Prologue
Running.
The trees whipped past in a green blur, her eyes fixed on the uneven ground ahead. A single misstep would mean capture, and capture would mean a fate worse than death. She’d rather die than let them take her alive. She cursed herself for forgetting her father’s dagger in her rush to flee—at least then, if she couldn’t fight, she could end herself before her stepmother profited from her.
Lady Odessa Trevil had squandered her inheritance long ago, selling anything of value from her own family and Katrina’s to fund her idle pleasures. Her two daughters, Celeste and Crystina, were vain, dull, and—despite their efforts—utterly without charm. Katrina, older than both, had received more marriage proposals as a dirt-smudged servant than the two of them combined.
As the years passed, it became increasingly costly to maintain Lady Trevil’s extravagant lifestyle. Watching Katrina effortlessly draw the attention she craved for her own children, Odessa decided there was only one solution: remove the competition entirely.
She didn’t simply remove her—she erased her.
Katrina was declared dead, mourned in a small, hollow ceremony, and stripped from every record. Her inheritance—Lord Frederik Mormont’s estate and profitable silver mine investments—was claimed by Odessa. The girl herself was condemned to servitude under Aldrich, a sadistic overseer, until her stepmother could sell her virginity to the highest bidder.
It was the final straw.
Rain lashed her skin, sharp branches clawing at her arms and face. Her bare feet—she hadn’t owned shoes in years—made no sound on the sodden earth. At twenty-five, she had been worked to the bone every day since her father’s death a decade ago, shackled in her room each night like a prisoner. Now, after setting her ancestral home on fire and slipping into the storm-dark woods, she knew there would be no second chances.
She would run until her lungs burned, until her feet bled, until hunger and exhaustion dragged her to the ground—but she would not stop until Springbourne, Odessa, and all her schemes were far behind her. She was educated, resourceful, and the only heir to her father’s legacy. Wherever she landed, she would start anew. And when she could, she would return to take back everything her stepmother had stolen.
Every waking moment from now until her last breath would be dedicated to revenge.
Until fate brought her to Lord Callum Blackburn.
