Forty years before OF BLOOD AND WITCHFIRE, the first vows were broken.

He is a man of God, sworn to be her enemy. But his soul is hers to take.

Father Tomasz Banach arrives in the isolated Polish village of Brzezina to cleanse it of pagan superstition. His first duty is to confront the woman the villagers call a witch — a reclusive outcast with haunting eyes and a power that thrums in the very soil beneath his feet. He comes to save her soul. He stays and risks his own.

When a malevolent force stirs in the woods, Tomasz is forced to witness the witch standing as the village's lone defender. Her forbidden magic is the only thing holding back an encroaching, ancient darkness.

Bound to her in a sacrilegious alliance, Tomasz finds his pious certainties unraveling. Every charged silence is a confession, every accidental touch, a sin he would gladly commit again. The true damnation isn't in her magic, but in the desperate, consuming way he craves a woman he can never have.

To save his village, must he join the witch in her heresy and sacrifice his own soul?

A haunting, atmospheric prequel novella perfect for readers who love forbidden romance steeped in Slavic folklore, atmospheric gothic settings, and tortured heroes.