Contents

Synopsis

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9

Acknowledgments
Also by Olivia Wildenstein
About the Author
 Synopsis

For five hundred years, my people and I have been locked on a tiny island
in the middle of the ocean because of my mother's cruel magic.

Although I dreamed of escaping our prison, I never imagined a day would

come when I could.

But that day came, and with it, a destiny that bound me to a winged beast of
a man.

A Crow.

My Crow.

H R S is an origin story, but is recommended to be read

after H B W .
 One

M y heart hastens as the first snowflakes melt on my upturned face.

Snow.
I’ve never seen snow, never experienced its frosty kiss. I’ve only
ever known sunshine and heat.
To think our queendom’s five hundred years of isolation is over. To
think the woman who betrayed the Crows and doomed her own people, who
chucked me at my grandmother’s feet after I blew out my first candle . . . to
think she could be dead.
A chill, not born from the weather, wraps around my skin and clasps me
as tightly as our pet serpents squeeze us when we venture into the sea for a
swim.
I drag my hand through the chaotic surf, watching my three seafaring
companions. What an odd group we make—Bronwen, the blind and bald
earth-Fae with the scarred face and the power to foretell the future;
Agrippina, the young, blue-eyed, fiery-maned daughter of the loathsome
Fae general; Abrax, my dearest friend, a boy I’ve loved in many ways over
my five-centuries of life; and me, the pink-eyed, auburn-haired
granddaughter of the Shabbin queen.
A wave knocks the barge from side to side and sprinkles our dark cloaks
with chilled salt water. Although adrenaline excites my pulse, my upper lip
is dewy with a slick of fear at the task that lays ahead of me. The one that
Bronwen and Agrippina risked their lives for me to accomplish—Bronwen,
because she foresaw it, and Agrippina, because she loathes the Regio
monarchs and their totalitarian regime.
 Something bumps my fingers. I curl my fingers into my palm, about to
yank my hand away when a small tusk darts through the surface, followed
by an orange head with big black eyes. I smile down at the juvenile serpent
and stroke its long nose.
Agrippina shrieks and all but scrambles onto Abrax’s lap, who calms
her with quiet reassurances and a large palm between the shoulders. He
reaches over her and pets the serpent who rattles with pleasure. Although
the general’s daughter doesn’t stick any of her limbs out of the boat to touch
the little beast, she regards it with curiosity instead of abhorrence.
The animal trails us for a while, jumping and splashing, basking in our
attention, before turning back toward Shabbe, or wherever it is he’s decided
to go. I’ve always envied our serpents’ freedom, their ability to travel
anywhere and everywhere, wards or no wards.
I dry my fingers on my wool skirt, the consciousness of my freedom
overtaking my enduring nervousness.
Free.
Never has a word tasted so sweet.
As Luce looms closer, as the smears of green I observed from our
shores become cutouts of trees, as the rainbow dots morph into homes and
the toy boats that traverse the canal grow into vessels far larger than ours,
my blood gushes beneath my skin.
How different my life would’ve been had my world been bigger. I
would’ve traveled to all four corners of the world, explored mountains and
oceans, learned every tongue and custom, sampled foreign delicacies and
foreign men.
Another wave of goosebumps splash my skin when the royal Fae isle
appears, aglow with lantern light that flickers behind the frosty swirls of
snowflakes. My grandmother may have told me all about Isolacuori, but her
stories pale in comparison to what lays before me.
The easternmost island of Luce, upon which the Regios have erected
their sprawling castle, glitters like a golden bauble through the snowdrifts.
Unlike on the mainland where the houses are colorful, the only hints of
color come from winter-blooming flowers.
Over my heart’s ruckus, I faintly hear Agrippina explain Yuletide
traditions to Abrax. Today is the second day of the Fae revel that lasts seven
days and marks the turn of the new year.
“I’m sorry,” I tell Bronwen, with whom I share a bench.
 “For?”
“For what my mother did.” I’m not to blame yet cannot help feeling
guilty. “Separating you from the man you love for five centuries . . . I
cannot fathom your heartache.” I also cannot fathom the pain she endured at
her father’s cruel touch. What sort of monster burns his child’s face? “Are
you of the same mindset as my grandmother? Do you believe that my
mother’s dead or do you think something else weakened the wards between
our lands?”
“The Cauldron hasn’t shown me what became of Meriam. Only that
Agrippina and I had to travel to Luce to fetch you, and that you, Zendaya of
Shabbe, had to free the Crow King.”
“And you’re certain the obsidian stake will simply glide out of his
body?”
“Yes.” Her cloak is pulled up high, casting shadows over the uneven
planes of her face. “Your Shabbin blood will separate the stone from the
block of iron he’s become.”
After a beat, I ask, “Why me? Why am I the one who needs to free
Lorcan? Why not another Shabbin?” Not that I mind being the chosen one,
but when Bronwen docked on our shores to collect me, something passed
between her and my grandmother, something I wasn’t made privy to even
though I’m convinced it concerns me.
“Because you’re the one who’ll give birth to the curse-breaker.”
“The curse-breaker?” I must gasp this because both Abrax and
Agrippina stop discussing traditional Yuletide songs to stare.
“Yes. The curse-breaker. The girl who’ll break the Crows’ obsidian
curse once and for all.”
My hand strays to my empty abdomen.
“Your daughter will take root this spring and be born next Yuletide.”
I blink at her, then at Abrax, a chill sweeping across my heart.
“Who will be the father?” Abrax asks, our eyes still locked even though
my mind is whirring with visions of this future child.
“Not you,” Bronwen clips.
His cheekbones pinken. “I wasn’t assuming—Daya and I are just
friends.”
Although I love and trust the male more than any other, I don’t love him
in that way, not anymore, not since we dated for all of a week two centuries
ago and decided we were better off as friends. “Does my daughter’s father
reside in Luce?”
“Yes.”
I’m about to ask for a name or a description when a ship full of Lucin
soldiers in white uniforms materializes like a mirage through the frosty
shroud.
“Who goes there?” one of them shouts, squinting through the snow.
I blanch before twisting around to check on the sigil I painted to make
the boat invisible. The snow has washed parts of it away! I scrabble to find
the shark-eye shell pendant nestled in the hollow of my neck beneath the
heavy folds of my cloak and jab my finger on the needle-sharp point that
tops the spiral.
“I repeat, who goes there?” one of the soldiers bellows, his figure
coming into relief as he fords closer, black ponytail snapping like a flag in
the wind.
I fling my arm out and retrace the broken lines with my magical
Shabbin blood.
The man’s amber gaze sharpens on me, and my heart screeches to a halt.
We’ve been caught.
 Two

