Darkest
Destiny
by
New York Times & USA Today Bestseller
Pepper Winters
DARKEST DESTINY
Copyright © 2026 Pepper Winters
Published by Pepper Winters
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, including electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it to the seller and purchase your own copy. Libraries are exempt and permitted to share their in-house copies with their members and have full thanks for stocking this book. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.
No part of this book is permitted to be used in training AI models.
This is human written through numerous plot-notes, annoying rewrites, a painful amount of deletions, and untold number of agonising hours. And yes, receipts can be provided.
Published: Pepper Winters 2026: [email protected]
Cover Design: Christley Creatives
Proofreading by: Christina Routhier
Contents
Dedication / Playlist
Author’s Note
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Acknowledgements
OTHER WORK BY PEPPER WINTERS
Dedication
To the muse who dumped Lucien Ashfall into my head and gave me no choice but to write his twisted, tortured tale...
And to all the amazing C-dramas guided by feeling, not logic; epicness instead of reality; and plotlines so beautifully absurd they become magic.
Because magic is awesome, and reality could really use better writers.
Playlist
Symphony of Misfits – Imagine Dragons
Believer – Imagine Dragons
Chills – Mickey Valen, Joey Myron
I Want Love – Jessie J
Secrets – OneRepublic
In the End – Linkin Park
Make Me Wanna Die – The Pretty Reckless
I Won’t Back Down – Tom Petty
The Ones You Think You Own – Ilia
Only – Nine Inch Nails
Let the World Burn – Chris Grey
Burn – Ellie Goulding
Author’s Note
This is a Dark Romance with a twist.
In my thirteen-year career and forty-plus books, I’ve always dabbled along that line of contemporary versus magical. Most of my books have some element that exceeds normal parameters, but I’ve never strayed completely into blending fantasy with modern fiction.
Until today.
This book starts like any of my others: dark and angsty with splashes of taboo. However, it evolves into a world that far exceeded my expectations and delivers:
More darkness.
More desire.
More danger.
More despair and death and destiny.
What begins as a twisted, obsessive, captor/captive romance unfurls into a world where trauma becomes shackles.
Where pain becomes power.
Where the villain becomes the only one capable of loving the heroine...
...and she becomes the only one capable of leashing him.
It’s angsty and mysterious, with an insane slow burn that will ache so, so badly.
However, when they catch fire...the world will burn.
Literally.
If you’re ready, prepare to enter Cinderkeep...
The content may be hard to read at times, so please enjoy responsibly.
(One final warning: I didn’t shy away from using clichés, em dashes, and plenty of human idiosyncrasies. Purely to show that every word of this book is written by me and not AI. And if you find a typo...well, it only proves I’m human and not a machine. :))
Happy reading!
Prologue
BY THE TIME I WAS TWENTY-TWO, I already had many names.
Runaway Heiress.
Missing Empress.
Slacker Queen.
The titles filled me with guilt for abandoning my responsibilities, but after witnessing my parents die in the name of making immortality a reality, I suffered what the media called a ‘nervous breakdown’.
I went from being groomed to take my rightful place at Snowflake Corp to vanishing overnight.
The beauty of disappearing meant troubles struggled to find me.
But it also meant that when they did find me, no one was there to save me.
And I found myself hurled into the darkest destiny imaginable...
Chapter One
“ARE YOU COMING BACK AT ALL in this lifetime?”
I sighed and inched away from the crowd of women. I knew answering my phone was a bad idea. “Frank, we’ve talked about this. I agreed to give you this number, but only for actual emergencies. Everything else, I don’t exist, got it?”
Frank Lampton—the MD, CEO, CFO, and basically king of Snowflake Corp groaned dramatically. “Rook, listen to me. We all know how hard it was on you when your parents—”
“Dissolved right in front of me?”
“Yes, well, they were playing with cryogenics and anti-aging compounds that—”
“Made their quest for immortality ensure they died far before their time?”
“I know it affected you, but you have responsibilities—”
“I was fifteen, Frank. I started those responsibilities when I was twelve. They yanked me out of school and my life was just another cog in their company. Forgive me if I no longer have the capacity to—”
“I’m not saying you had it easy. And I’m aware you’ve earned the right to be alone for a while, but...we need you here for more than the occasional signature. You’re the sole heir to every subsidiary and enterprise. Your disappearance sent ripples through the corporate world and—”
“They’ll survive.” I cut him off for the fourth time, sick of the same ‘ole conversation. “Look, if you don’t have an emergency—if the labs haven’t blown up or the pill for everlasting life hasn’t been created, then please, please, leave me alone.”
