The Skarrow's Chosen - The Skymarked, #1

The corps swears the storm-beasts choose only the highborn. Then one chose Wrenna.

High above a drowned world of cloud, the stone sky-holds of the Haldrange stand alone on their spires, ringed by a storm-wall that never stops turning. Nothing crosses the killing air but a rider and the winged beast that marked her. And the beasts do not mark stone-menders from the poorest outer hold. They were never supposed to mark Wrenna Fairwin at all.

But one did, mid-storm, diving out of a killing squall to choose her over a whole crown of trained highborn hopefuls. No one is more furious than Wrenna herself. No one, except the warden ordered to prove her wrong.

Torven Draywin is the coldest and most decorated flier in the sky, and his command is simple. Certify Wrenna's bond as real, or cut it dead, and cutting it kills the beast she has come to love. Grounded together, flown together, quartered too close for either one's comfort, the low-born outsider and the rule-hard enforcer start wanting the same forbidden thing, to be chosen on purpose instead of tolerated or inherited. But a hidden plot is moving to wall the holds apart and feed the poorest ones to the storm first. Wrenna's home is first on the list. So is her little sister.

Enemies to lovers, a chosen-not-by-blood underdog, found family, and a realm worth saving, in a slow burn that stays fully closed-door. All the danger, none of the spice, and a happy ever after you can count on.