Chapter 1

The first time Julian Thorne walked without his wheelchair, the doctors called it a miracle.

It wasn't a miracle.

It was me.

For six months, I had lived in the cold, sprawling Thorne estate in Newport, a place that smelled of old money and sea salt. I was Elara, the girl from the Appalachian mountains, the last resort for a desperate old man, Julian' s grandfather. He knew the legends about my people, the whispers of Thunderbird blood and the life force we could share.

He offered me a pact. Heal his grandson, and the Thorne name and fortune would be mine. I would be Julian' s wife.

I agreed.

Night after night, in the quiet intimacy of our arranged marriage, I poured my own vitality into Julian' s broken body. It was a draining, dangerous process, a secret act that left me weaker each dawn. But I fell in love with the man I was saving, with the glimpses of vulnerability he showed when no one else was watching.

He healed. His legs, once dead appendages, grew strong. He stood, he walked, and the media celebrated the Thorne heir' s impossible recovery.

But he never loved me. To him, I was always the "hillbilly" cure, a strange and primitive necessity he had to endure.

The cost of his healing was not just my own life force. It was our children. Three of them, laid in the ancient way of my people. They were not flesh and blood yet, but three large, mottled eggs, warm and humming with a life that connected directly to my own.

I kept them in a small, temperature-controlled room I had prepared, a nest of soft linens and mountain herbs that smelled like home. They were the most precious things in the world to me.

One afternoon, Julian' s stepsister, Cassidy, walked into the nest. She was beautiful, a perfect porcelain doll of New England society. She reached out a manicured hand toward one of the eggs.

"They're so... rustic," she said, her voice dripping with false sweetness.

"Please don't touch them," I said, my voice sharper than I intended. "They're very fragile."

Cassidy recoiled as if I had struck her. Her eyes welled with tears instantly. "I was just curious, Elara. You don't have to be so hostile."

She ran from the room, leaving the scent of her expensive perfume behind.

That evening, Julian confronted me. He had been laughing with his friends on the veranda, his voice strong and confident. Now, it was cold steel.

"What did you say to Cassidy?"

"I just asked her not to handle the eggs. They can't be disturbed."

He laughed, a harsh, ugly sound. "The eggs. Right. Your mountain magic. Cassidy is a guest in this house, my sister. You embarrassed her. You embarrassed me."

"They are our children, Julian," I whispered, my heart aching.

"They are strange objects from your strange world," he corrected me, his eyes full of dismissal. "My grandfather may have bought into your family's fairy tales, but I have a reputation to maintain. The Thorne family has a reputation. It's time you learned your place."

He turned and walked away, his stride perfect, each step a testament to the life I had given him.

And a testament to the life he was about to take away.