The Serpent and the Wolf (Volume 1) (Dark Inheritance Trilogy) - Softcover

Robinson, Rebecca

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1668074672 ISBN 13: 9781668074671

Verlag: S&S/Saga Press, 2025

Inhaltsangabe

A “must-read” (C.J. Redwine, New York Times bestselling author) romantasy debut that combines high-stakes political intrigue and a steamy, slow-burn, enemies-to-lovers romance. Perfect for fans of Raven Kennedy and Thea Guanzon!

All her life, Vaasa Kozár has been sharpened into a blade.

After losing her mother—her only remaining parent—to a mysterious dark magic that has since awakened within her, Vaasa is certain death looms. So is her merciless brother, who aims to eliminate Vaasa as a threat to his crown. In one last political scheme, he marries her off to Reid of Mireh, a ruthless foreign ruler, in hopes that he can use her death as a rallying cry to finally invade Reid’s nation. All Vaasa has to do is die.

But she is desperate to live. Vaasa enters her new marriage with every intent to escape it, wielding the hard-won political prowess and combat abilities her late father instilled in her. But to her surprise, Reid offers her a deal: help him win the votes to rise in power, and she can walk free. In exchange, she will share his knowledge about the dark magic running through her veins—and help keep it at bay.

This proposal may be too good to refuse, yet Vaasa and Reid’s undeniable attraction threatens to break the rules of their arrangement. As her brother’s lethal machinations take form, everything is at stake: Vaasa must learn to trust her new husband, but how can she especially when their perfect political marriage begins to feel like the real thing? In The Serpent and the Wolf, Vaasa and Reid must confront deadly betrayals, unravel the enigma of her dark magic, and decide whether their growing bond is their greatest strength—or the ultimate risk—in a world where love and power are the most dangerous games of all.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

By day, Rebecca Robinson works as a high school administrator. By night, she’s an avid reader, writer, and consumer of all things art. When she’s not writing, Rebecca loves to cook, spend time with her husband and son, and lounge in the garden with her husky.

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Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1
With rope tied under one pillow and a tiny blade hidden beneath another, Vaasalisa Kozár scurried around a dimly lit room in the High Temple of Mireh.

She would not be here when the sun came up.

The people dancing in the downstairs hall of this enormous temple were the perfect distraction, with their aggravatingly loud music and communal dances, absorbed in themselves and their honeyed wine without a care for the bride or groom.

She despised each and every person in that great hall. Every person who had attended this fraud of a ceremony.

Her brother, Dominik, especially, with his serpentine smile and glinting raven hair. As she peeled off her ugly white marriage gown, violent images of ripping that hair from his head and silencing his audacious laugh pulsed in her mind.

But his death was not at the forefront of her priorities. He had already slithered back to his palace and his pretty women in their home empire of Asterya anyway. Whatever reasons Vaasa’s viper of a brother had to arrange her marriage only months after their father’s death, only weeks after their mother’s, didn’t matter. It was unforgivable. It was the sort of thing someone lost their life over.

Vaasa didn’t know if death would be Dominik’s fate, but she had decided this marriage would not be hers.

She only had minutes before her unfortunate new husband came for her.

Reid of Mireh was a brutal mountain of a warrior—the youngest foreman Icruria had ever seen, and by far the most notorious. The Wolf of Mireh. He had looked upon her white dress as if he detested its absence of color—detested her, perhaps. This nation exalted bright colors and brilliant hues, so she shoved away the white nightgown she’d planned to wear and traded it for a red one, which only fell to midthigh and had a slit up to her right hip. The cool silk glided over her body. Setting her bags inconspicuously near the window, she sank into silk sheets and crossed her legs in a way she thought made them look longer. In a way she hoped would ensnare Reid of Mireh.

Vaasa had studied this nation extensively—just as much as any other threat to her family’s reign. While no one had managed to infiltrate western Icruria and come back alive, violence plagued the eastern territories, which were on the verge of an all-out war with Asterya. The republic of Icruria had begun as six independent city-states, united generations ago. Vaasa’s tutors had emphasized its unusual political structure: Icruria’s elected ruler, called a headman, changed every ten years. The headman was chosen from among the foremen of the six major territories. The five who weren’t elected became the headman’s councilors. They advised the headman, and it was eventually their votes that selected the next one. Vaasa’s new husband was said to be the most obvious next choice to rule Icruria—a dangerous, violent warlord known for his lack of mercy.