“W ho goes where?” Another man stands at the bow of the vessel,

which still sails straight for us in spite of Agrippina’s efforts to
steer us away without creating a wake.
They both squint through the falling snow and the ensuing mist that
curls off the deep-blue sea.
“I told you not to have that last drink at Bottom of the Jug, Silvius. Their
Fae wine is home-brewed. Gods only know what the Amaris put in there.”
Silvius keeps staring, amber gaze as sharp as the point of his chin and
those of his ears.
When the mist and snow close like a curtain between us, Abrax lets his
hand drift off the pommel of his steel sword and murmurs, “Too close.”
I press my raised index finger to my lips because even though we’re
cloaked, our voices aren’t.
We travel in tense silence the rest of the way to the Isolacuorin harbor.
As I lift my hand to my necklace, Bronwen wheezes as though she’s
been injured. I fling my gaze around, expecting a sword or an arrow to
protrude from her dark wool cloak but no steel glimmers.
“What is it?”
“Agrippina and Abrax, you must travel back to my cottage and remain
there until they come for you.”
They? Agrippina mouths at the same time as Abrax shakes his head,
“I’m not leaving Daya. I swore an—”
“Damn your oath, boy. If you come, Daya will be caught, and all
Agrippina and I have risked will have been for naught.” Beneath her hood,
her eyes gleam like polished bone.
 “All right,” I say calmly, even though every last nerve in my body is
jangling. “All right.”
Abrax’s dark-blond eyebrows hug his brown eyes that have gone as
dark as his black coat. “Daya, no.”
“I don’t want to fail.”
“And I don’t want you to die.”
“I won’t.” It’s a hollow promise since I cannot be taken prisoner. The
Cauldron only knows what the Fae would do to a Shabbin sorceress, how
they’d use me. “I command you to do what Bronwen has asked.” I try to
smile, but my tension fritters away the curve. “Give me your palms.”
I start with Agrippina and draw the sigil for invisibility on her white
skin with my blood, then paint it on Bronwen’s brown one. Abrax is slow to
give me his palm, but in the end, he lifts it.
As I close his fingers around the bloodied symbol, I mouth, “Stay safe.”
He’s stone-faced, stone-mouthed, stone-eyed.
Before climbing onto the golden pontoon with Bronwen, I draw the sigil
on my skin.
I hold my breath as a soldier’s eyes shift over me. Did I draw the wrong
symbol? I’m about to jump back aboard the boat but can no longer see it. I
clutch Bronwen’s arm as his gaze flits off me to settle on a large vessel, the
one we crossed paths with earlier, the one with that sharp-feature, black-
haired soldier—Silvius.
“You’ll have to guide me to the Temple, Daya.” Bronwen’s frustrated
breath in my ear jolts my attention off the king’s men.
I nod and pry my eyes open wide, searching for Lorcan’s prison amidst
the whitewashed dusk.
“Our footsteps,” she murmurs. “Are they visible?”
I gaze downward, pulse stammering. “They are.” I pray the soldiers
who disembarked aren’t studying the ground.
Thankfully, another incoming vessel holds their attention. A boat
decorated with so much pomp, it’s a wonder it hasn’t sunk.
My footing falters when I catch the whetted glint of the Lucin sunray
crown atop a brown brow. “The king’s here.”
“Isolacuori is his home.”
“I mean, he’s here here,” I hiss. “In the harbor.”
Bronwen’s white eyes widen, shining like twin moons beneath her
hood. “Then we must hurry.”
 I pick up my pace, keeping to the areas not gilded by lantern light. I turn
it into a game like the one we used to play with Abrax back in Shabbe—
hop, lunge, miniature step, repeat.
To think I’m not in Shabbe.
To think I’m in Luce.
Although I give the path my full attention, occasionally I allow my gaze
to drift over the vegetation and solid gold bridges, over the limpid turquoise
water shimmering with underwater lights, and the smooth buildings built
from marble and more precious metal.
The isle is gaudy yet sumptuous, unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Even
the air looks different, tastes different, smells different, feels different. How
incredible that this winter wonderland exists in the same world as our little
pink rock, forever steeped in balmy sunshine.
“We should be near.” Bronwen’s murmur flicks my pulse until it beats
so rapidly it vibrates my hood.
I squint around the glowing darkness until I catch the smooth gleam of a
pillared edifice. “Is the temple made of white marble?”
“Yes.”
“Then we aren’t near; we’re here.”
 Three

G aining entry into the Fae Temple is surprisingly easy for the doors are
unlocked, however a Fae priest is flicking fire onto the wicks of the
candelabra hanging from what looks like the very sky but is, in fact,
a glass ceiling.
Although I keep the golden doors from banging shut, his amber eyes
rise to them. “Hello?”
Bronwen stiffens.
I drag her along, right toward the man who now stands in the middle of
the large aisle we must travel down. Without letting her go, I prick my
finger on my shell. Once I’m a hairbreadth away, I release Bronwen and
snag the man around the throat. I cannot help myself from whispering an
apology into his pointed ear before drawing the sigil for sleep onto his pulse
point.
His gasping and grunting quiets instantly.
“I’ve sedated him,” I tell her, so she doesn’t assume I’ve killed him.
I ease the male in white robes down onto one of the many stone
benches, then return to where I left Bronwen. When my outstretched hand
bumps into hers, she reappears.
I take her arm and lead her to where the white floor glimmers gold with
an inset sun. “How do we get through the Lucin emblem?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“The Cauldron hasn’t shown me how you’ll open it, only that you will.”
Well, great. I sink onto my hands and knees and crawl over the sun,
pressing my palms into every ray, smearing blood on the gold. An idea
comes to me. I paint the symbol that softens hard surfaces so we can travel
through walls. Before my next heartbeat, I sink into the floor and thump
against damp stone, in a chamber so dark I cannot see the tip of my nose.
My fall was brief, which tells me that the ceiling must be low. I feel
around me, scuttling like a blind bug. If only there was a sigil for light, but
our blood has its limitations and creating fire is one of them. The other is
slipping through wards intended to repel Shabbin blood.
My fingertips connect with a raised platform. I trail it upward,
straightening slowly. Although I’m not tall, the top of my head grazes more
stone.
Hunched over, I drag my fingertips across the rough surface. When the
raggedness turns smooth and colder still and the air fills with the tang of
iron, my entire body begins to tingle. I trail my fingers lightly across what I
recognize to be a metal arm.
A large metal arm.
I’ve found him.
I’ve found Lorcan Ríhbiadh.
 Four

