Free Sample
Preview from the beginning
A Widow’s Desire and Her Step-Son’s Downfall
- Prologue: Against the Ancestor’s Stone
All Hallows’ Eve, 1525.
The chapel smelled of cooling incense and the faint sweetness of beeswax, the air so still that every small movement seemed to echo against the vaulted stone. A few candles still burned low on their stands, their flames bending and righting themselves in the draft that slipped under the heavy door. Elena had not left after the others. She stood before the tomb with one hand braced on the carved marble, the black silk of her gown pooling around her feet like spilled ink. The fabric clung where her body had warmed it, outlining the dip of her waist and the curve of her hip each time she drew breath.
She heard him enter. The door’s soft groan, the measured tread of boots on stone. She did not turn. Her fingers pressed harder into the cold effigy beneath them, as if the marble could anchor her against the pull she felt in her chest.
Nico stopped close behind her. Close enough that she caught the scent of him—wool and leather and the faint trace of sweat from the night air. Neither spoke. The silence stretched until it frayed.
When his hands settled on her shoulders, the touch was not gentle. He turned her to face him and the look in his eyes was raw, stripped of every defense they had both pretended to keep. Her own gaze answered it. His mouth came down on hers hard enough to bruise.
The kiss was all the months of locked doors and shared ledgers, all the arguments that had thinned into something else. His tongue pushed deep, tasting her, claiming the space inside her mouth the way his hands were already claiming her body. She made a sound against him—half protest, half need—and her fingers twisted into the front of his doublet, dragging him closer even as her spine stiffened. He tasted of wine and the night and something darker that was only him. Their teeth caught once, then the kiss turned wetter, messier, breaths breaking between them in harsh pulls.
His palms slid down the silk covering her arms, then lower, gathering the heavy fabric at her hips. He lifted it with deliberate roughness, the rustle loud in the quiet. Cool air kissed the bare skin of her thighs. Beneath the gown she wore only a…