If that was true, the little slit in her nightgown might be her best advantage—it fell to either side of her leg as she adjusted her weight upon the bed. Even warlords were men, after all, and men were almost always their own downfall.

Her fingers itched for the rope beneath the pillow. For the blade.

The foreman of Mireh would probably expect a demure, well-poised woman of the heiress of Asterya. Not the murderous thing Vaasa’s father had turned her into—the callous, manipulative daughter he had demanded. Asterya’s eldest would not be some useless bride—she would be a weapon.

Upon their parents’ deaths, Dominik became the emperor, solely because of what dangled between his legs.

All Vaasa got was Reid of Mireh.

Approaching footsteps sounded upon the stone floors outside the door.

Unease threaded in her stomach for only a moment, and she shoved it down with the force of a blow. Fear was the most dangerous emotion she felt—one that summoned the infectious curse crawling beneath her skin. A serpent was how she pictured it, coiled in her gut, and prepared to strike. She might very well kill all the people in this temple if she let the force out. Might kill herself, too. It was far easier to remain angry—anger was not vulnerability.

Anger was the only emotion the curse seemed to listen to.

The door swung open and the foreman of Mireh padded through, taking up a majority of the doorframe with his far-too-broad shoulders.

Their eyes met.

Vaasa would not be terrified of this man, no matter the strength she saw there.

But there was a whisper behind that strength, a surprise or confusion at the sight of her sitting like this on his bed.

Then the foreman of Mireh morphed into someone diligent and duty-bound, pragmatic and calm. His clean-shaven face made her question what she might find attached to such a rigid jaw—fangs or some other atrocious feature, something like the magic and monsters whispered to roam Icruria.

Yet he only looked human, just like her, a thought that had haunted her since their brief and hollow exchange of vows. Young, poised. He was dressed in rich black and purple, dark hair pulled back with a leather strap, and his curious eyes roved over the image of her waiting patiently upon the bed for him. Vaasa softened her gaze and let her mouth tip into a struck grin. Golden eyes flicking down to take in that mouth, the foreman of Mireh was a fly in a web, something carnal ticking in the corner of his jaw. He looked nothing short of a conqueror.

Vaasa would make a meal of her escape.

Curling from the bed, long legs carrying her weight as she folded upright, she crossed the distance between them. Reid didn’t move. He watched each step she took until she slithered to the space just in front of him.

“Red suits you.” His western accent floated between them in the commerce tongue of the Icrurians, his eyes raising to meet the ocean of hers.

“You didn’t seem to like the white,” she said.

His lips pursed before sliding into a genuine grin. “I suspect you could stop my heart in any color.”

Such pretty words. Lifting her hand to his chest, to the space right above his heart, she splayed her fingers and pressed her palm against the silk of his draped wedding attire. Instead of words, which hardly ever did a situation justice anyway, Vaasa slid her hands to the buttons of his cloak, right at the curve of his neck, and began to undo them. Carefully, she pulled the cool fabric from his shoulders and exposed more of his bare chest.

He took it from her hands and placed it delicately upon the chair to their left.

She moved for the cross-body drape, tucking her fingers into the fabric.

Reid watched her silently, eyes a little wary, but his breathing had quickened, too.

She worked him out of his ceremonial drape and gave herself one long glance at the plane of his bare chest—all corded muscle and covered in intricate ink that threaded across the light brown skin of his right shoulder and down his arm. The subtle fragrance of salt and amber wafted under her nose, a little sweet and earthy. In any other situation, she would have described the smell as irresistible. Admitted that his candlelit, brown body covered in black ink was more enticing than she wanted to give him credit for.

But that was not why she was here.

With reckless abandon, she...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: S&S/Saga Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2025
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1668074672
• ISBN 13: 9781668074671
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 368
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: preigu GmbH & Co. KG; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; Niedersachsen; 49078; Deutschland