I trail the arm to the obsidian dagger my mother and her Fae lover
planted between Lorcan’s shoulder blades and wrap my fingers around
the hilt. I barely have to flex my muscles to slip it free from the statue
Lorcan became at the contact of the black stone.
The whoosh of a breath followed by the whisper of fabric resounds
through the darkness, and although I’m aware I’m awakening a good man, I
can’t help backing up as far as the tomb will allow.
Twin golden orbs flare, trying to locate me, but not only is the darkness
complete, I’m still invisible.
Who are you? The voice resonates between my temples like crumbling
rock.
My throat tightens until I can barely swallow, much less breathe.
“Zendaya,” I wheeze. “Granddaughter of Queen Priya of Shabbe.”
The silence becomes so complete that I worry Lorcan has impaled
himself anew on the obsidian dagger. But then he says, Meriam’s
daughter?
“Meriam may have made me but she’s no mother.” I have no memory of
the shape of her face or of the feel of her arms. For all I know, she never
embraced me during my first year of life.
The air thins as though Lorcan is siphoning every breathable molecule.
“How long has it been?” He speaks aloud this time, his deep timbre
coasting over the walls like a skipping stone.
“Five hundred years.”
He absorbs this in silence. I don’t have to wonder how he feels since
we’ve been trapped just as long. Our cage may have been larger but it was
still a cage.
“Bronwen is waiting for us above ground. I magicked her so she’d be
invisible like I magicked myself. You can’t see me, can you?”
Although we’re entrenched in darkness, my grandmother told me Crow
senses are exquisitely acute.
“No, but I can hear your heartbeats.”
Thank the Cauldron my enemies are the Fae and not these bird shifters
with unparalleled hearing. “You must carry her to safety.”
“What about you, Zendaya?” He pronounces my name slowly, as
though committing it to memory. “Do you plan to swim back to Shabbe?”
“No.” I think of this daughter I’m to have and of the mother I’d like to
find to ascertain whether she still breathes. “I’d like to see more of Luce
first. You see, Meriam drew a sigil. One that locked us in Shabbe for the
past five centuries. Which is why no one came to free you sooner.”
He absorbs the information slowly. “Five hundred years . . .” Although
his voice doesn’t shake with grief, it rattles with fury.
“Are you ready to reconquer Luce, Lorcan Ríhbiadh?”
The golden orbs shine more brashly. “Yes, Zendaya of Shabbe. I’m
ready.” Under his breath, he murmurs, “Tach ahd a’feithahm thu, mo
chréach.”
I learned Crow so long ago that it takes my mind a moment to recall the
translation, but when I do, goosebumps flourish over my skin. He’s
awakening his people, telling them that the sky awaits them.
Once he falls quiet, I say, “If you hold my hand, I can lead you out.”
I’m already out.
Before I can ask how, I recall my grandmother explaining that Crows
can not only shift into winged beasts but also into smoke.
I make quick work of reopening my barely-healed scab and drawing the
same symbol that led me inside Lorcan’s coffin. One breath later, I’m
standing in the heart of the temple, next to a cloud of sooty smoke that
keeps tearing and coalescing.
“Mórrgaht,” Bronwen rasps.
The oddity of hearing a Faerie call a Crow Your Highness is outweighed
by the relief that she’s safe and sound and still cloaked by my magic.
He must speak into her mind because she says, “I’m right here.”
Just as the great doors are thrown open and a platoon of soldiers led by
King Andrea himself penetrate the Holy Fae edifice, she winks back into
existence.
Andrea’s brown skin seems to gray as he takes in the cloaked woman
and the shadow of the man his father imprisoned. Before any of the Fae can
conjure up their magic, Lorcan morphs into a monstrous bird with iron
talons and a beak that gleams just as wickedly as his claws.
“Where is she? Where can I find the Shabbin traitress?” I yell, but
Bronwen’s already airborne, Lorcan having snatched her with his mammoth
talons.
He pummels through the glass ceiling, splintering it into a million
jagged pieces, which sends the glowing candelabrums crashing to the floor.
I drop to my knees and curl on myself, praying no fire or glass will
chew through my cloak for smoke or a puddle of blood would give my
location away.
In spite of the din, I hear a male exclaim, “I told you I felt the ground
tremble earlier!”
I peek up from where I’m huddled to find a redheaded man crunch over
the glass, straight for me.
My invisibility sigil!
My heart scrambles into my throat, obstructing my breathing.
“The dungeon! Now!” The king’s command stays the man’s feet, stays
my pulse too. I must still be invisible if he’s ordering his men away. “Justus,
NOW! Meriam must’ve gotten away!”
Justus? As in Justus Rossi? Agrippina’s father? The notorious Fae
general who’s single-handedly grown our Shabbin population by forcing
hundreds of Lucins to walk the plank?
Humans and Fae who ended up in Shabbe because our serpents deemed
them worthy of being saved and carried them through the one-way wards.
The general’s jaw tics as he sweeps his gaze over the destruction, over
me. The second he wheels around, I shoot to my feet to follow since their
destination is also mine. What I don’t take into account is that I’m covered
in specks of glass, which all tumble from my cloak as I straighten.
Justus whirls around, a dagger at the ready. “She’s here, Maezza!
Meriam is here! That’s how he escaped!” Justus’s blue eyes blaze with
bloodlust. “Show yourself, or we attack Shabbe tonight and turn your little
isle to ash.”
It’s a ploy. They won’t attack. They fear us and our magic too much.
They fear getting trapped alongside us in our diminutive southern isle.
 “Sprites, send word to every captain and soldier to ready the ships!”
Andrea’s roar catches on every slab of marble and shard of glass. “Shabbe
will fall before the sun rises!”
“NO!” My voice stabs the wrought air.
“One last chance, Meriam. Show yourself or we attack.”
My heart beats so briskly there’s no dip between each thud. What to do?
The answer comes to me before my next breath.
I slash my palm with a piece of glass and sink back into the tomb, then
gush a scarlet pattern onto the icy stones, a lock, except this time, it isn’t
Shabbe I’m enclosing into an unbreachable sphere; it’s Luce.
I swoon from all my blood-casting and tip, bashing my head into the
wall. I blink, trying not to lose consciousness, but the air is so black and my
head so heavy . . .
Zendaya—Lore’s voice resonates between my temples, jolting my eyes
wide—where are you?
“Inside your tomb,” I murmur, trying to pry my weakened body off the
dank stones.
I need to find my mother. I need to make sure she’s dead, and if she
isn’t, I must kill her. I—
Cool air slicks around my ears and cheeks like silken wind, and then
eyes gleam in the darkness, but they aren’t gold; they’re pitch-black. I
stumble backward.
I’ve sent Cathal to carry you home but you must get yourself out of
the tomb.
Except he cannot carry me home.
Not as long as the swirls of my blood emblazon the Lucin stones.
Cool fingers wrap around one of my trembling hands and tows it toward
the low ceiling.
I smile because I’ll need more than a handprint to slip through the stone.
Slowly, I ease my fingers from the Crow emissary’s. What did Lorcan say
his name was again? Cathal?
Keeping one hand pressed against the ceiling for support, I sketch the
symbol to slip through the stones. Cathal must slip out in time with me
because my feet barely touch the ground before I’m airborne, drifting
amidst snowflakes and stars.
 Five

