BORN

They tell me that my mother, Precious, was a daughter of grace-a princess of gentle gestures and obedient light. They say she slipped quietly through the ancestral gates and reincarnated into this world without permission. The Ancestors did not punish her with pain. They punished her with me, her daughter.

My name is Aura.

Where my mother is silk, I am raw cotton. Where she is a delicate whisper, I am the wind of a storm. Where she is a dress, I am armor.

Barefoot, fearless, and impossible to contain, I know that to everyone else, Valentina Land is paradise. To me, it is a cage-its traditions are too small, and its crowns are too heavy.

I do not want a throne. I want the Ocean-a mysterious, open sky covered in water. I seek the kind of danger that makes blood sing.

Adrenaline is my only prayer.

Chasing the horizon across raging seas, I collided with a legend-a young man with pirate blood running through his veins, feared for his fighting skills and his knowledge of the mysteries of the Sea, surrounded by gold and whispers.

A descendant of Henry Avery, the King of Pirates, he lays claim to a 100-million-dollar treasure, armed with nothing but his scars and Destiny itself to defend his bloodline.

When blades clash and smoke devours the Sky, I find myself on the edge of ruin-until Flame appears.

He is the light in the midst of my war, a hand pulling me back from the darkness.

And as the Red Thread of Destiny tightens around my wrist, I finally understand:

The Ancestors did not punish my mother. They created a woman they could no longer control.

But the rebellion does not end with me.

The Ancestors never accepted our union. But if they could not control me, neither could they control the man I love. Much less the Love that was born between us.

And from that forbidden union, in defiance of the ancestral laws themselves, my daughter, Shell, was born.

She already carries the Billionaire's Love Curse in her veins. She is the legacy I never chose-and the prophecy she was born to protect.

I was not born to obey.

I was born to cross the World and make Destiny run just to keep up with me.

And my daughter?

She may be the one who finally brings Destiny to its knees.