Lover Enshrined

Lover Enshrined is a paranormal romance novel by J. R. Ward, published in 2008 and part of the Black Dagger Brotherhood sequence. Its central character, Phury, takes on a role that has more to do with survival than with fighting.

As Primale of the Chosen he is responsible for keeping the Brotherhood's bloodlines alive, which means fathering the sons and daughters who will carry the traditions of the race and, in time, provide the warriors who defend it. It is a duty rather than a choice, and it sets the shape of his life.

His first mate is the Chosen Cormia, and what she wants is not only his body but his heart. She is drawn to the noble responsibility behind what she sees as his emotional distance, which puts her in the position of loving a man who has been handed to her as an obligation.

The novel sets an arrangement designed for the good of an entire race against the two people who have to live inside it, and it asks what a duty owed to everyone costs the individual who carries it.