T he giant Crow, whose talons I dangle from, sets me down gently. I

don’t know where we’ve landed, but it’s quiet and warm. Maybe he’s
perched us atop a star.
Wouldn’t that be wondrous?
I drag in a breath and open my lids.
Unless stars are paved in stones the color of storm clouds, we’ve landed
elsewhere. I roll myself onto my back, my heart unpinning itself from my
spine and pinwheeling into my throat when my gaze locks on the man
crouched beside me.
He’s monstrous, with shoulders as wide as a door jamb, hair as black as
night, a square jaw that seems to have been welded with fire, and the nose
of a male who’s participated in one too many brawls. Yet the most alarming
part of him is his eyes that glitter darkly against the charcoal powder
smudged from the bridge of his nose to his temples like bird wings . . . crow
wings.
He shoves a strand of chin-length hair aside, revealing the tattoo of a
black feather on his bladed cheekbone.
I swallow to ease my throat’s tautness. “You must be Cathal.”
The male doesn’t answer. Merely keeps scrutinizing me.
I swipe my cold hand over my brow, wrinkling my nose when I catch
sight of my hands—crimson with blood. What my face must look like . . .
“Where are we?”
Still no answer. Does the Crow not speak Shabbin like us? I thought
they’d been taught our language. After all, Lorcan can speak our tongue. I
try to recall words from their dialect. Slowly I translate my earlier question.
“Cà bhul mà?”
Cathal’s gaze slides to my mouth and lingers on my cupid’s bow before
returning to my eyes without offering me an answer.
I lift my hand to my ears and skim the shells that are rounded again,
which means my irises must be back to pink. “Where did you take me,
Cathal?”
The man’s lips don’t even twitch to form an answer. Rude.
As I heave myself into a sitting position, I glare at him.
“You’re in the Sky Kingdom, Zendaya.”
I twist my head around so fast that my neck cracks. There, beneath an
archway stands another behemoth of a man with chimney-mantel shoulders
and wing-like greasepaint.
He takes a step toward us. “Forgive Cathal. He hasn’t yet regained
usage of his vocal folds.”
Oh. I swing my wide-eyed stare back toward the Crow who plucked me
from the Holy Fae Temple and carried me through a snowstorm into his
nest.
“Are you hurt?” Lorcan’s gold eyes skim over my bloodied hands and
face.
“No. Are you?”
“Thanks to you, daughter of Shabbe, not anymore.” He glances at the
Crow who’s unfurling his broad body, bone by bone.
Cauldron, the male’s tall.
Lorcan must’ve spoken into his mind because the man nods and then he
crouches and scoops me up.
“I can walk.” I wriggle but there’s no give to Cathal’s arms.
Lorcan tips his head and Cathal sets me down. My legs choose that
moment to transform into jelly, and I pitch sideways. Before I can hit the
ground, Cathal tucks me back in front of his giant chest.
“Low blood sugar,” I mumble.
“He’ll get you fed and bathed.”
“He’ll get me . . .?” Before I can finish squeaking my utter horror at the
idea of being tended to like a baby bird by this stranger, Cathal springs like
an arrow through the torch-lit hallways of the Sky Kingdom, his speed
blurring everything around us.
 I burrow my head against his black cuirass and clutch at his stiff black
shirtsleeves, my stomach lightening like my head, threatening to upheave
itself.
I don’t immediately peel away from him when he finally slows because
firstly, I don’t trust that he won’t take off again, and secondly, I’m
physically unable to pry my limp form from his grip.
I inhale and exhale twice before I attempt to unglue my cheek from the
rigid leather. I find him staring down at me with that same unreadable
expression he studied me with earlier. It’s almost as though he’s never seen
a woman in his life.
With renewed trepidation, I realize he hasn’t seen one in five centuries.
I try to find comfort that if his vocal folds are atrophied, then surely other
parts of him must be too. When I finally look away from his face, I discover
he’s taken me to a bathing area. Steam curls off the edges of a hot spring
and beads down the curved stone walls surrounding us.
Carefully, he sets me down on the lip of the dark pool. He doesn’t let go
this time, keeping one hand on the small of my back and the other on my
hip. I know his touch is born from Lorcan’s command and yet I cannot help
the blush that streaks up my body from toe to bruised forehead.
Between the steam and the blood, I doubt he notices my skin’s reaction
to him. I’ve no doubt he can hear the frenzied tempo of my heart though.
The heat drives my hands to the laces of my cloak. My fingers flounder
for purchase. After a minute of useless scrabbling, Cathal takes pity and
undoes the lace. Unfortunately, I don’t feel much cooler after it topples off.
Then again, I’m still wearing two dresses.
Pushing my long sleeves up, I kneel and scrub the blood off my hands
before scooping the warm water and splashing my face until my skin feels
slippery and clean. As I stand, I finger-comb my hair off my face. In spite
of the steam sailing past his face, I don’t miss the heightened glitter of his
eyes.
“Food?”
He traces the shape of the word on my mouth before giving the barest of
nods and offering me his arms. I shake my head, feeling more stable. Eyes
tight from my refusal, he turns in what I imagine is the direction of the
kitchens or dining room, or wherever it is Crows congregate to eat.
He gestures for me to step ahead of him, so I do. Once out of the
bathing chamber, I wait for more directions. Although I’m itching to make
conversation, I don’t since all my questions will be met with silence and
