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Note To Readers

Note To Readers

This book is intended for readers 18+ who enjoy dark and explicit themes. Reader discretion is advised. For detailed content warning information, please click here.

ARIES

BOOK ONE

PROLOGUE

Crushing grief. It’s all I know. All I feel. The ache slithers through my soul, weighing down my bones and slicing me into a distorted version of the girl I used to know. Now there’s just an apparition, a pale-faced creature whose flaxen braids belie a mature age of twelve. I hold my breath, afraid to breathe—as if the simple act of inhaling and exhaling will make this tragic reality real.

Each second crawls by in slow motion until my lungs burn for air. I suck in a soundless breath as movement surrounds me.

My uncle’s feet hitting the floor in lazy, unhurried steps.

The burden of a stranger’s gaze.

The dread that taints the air.

“You must be Novalee,” says the stranger with the unfamiliar shiny black shoes.

I don’t react to the statement, and Uncle Rowan’s brows slash into fierce lines of disproval. “Please excuse my niece’s reticent behavior. I’m afraid she hasn’t been herself since the plane crash.”

“It’s quite understandable. Such a sudden tragedy.”

They talk about me as if I’m not here. As if my shattered heart isn’t bleeding all over the rug my mother loved when she was alive. I focus on the pattern underneath the pillow that cushions my knees, following the kaleidoscope of browns and royal blues as I smooth my sweaty palms down the front of the dress Rowan made me wear.

White for purity, I heard him mutter when he thought I wasn’t listening.

He wanted me to look pretty for our guest, and even though I don’t understand why I’m required to kneel in this stranger’s presence, I don’t mind because it means I can pretend he’s not really here. I can be invisible like the heroines in my favorite fantasy books, cloaked by magic and imagination.

“Shall we get down to business?” asks the man standing next to my uncle. I give him a quick once-over. He’s tall and broad, and I’m fascinated with the way his coppery hair catches the sunlight spilling through the arched windows in the sitting room. I’ve never seen such a color on a man before.

“Of course.” My uncle gestures toward the archway leading into the study where my father spent most of his evenings. “Right this way, if you will.”

They leave me on my knees, and I hear him ask the man with the copper hair if he would like a drink. For the next several minutes, the clinking of glasses and low voices filter into the sitting room through the ajar door, and I catch words that make my stomach sour with dread.