“NERO” is a dark historical romance novella of 31,200 words that plunges readers into a world where poetry is weaponized, debts are manufactured, and an emperor's obsession burns hotter than any flame. Combining the forbidden passion of captive/captor romance with the “touch her and die” trope, this enemies-to-lovers story unfolds in Nero's Rome—where marble corridors hide torture cells, golden chains disguise ownership, and the only honest voice belongs to a poet he purchased.

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Junia Nerina believes she is walking into a wealthy patron's salon to recite her poetry. Instead, she enters the Senate Debt Hall to discover that Nero—Rome's unpredictable emperor—has purchased her family's debts. Her father has signed away her patronage rights as collateral. Her choice is simple: enter Nero's service as a poet, or watch her entire household face exile or execution.

She accepts. She has no other option.

But Nero doesn't want just any poet. He wants her—the woman whose verses made him feel real for the first time in his life. He moves her into the Domus Aurea's unfinished grotto, where a half-frescoed woman with no eyes warns her of the previous occupant's fate. Praetorians block every exit. A slave whispers warnings. And Nero watches her constantly—how she holds her stylus, how she smiles at others, how her fingers trace letters on her thigh when she thinks.

Their battleground becomes his poetry. He forces her to listen to two hours of mediocre verses in a sweltering bathhouse, demanding honesty she fears will kill her. She gives it anyway. He laughs—genuinely, disbelievingly—and fastens a gold chain around her throat himself. You are the only honest person in Rome. She doesn't know if this is a compliment or a death sentence.

Then she finds the letters. Dated eighteen months ago. Nero wrote to her father, instructing him to bring her to the debt hall on a specific date. Her father replied: As you command, Caesar. The debt was manufactured. The crisis was manufactured. Even the attack in the Subura was staged to make Nero her rescuer.

She recites the letters before his entire court. He offers her a pomegranate. She slaps it from his hand.

I bought you, he says quietly. But I love you. Both things are true.

She runs. Tigellinus, Nero's rival, captures her first. When Nero finally finds her—burning in a warehouse near the Circus Maximus, her golden hair dark with ash, her arm broken—he makes a choice that will level Rome and change everything between them.

He burns the city to find her. Thousands die. Her father's house is ash.

Now she must decide: is the man who destroyed everything she loved also the only man who has ever seen her truly? And when he promises to rebuild Rome from the rubble—wider streets, marble instead of brick, his own gold emptying from his treasury—can she trust anything built by hands that have only ever destroyed?

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This is not a story about a victim finding rescue. It is a story about a poet who refuses to be silenced, an emperor who cannot stop destroying everything he touches, and the impossible question of whether love can exist where power is infinitely unequal. Readers who crave possessive heroes, sharp-edged dialogue, and romance that burns rather than simmers will find Nero and Junia's passion unforgettable. Their chemistry ignites every page—forbidden, dangerous, and utterly consuming. Do not miss the fire.

Table of Contents:

• Free Sample

• NERO. Part 1.

• NERO. Part 2.