Heart of the Rose - Chronicles of the Rose, #2

Lorena, a silver elf, is a thief, a con artist, and an adventurer. Thorne is a human sea captain living as a pirate hunter and mercenary. For Lorena and her sidekick Chetaak, it has been them against the world. For Thorne, it has been a life of bloody conflict fighting for anyone willing to pay his fee. Everything changes when Lorena steals a cursed jewelry box. She realizes that she had taken a jewelry box full of trouble.
Known as The Heart of the Empress, a heart-shaped apparition haunts the box, capable of manipulating people and events around her. Lorena and Thorne fall in love, but she doubts her feelings. Now Lorena starts to wonder, can a thief's loot steal her heart? Winner of a 2022 Literary Titan Silver Book Award