Chapter One
WESTLYN
You, my moon, may call me Father…
Verrick’s cold, cruel voice slithers along my spine, and everything inside me recoils.
I exhale so sharply the chains wrapped around my midsection rattle. “No. You’re not my…No!”
Denials gather on the tip of my tongue. A hundred. A thousand. But every one of them dies just as quickly as it forms.
Deep down in the darkest places of my heart, I know he speaks the truth. I knew who he was the moment he stepped out of the sacristy in all his fae finery, that cruel golden crown glittering atop his head.
All the mysteries, the magic, the runes, the nightmares… It all comes back to this. Tohim.
My father isn’t just some dark fae noble who manipulated my mother into sleeping with him in Faerie.
He’s the Wintermoon king. The evil, sadistic dark fae monster who slaughtered the families of the men I love and cursed them to become the immortal guardians of his precious portals, fated to watch the rest of their friends and allies die, their souls forever trapped in stone.
And I brought this beast to our realm with a spell. With magic I didn’t even realize I possessed until last night.
Blood of my blood, my magic, my fire
I call unto you, my king and my sire
Return to this realm to claim what is ours
By flame and by force, so shall we devour…
The words echo through my memory, making my stomach churn.
Was it him all along? Pulling the strings behind the scenes, urging me to tap into my power, to push myself harder and harder to open the Codex, to discover its secrets?
Goddess. I spent my whole life allowing Brian and Eloise to manipulate me because I thought I had no magic. Now, Ihavemagic—a good deal of it, apparently—and history seems determined to repeat itself.
No. I refuse to let it. I’m not some meek little girl anymore. I’m a dark fae witch, for fuck’s sake.
I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and try to find that spark of magic inside me…
The rune on the back of my neck burns, but I don’t feel anything else. I open my eyes and look for a sign of that precious indigo light crackling across my palms, but there’s nothing.
Just two useless hands roped to a chair.
“The longer you refuse to accept your legacy,” King Verrick of Wintermoon says, the voice of my nightmares brought to horrifying life, “the more painful it will be when destiny finally calls upon you.”
I hiss at him through gritted teeth. “My destiny is myown.”
“Is it?” he taunts. “Tell me. How did you come to be bound to a chair in this cathedral? Did you bring yourself here? Tie the ropes with your own hands?”
“No, I… I must’ve…” I close my eyes, reaching for the memories of last night. There was the dream, the woman from the Tarot card… A dark cauldron. A spell. The fire, and then—
“Destiny whispered in your ear,” he says, “and you walked out into the darkness beyond the wards, straight into my waiting arms.”
I open my eyes and spear him with a deadly glare. “And then what? You just called us an Uber and we zipped down to the city for father-daughter day?”
No response. Nothing but that cold, terrible grin.
Magic, then. More dark magic.