settle on scrutinizing his jagged face and umbrous eyes. Shabbin males are
handsome, burnished by the sun, muscled, and deferential. This man’s a
wild animal, alluring in the most frightening of ways, docile because his
king has bade him to be and not because I’m more powerful.
In truth, I’m not entirely certain that I am.
Perhaps that’s why I’m so fascinated.
Too busy watching him, my feet catch on a seam between the large gray
paving stones. He flings out an arm and steadies me—again—then wraps
his hand delicately around my elbow and guides me toward a closed door.
After plucking a torch from the wall, he pumps the handle and ushers me
inside.
It’s no refectory. It’s a modest bedroom with a large mattress covered in
furs. I briefly wonder if I’ll get food or if he assumes I’m in need of rest
before eating.
He tosses my cloak on the foot of the bed, then lumbers over to the
stone hearth and pokes his torch inside until a spark skips over the piled
logs. As the wood crackles, Cathal stands, outlined in honeyed light. In
spite of having had company in the last five centuries, I stare like a woman
who’s never before laid eyes on a male.
Before he can turn and catch me watching him, I walk over to the small
window and cast my gaze on the winter wonderland beyond.
I’m in Luce. I’ve awakened the Crows. And although I’ve yet to find
out what happened to my mother or create my curse-breaking daughter, I’ve
bought myself time by creating a new lock.
I start to smile at all I’ve achieved, but the sight of Cathal’s reflection,
of the slow dance of his fingers along the buckles of his cuirass, freezes my
smile and kicks up my pulse.
What is wrong with me? I’ve been in the same room as men before, yet
when he tugs the leather breastplate over his head and tosses it atop my
cloak, a deep blush swarms me.
I turn and gesture around me, throat dipping. “Is this your bedroom?”
Eyes tracking the rise and fall of my swallow, he nods. His fingers move
to his leather vambraces which he undoes unhurriedly. I guess we’re
stopping by so he can change before heading out for food.
Once both armpieces are off, he rakes one hand through his shaggy
black hair, shoving it off his strong brow. My forehead prickles with a voice
that’s neither mine nor Lorcan’s.
I shouldn’t have brought her here. She descends from Meriam, the
witch who imprisoned us. Her fucking daughter. Lorcan’s wrong to trust
her.
That voice must be coming from him. This male must share the same
mind-walking ability as his monarch.
My hands find purchase on my hips. “I revived the lot of you yet I don’t
deserve your trust?”
Cathal jerks as though my sharp tone has stung him, and then he blinks,
and although his pupils are indistinguishable from his irises, I’ve no doubt
they’re fully dilated. You heard my thoughts?
“I heard your thoughts, mind-walker.”
His nostrils flare this time, and his mouth thins.
His reaction peeves me, and I raise my chin a notch higher. “If you
don’t want me to hear them, don’t push them into my head. Now if you’re
done changing out of your combat fatigues, I’d really appreciate some food.
I’d even take a cube of sugar. Or better yet, a glass of wine.”
He gawks at me as though I’ve asked him to fetch me the moon, then
shuts his eyes and grumbles focá inside my mind so many times that my
blood begins to simmer.
“What necessitates so many fucks?” I snap.
He squeezes the bridge of his nose. I cannot mind-walk, Zendaya of
Shabbe.
“And yet I can hear you, Cathal of the Sky Kingdom, so apparently you
can. Maybe your five centuries of hibernation has given you extra powers.”
His lashes sweep up and his black stare latches onto me. There is no
mistaking the beast lurking within the envelope of flesh.
I cross my arms over my chest just as a knock echoes through the
bedroom. Since he cannot talk, I call out, “Come in,” glad for the
interruption.
Bronwen appears at the arm of an equally fearsome Crow wearing the
same dark eye makeup and feather tattoo as Cathal. “Zendaya, I wanted to
introduce you to Cian, Cathal’s older brother. My mate.”
Her hand moves across her husband’s biceps, and I cannot help the burst
of heartbeats at the sight of their bodies touching. In spite of all that befell
her, he still loves her.
Why wouldn’t he still love her?
 I arch an eyebrow at Cathal, not appreciating that he’s reading my
thoughts.
If you don’t want me to hear your thoughts, stop pushing them into
my mind. A smirk hooks up one corner of his mouth as though he finds
himself clever for tossing my words back at me.
I’m tempted to flip him off but I’m a princess, and princesses are above
lewd hand gestures. Instead, I grit out, “I did no such thing.”
“You did no such what, Zendaya?” Bronwen asks.
I shove my hair back. Since I don’t care to share the reason for my
moodiness, I say, “Justus Rossi threatened to attack Shabbe so I closed off
Luce. I can erase my sigil when—”
“Until your daughter is born, you mustn’t touch it.”
A new blush steals across my collarbone at the mention of my elusive
daughter. Oddly enough, twin spots of color bloom in the hollows of
Cathal’s cheeks.
Bronwen places a small satchel on the small table pushed against one
wall. “We’ve brought you some cheese and cured meats. It should tide the
both of you over until the morning.”
My gaze snaps off the packet of food. “Won’t you stay for dinner?”
“No.” She tips her head toward Cian who brushes a kiss onto her brow.
“Good night, Zendaya.”
My pulse jumps when the door shuts. Is she expecting me to stay the
night with this stranger? Yes, his bed is large but so is his body. Surely,
there are unused chambers within the Sky Kingdom.
Frightened of me, princess?
“I’m frightened of nothing, Cathal.”
 Six

