Firebird

In Dacia, beneath the Carpathian Mountains, seventeen-year-old Malina dances for a traveling crowd while a Roman centurion with fire-gold eyes watches from the front row.

In Dacia, beneath the Carpathian Mountains, seventeen-year-old Malina dances for a traveling crowd while a Roman centurion with fire-gold eyes watches from the front row. She performs with reckless boldness, locking gazes with the dragon in their midst. Afterward, he finds her in a moonlit meadow and places a gold aureus in her hand—minted by his own father for his parents' wedding, stamped with the goddess Fortuna. He tells her the goddess spoke to him, that Malina would need this coin someday. Then he bows—a gesture reserved for nobility—and vanishes into the dark. She strings the coin on a leather thong and wears it hidden beneath her blouse. She will not remove it for seven years—not through the destruction of her village, not through captivity, not through war.

A general's beast kills his own soldier to claim her

Four years after their moonlit meeting, Julian commands the Roman legion that has just crushed the Celtic clan Malina joined after Romans destroyed her Dacian village. His soldiers corner the so-called Celtic witch who thwarted previous invasions with her empathic powers. A brute named Silvanus, massive in half-dragon form, prepares to rape her. Julian intervenes, ordering all prisoners left unspoiled—then recognizes the woman beneath the wild hair and blood. His firebird from the Carpathian Mountains. His dragon seizes control, snapping Silvanus in half with his jaws and snatching Malina into the sky. She arrives at his Rome estate terrified, clutching the gold aureus still hanging around her neck, now a prisoner of the man who once promised her Fortuna's favor.

Malina kneels and begs—her secrets for one woman's rescue

Julian assigns Malina as his body slave—dressing him, shaving him, serving meals. She bristles but obeys, plotting escape. When she spots an older Celtic woman named Enid at the slave auction—the caretaker who sheltered her after her family was murdered—Malina drops to her knees and grips Julian's hem, begging him to buy her. He agrees, but names a price: every evening at dinner, Malina must answer his questions about her empathic gift honestly. She accepts. Julian carries the injured Enid home himself. That night, clasping the aureus in bed, Malina realizes she has traded the only weapon she possesses—knowledge of her magic—to a Roman general who might weaponize it against everyone she has left to protect.

Julian's household shelters rescued souls, including a dragon child Malina begins mapping her prison and discovers an unsettling pattern. Ruskus, the limping Thracian housekeeper, was saved from a brutal consul. Ivo, the mute Macedonian stableman, was beaten nearly to death for shielding…