to one knee before Adriana. Before she can answer, Silvanus and his pack crash through the ballroom doors, crimson eyes locked on Adriana. A massive battle erupts. Blade arrives with vampire forces to protect the streets, and Sascha wards the surrounding neighborhoods with protective spells. Gluttony flies Adriana to Merciless Reach and leaves her inside the warded fortress while the princes fight.

Sheltered at the fortress, Adriana realizes the evidence against Ryleigh does not hold up. She recalls her father's merchant ledger, which listed a "Quill" among his final sales, and remembers that Sophie kept a feather tucked inside as a bookmark. Racing home, Adriana finds a page glued into the ledger on which the altered event was recorded in a child's handwriting. Eden arrives and tearfully confesses that she used the quill the night of the ball. She was nine years old, terrified of losing her sister to a prince, and wrote a different version of events to keep Adriana from leaving. Adriana burns the page, breaking the hex. The dragons' eyes return to their natural iridescent color, and the fighting ceases.

In the battle's final moments, Gluttony pursues Silvanus for a killing blow, but the dragon's eyes shift back to iridescent just as the blade descends. Unable to stop his momentum, Gluttony turns his House dagger on himself rather than kill the dragon he raised. He falls unconscious but regenerates over several hours.

In the aftermath, Ryleigh is cleared and offered the position of royal reporter. Gluttony takes Adriana to his favorite tavern, returns her mother's bracelet that he has kept for ten years, and proposes again. Adriana accepts. Eden confesses she cannot remember what became of the Hexed Quill, leaving the dangerous object's whereabouts unresolved. Gluttony introduces Adriana to a recovered Silvanus, and the couple takes flight on the dragon, with Gluttony promising further adventures together.