“I f anyone should quake in their boots, Cathal, that’s you. I could spell
you in your sleep with a drop of my blood.”
Good thing I don’t intend to sleep then.
I cannot help wondering what he intends to do. Go out and fly over
Luce to terrorize the Fae? Fraternize with his awakened brethren?
Both corners of his mouth rise. If Lorcan will allow instilling a little
terror, I wouldn’t be against paying certain Fae a visit, but knowing the
man, he’ll surely want us all tucked in for a while. He goes to the table
and unwraps the food. A block of cheese tumbles out, along with what
looks like a sausage link.
My stomach growls at the sight of the cheese. Before he can eat it all, I
head over to the table and seek out a knife on the scarred wooden tabletop.
I may turn into an animal, princess, but I do have some manners. Yet
he grows his nails into iron talons to sliver the cheese. I admit it’s practical
but quite savage.
He pokes the slice and extends it my way. As I pinch it off, I remind
myself not to venture onto a Crow’s bad side because a swipe of those
metal nails would be most unpleasant.
It all depends on the pressure.
“Get out of my head, Cathal,” I grumble as I slip the morsel between
my lips and chew hard.
I’m afraid it’s too late for that, princess. You see, I cannot mind-walk
into just anyone’s head. Only our king has that ability.
“Then how come you can read my thoughts? Is my Shabbin skull
porous or something?”
 Or something. He slivers another piece of cheese and holds it out.
I snatch it from him.
How much has your grandmother taught you about Crows?
“I know you shapeshift. I know that your beaks and talons are pure iron,
and that the king is made of five crows while the rest of you only transform
into one.”
What of our . . . mating bonds?
My pulse drops into my stomach. “What of your mating bonds?”
Mates can penetrate each other’s minds.
My jaw slackens. Is he saying—is he saying— No . . .
Yes.
“No.”
Yes.
I snap my jaw shut and wedge my teeth so firmly together that my gums
ache. There must be another reason for our mind-link.
He reclines against the table and props one giant foot on one of the two
chairs. I cannot possibly be mated to someone so large, so beastly, so . . . so
...
So what?
“I’m a princess, and one day, I’ll be a queen. My king needs to be”—I
gesture to his frightening form—“not you.” He’d terrorize Shabbins.
My horror blunts the twinkle in his eyes. I thought the little princess
wasn’t scared of anything.
“Do not call me little.”
He pushes away from the table and stalks closer. Or what, Zendaya?
I tilt my head as far back as it can go. “Or . . . or I’ll . . .” I don’t fall
back but my spine bends.
Spell away our bond? It’s Cauldron-made, so no amount of blood
magic will erase it.
I mash my lips together as his face hovers over mine, as his body
agitates the air between our bodies. “I’ll leave.”
Didn’t you just lock us inside Luce?
“It’s my sigil. I can erase it.”
He takes another step forward forcing me to lean farther back. Tell me,
how do you plan on getting back to that mausoleum the Fae call a Holy
Temple? Last I heard, Shabbins couldn’t fly, but I suppose a lot can
change in five hundred years.
 As his smell and voice lace around me, my pulse clocks the lump on my
forehead, making it throb as hard as the organ lodged beneath my ribs.
His gaze flicks to the bump. As though my bruise harms him somehow,
he scowls, dark smoke coiling off his shoulders and black hair. Before my
next breath, the man becomes smoke and vanishes from the room.
Although I wanted him gone, the suddenness of his disappearance is
destabilizing. For several long minutes, I stay planted in the middle of the
bedroom, nibbling the life out of my bottom lip, wondering if he’ll return.
What if he doesn’t?
My mate . . .
A shudder rattles me. The Cauldron couldn’t possibly have been of
sound mind when it decided to make Cathal and me mates.
Not only could the man crush my larynx between his pinkies, but if he’s
massive everywhere . . . A wave of heat folds over me at the contemplation.
Remembering that I’m wearing two dresses, I contort my arms and
fumble to unfasten the bodice on the wool one. The laces untying feels like
a lungful of oxygen after a long underwater swim. I drink in the air greedily
as I shrug off the stiff woolen material and step out of it.
A burst of cool air has me glancing away from the fabric pooled around
my boots. Cathal’s broad figure darkens the doorway. Unabashedly he runs
me over with his gaze, absorbing each pleat of silver chiffon, each coil of
silver rope.
I feel like he’s undressing me even though his fingers are nowhere near
my body. “I thought you were gone.” Although not as breathy as
Agrippina’s, my voice sounds threaded with too much air.
I’ve just returned to give you this. He raises his hand, offering me a
knotted satchel. It’s snow. For your head wound.
I blink at his offering as though it were the oddest gift I’ve ever received
when it’s quite possibly the kindest. When I make no move to take it from
him, he sets it down on the table beside the crumbling cheese and uneaten
sausage.
My bed is yours. My room as well. Sleep well, princess, and come find
me when you’ve gotten over your fear of my . . . massiveness.
I suck in a startled breath as he shuts the door, the force of his departure
fluttering my long hair and plucking at my bewildered heart. “I’m not
scared, Cathal!” I call out after him, which earns me a raucous, chilling
chuckle.
 Seven

D ays fritter by.

