One kiss ruined our lives. But I’d do it again.

New North America, 2025

We grew up together. I was the banker’s daughter with a future mapped out for me, and he was just the slave boy next door, the one my parents told me not to touch. Told me not to name. 

But I did. When the world called him a number, I called him Riven.

Then the monsoons came. One kiss in our childhood treehouse changed everything. We were found out, and Riven was taken away, sold to the mines — meant to toil, meant to be forgotten. Meant to die.  

Now I’m in college, miles away from my past, trying to be the girl my parents always expected me to be. 

But it’s all a lie. I can’t forget him, or the name I gave him. But I hope he forgot it, and forgot mine.

It was either that or curse it for as long as he lived, which couldn’t have been long.

Right?

RIVEN is a 20k-word prequel novella to NEVER BROKEN. It goes back in time to explore what really happened between two secondary characters from the main series — and setting them up for the second chance romance they deserve. Since it is a prequel, it ends on a hopeful note but does not include a happily ever after. 

TRIGGER WARNINGS: This book contains institutionalized slavery in a modern dystopian setting, consensual sexual activity between adults, threats of and references to noncon, references to off-page child abuse and separation from parents, dehumanization and humiliation, violence, blood, injury, and restraints, and a brief mention of a drug addicted parent.