Then a week.
Two.
Although I leave Cathal’s bedroom more than once to wander the Sky
Kingdom, I don’t run into the shifter. I do run into Bronwen, though, and
learn Lorcan has been holding meetings with King Andrea about brokering
a peace between the Crows and the Fae. Here, I assumed he’d launch a war
to reconquer his kingdom, but for now, the Crow King seems content to
split Luce.
“One day, it’ll be his again.” Bronwen strokes the condensation on her
glass of water, grooving the haze.
I stare past the Fae soothsayer, out the tiny opening that reminds me of a
porthole. In the past two weeks, we’ve had one day of sun—one—and
although I find great beauty in snow, I miss the blinding heat of Shabbe. I
pluck a piece of bread off my plate and nibble on it.
“The daughter you will have with Cathal will make it his.”
I choke on the doughy morsel, then cough as it slides down the wrong
pipe. I haven’t thought much of this elusive daughter of mine, too busy
dwelling on the male who called me his mate before flying the coop.
“Cathal?” I wheeze. “Are you certain?”
A slow smile tugs at Bronwen’s mouth as though she finds my
predicament amusing instead of what it actually is—alarming.
The temptation to roll my cheeks against the window to cool myself off
almost jolts me out of the seat I’ve been occupying for days on end in
Adh’Thábhain—one of the three taverns in Lorcan’s realm. Not only does
this one offer the loveliest views on the snowy mounts, but it’s also the
closest one to Cathal’s room, and though I’m not usually lazy, all the blood-
casting I did the day I freed the Crows has thoroughly drained me.
“What if I decide to make her with someone else?”
The smile warps off Bronwen’s lips. “Don’t.” Her white eyes seem to
grow paler. “You’d doom Lore. You’d doom all the Crows.”
The tangible terror of her proclamation steals the heat from both my
cheeks and veins. “Even if I made her with another Crow?” Not that I’ve
met another that makes my pulse fizz quite like Cathal but still . . .
You could try to bed another, princess, but it wouldn’t end well for
him, and I’m rather attached to my brothers. Cathal’s voice makes my
spine snap straight and my neck swivel.
I spot him across the room, standing by the entrance of the tavern, and
next to him—
“Abrax!” I launch myself out of my seat toward my friend who barely
has time to spread his arms before I reach him. “Cauldron, I’ve missed you.
What took you so long?” I breathe in his familiar scent of sand and sun, of
home.
His arms squeeze me. “I’m sorry I left you, Daya.”
“I didn’t give you much of a choice.” I pull away to study his face and
torso, looking for bruises and broken limbs. I thankfully find none.
Expelling a sigh of relief, I turn toward Agrippina whose large blue eyes
gulp in her surroundings.
“I can’t believe the Sky Kingdom’s real,” she whispers. “I can’t believe
I’m standing inside of it.”
“I know.”
As Abrax, too, observes the Crows’ kingdom, my gaze slips over
Cathal, over his balled fingers and white knuckles, up the leather vambraces
that vibrate from barely contained rage, across his granite jaw.
“What?” I pop out. Not happy to see me, mate?
His pupils flare against his ebony irises, flooding their depths with more
darkness. Glad to see you’ve accepted our bond.
My head rears back. “I haven’t.”
“Haven’t what?” Abrax’s eyebrows quirk beneath a lock of his golden
hair.
“Your princess was having trouble accepting that the Cauldron made her
mine.”
 I stare in horror at Cathal’s shifting lips. I cannot believe he’s just
proclaimed this. Out loud, no less. “I see you’ve regained use of your
voice,” I grumble.
He flings me that predatory smile of his, the one that makes me feel like
a minnow chased by a serpent. “I have.” Have you gotten over your fear of
me or do you still require time alone?
I cross my arms. I was never scared of you.
His smirk increases. Just of certain parts of me . . .
Holy Cauldron, I’m going to end up throttling this man. I’m not scared.
Besides, I’ve no doubt it’ll be massively underwhelming.
Instead of vanquishing his smirk, it somehow amplifies it. “Only one
way to find out, Zendaya of Shabbe.”
Not interested, Cathal of the Sky Kingdom.
“Báeinach. Cathal Báeinach.” He backs up. Memorize the name for
you’ll share it in no time.
“Never!”
He winks before he whirls on his boots and becomes one with the
shadows.
“Him?” Abrax has lost so much color in his cheeks that his skin tone
almost matches Agrippina’s. “The Cauldron bound you to him?”
“The Cauldron chained me to no one.” I spear my arm through his and
pull him into the room. “Tell me all about your adventures. And I do mean
everything.”
Although I concentrate on his and Agrippina’s tale, my mind cannot
help but lope back to Cathal.
What is the opposite of a moth? For that is what the shifter has turned
me into.
A creature that seeks out the dark instead of the light.
 Eight

T he sun sets and the stars rise and still Cathal doesn’t return to the
tavern or to his bedroom. Instead of relieved, my stomach has been
writhing with nerves since he left.
I refuse to seek him out.
If he wants to see me, he’ll come.
I slide between his sheets that smell faintly of him and completely of me
and toss and turn, lying awake for hours, body aching in ways it has never
ached before. I growl my pent-up frustration into the pillow before flipping
onto my back and watching more snowflakes flutter across the dark sky.
The flurries vanish as my eyes conjure Cathal’s dark smirk. I blink it
away, but somehow, his face has imprinted itself onto the backs of my lids.
I drag my palms across my face, then farther, over my tender breasts. I
haven’t touched myself in months. My frustration has absolutely nothing to
do with an infuriating Crow and everything to do with not having had a
release in so long. Kneading one breast, I close my eyes and let my other
hand wander lower and lower until my fingers find my wet heat.
Cathal’s face floods my mind. I try to replace it with someone else’s but
my head is stubborn and won’t allow my mind to wander. In the end, I give
up and allow his dark eyes and crooked nose to draw a long moan from my
lips, and then another and another, until I’ve thoroughly drenched his
sheets.
I barely have to graze my swollen clit to get myself off, so my fingers
grow as sluggish as my pulse. I give myself another slow stroke, and
although I keep Cathal’s name off my lips, I cannot keep his face off my
lids.
 The creak of leather reels my lashes up, and I find myself looking
straight at the man I’ve been fantasizing about for the last hour. I blink to
make sure he’s real. When my eyes open, Cathal’s still there, still
unbuckling his battle fatigues while I lay in his bed with my hand between
my thighs.
“Don’t stop on my account, princess. I’m very much enjoying the
show.”
I snap the sheets over my body and glower. “Don’t you know how to
knock?”
“I wasn’t aware I had to knock on my own door.”
My pulse is slow no more and quickens further as he keeps stripping.
When his chest is bare, I tuck the sheets more snugly around my chest as
though a flimsy piece of linen could wrangle my heart into submission.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking off my clothes.”
I’m tempted to roll my eyes but keep them leveled on his. “You know
that’s not what I’m asking.”
As his fingers drop to the buttoned seam of his leather breeches that
barely contains the bulge beneath, my core clenches, threatening to tip me
over the edge without so much as a flick.
“Have you forgotten that it’s my bed, Zendaya?” He pushes the leather
down legs as thick as trunks. When he straightens, although the room is cast
in nothing but veiled moonlight, I don’t miss the enormous thing that
springs to life between his thighs and bounces as he walks over to the side
of the bed I haven’t taken over. He tugs on the sheets I’m clutching for dear
life, but I must’ve grown talons because there’s no give to my fingers.
“Very well.” He drops the sheet and just sprawls on top, his feet poking
from the mattress. Although his lids fall, his erection doesn’t. “Were you
imagining it was my hand?”
“What?” My voice is strangled.
“Between your thighs.” He turns his head to look at me.
Although I’m no stranger to the deep, I drown and flounder in the
depths of his irises. “No.”
He smiles. “My tongue, then?”
My heart catapults itself against my ribs before liquefying and dripping
along my spine. “No.”
 He keeps smiling as though he can see right through my lie, the same
way he can see into my mind, and shifts on the mattress. I wrap the sheets
more snugly around me, half expecting him to make a move, but the only
part of him that moves is his arm.
He grips his shaft and gives himself a slow pump that makes his thick
tip glisten. “Gach air a bhain mi fhàin, ha schemlach do làhd ag do beul.”
It takes my mind a moment to make sense of his words, but when they
hit, they spring my fingers open and draw a choked exhale from my parted
mouth. Every time I’ve touched myself, I imagined it was your hand and
your mouth.
Oh Cauldron . . . oh Cauldron . . . oh Cauldron.
I fling the sheet off my body, too flushed and too sensitive.
Cathal’s eyes snap to my exposed flesh, to my heaving breasts, to my
pebbled abdomen, to the wet curls covering wetter folds.
He’s cast his net, and however much I’ve fought it, there’s no escaping
this mating bond. He’s caught me.
“And which felt better, Cathal, my mouth or my fingers?”
 Nine

C athal has gone stock-still. Even his chest seems to have turned to
stone.
Cauldron, his chest. Now that I allow my eyes to linger on him, I
devour each slab of muscle, each sharp groove, each dark hair. He may be a
beast, but he’s apparently my beast. The surge of possessiveness and desire I
feel for this man rocks me.
He echoes the sentiment with a growled, “Leámsa,” before rolling
himself over me, his thick cock slapping my thigh.
Mine.
He brackets my face between his powerful forearms and simply stares
as though he’s memorizing the curl of my eyelashes, the pinkness of my
irises, the bow shape of my mouth.
Perhaps that isn’t what he’s doing, but it certainly is what I’m doing.
I’m committing each one of his features to memory even though I feel like I
already know him by heart.
I lick my lips as his arousal dribbles along my legs, and then I’m licking
his mouth, his tongue, his teeth. And he’s devouring my mouth, my tongue,
my teeth. My nipples strain against his chest, harden from the friction of his
coarse hair and stone pecs, from the sweep of his tongue and the heat of his
mouth and the pulse of his cock.
Possessed. That’s what we are.
He kisses a line down my throat, laves my breasts, and although he’s
unleashed, he isn’t brutal, and although he isn’t tender, he’s deliberate. My
blood whooshes faster and faster until my limbs feel as swollen as my
breasts, as swollen as the bundle of nerves Cathal is slowly traveling
toward.
When his kiss lands in my belly button, my hips jerk. He seizes the
opportunity to slide his arms beneath my thighs and tilt me to him. I gasp as
his next open-mouthed kiss lands there.
I grip handfuls of the sheets as he slides the flat of his tongue over me. I
come so fast and hard that I tear the sheet off the mattress and scream his
name. His lips curve against my tender flesh before his tongue ventures
lower, spearing into me and feasting on my wetness.
Another orgasm tightens my core and explodes against his tongue. His
fingers, which he’s wrapped around my trembling thighs, spread me wider.
I tug on his hair to tow his face back up my body, but the man’s
unyielding.
He teases my core until he’s wrenched every ounce of juice from my
body, and still more comes and bastes his tongue.
Never have I come this profusely or this intensely. I doubt the Cauldron
mated me with Cathal because of his proficiency at oral sex, but Gods am I
glad for the added benefit. He laughs, and the sound alone drives another
groundswell of pleasure through me.
He climbs back the length of me and hovers there, lips puffed and slick,
face glazed in sweat that makes his black makeup drip. I lift my hand and
run it over his bladed cheeks, smearing the charcoal dust over his feather
tattoo, before raising my head, and kissing the emblem of what he is.
A Crow shifter.
A Crow shifter I will one day have a child with. A little girl. I’m so
overwhelmed with emotion that it slides out the corners of my eyes and
dampens the hair at my temples.
“May she have her mother’s beauty,” he murmurs.
I swallow the lump his words drive into my throat before pressing my
palms into his chest to roll him onto his back. He goes down gently, taking
me along.
I straddle him and gaze upon his beautifully crooked face that stirs my
heart and agitates my blood like no other face, no other soul, no other body.
“And may she be endowed with your skilled tongue.”
He scowls. “You better be referring to my aptitude with words.”
I smirk.
 “You’re talking about our daughter, Daya.” He shudders as though the
thought is positively revolting. “Our daughter may be the one destined to
break Lorcan’s curse, but she will not be doing it with her tongue.”
I laugh at his distress, and then I laugh because . . . well, because I’m
happy, but then I sober as my eyes meet his and my body glides
infinitesimally lower. I want to wrap my tongue around him and savor him
like he savored me, but I want him inside of me more.
I lever my hips to allow his engorged shaft to slide up between us. His
tip trails heat from my ass to my pulsating center before slapping my clit. I
lower myself and rock against the ridged underside of his shaft until his
expression warps from fury to ecstasy.
“That isn’t how babies are made, princess.” His hands grip my waist,
circling it almost entirely.
“Isn’t it?” I ask innocently.
He grumbles something low in his throat, lifts me, and without pausing,
spears me onto his cock. Although I think he may have breached my
stomach, if not my heart, and distended me so much that no other male will
fit, I moan in ecstasy.
The sound is swallowed by his brutish growl. “No other male will ever
fuck you, princess. Was that not clear?”
As he stretches my walls, I smile and let my head fall back. Although I
didn’t mount this man to make a child, when he spills his seed inside my
womb, I dream of her. Of this daughter Cathal and I will conceive in a few
moons.
A little raindrop of a girl who’ll swell into a storm and flood our world.

THE END.

I ’ ,
.

H ’ H B W ?
D >
 Acknowledgments

Thank you to Maria, Traci, Katie, and Laetitia for your unwavering love
and support. ♥
And thank you to the book box that inspired me to write this wintertime
tale. I hope my little love story will keep you warm during the cold months.
Also by Olivia Wildenstein

PARANORMAL ROMANCE

The Kingdom of Crows series

HOUSE OF BEATING WINGS
HOUSE OF POUNDING HEARTS
HOUSE OF STRIKING OATHS

The Lost Clan series

ROSE PETAL GRAVES
ROWAN WOOD LEGENDS
RISING SILVER MIST
RAGING RIVAL HEARTS
RECKLESS CRUEL HEIRS

The Boulder Wolves series

A PACK OF BLOOD AND LIES
A PACK OF VOWS AND TEARS
A PACK OF LOVE AND HATE
A PACK OF STORMS AND STARS

Angels of Elysium series

FEATHER
CELESTIAL
STARLIGHT
 The Quatrefoil Chronicles series
OF WICKED BLOOD
OF TAINTED HEART

CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE
GHOSTBOY, CHAMELEON & THE DUKE OF GRAFFITI
NOT ANOTHER LOVE SONG

ROMANTIC SUSPENSE
Cold Little Games series
COLD LITTLE LIES
COLD LITTLE GAMES
COLD LITTLE HEARTS
 About the Author

Olivia is the byproduct of a meet-rude in a Parisian discotheque that turned into an epic love story
spanning several decades. Naturally, this shaped the way she viewed romance.
After meeting her own Prince Charming—in a Parisian discotheque of all places—she decided to
put fingers to keyboard and craft love stories for a living.
None of her characters have ever met in a Parisian nightclub... as of yet.

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