Prologue

N ew Orleans was a city of secrets, and the Duvall sisters were among its most dangerous.

Catalina ran her fingers over the edges of the journal she had received on her sixteenth birthday. The worn leather cover, scuffed from years of use, held memories she couldn't forget. Its thick, yellowed pages were filled with intricate sketches of demons and descriptions of dark rituals—silent reminders of the destiny she could never escape. It was the same for her sisters—Geneva, Savannah, and Phoenix. Each had their own Grimm File, along with the weapons that came with it. These tools were gifts and curses alike, passed down through bloodlines and bound by ancient magic and death.

On their sixteenth birthday, each sister was given her own Grimm File, handed down through the generations from Charlotte Grimm, the only sister of the Brothers Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm. Most people believed that the Grimm Brothers had merely recorded and published folktales, but in truth, they had recorded the exploits of their sister, who had been a demon-hunting fae like those who followed her. Fae blood ran strong in their line, and in each generation, the duty to hunt the creatures that could give children nightmares fell to one of the descendants of the eldest sister. In the case of the Duvall sisters, that duty and the original files from which the folklore sprang had fallen on them.

The night they were given their own handwritten copy of the Grimm Files changed their lives forever.

Exiled from the fae realm, their mother and aunt had found refuge in the Crescent City; their mother's wings had been forever stripped by love and betrayal. Her mother had fallen for a mortal, a decision that had cost her everything. But out of that forbidden love came something even the Fae Council hadn't foreseen—four daughters, each destined to face the greatest darkness.

The city throbbed with life beneath Catalina's feet, but it was the shadows that whispered her name, calling to her and her sisters. They had been preparing their whole lives for this, trained to wield magic with deadly precision, their bodies hardened into weapons of their own. Yet, even with all that training, there was one thing they couldn't prepare for—finding their fated mates.

Her aunt's warning still echoed in the back of her mind, chilling her with its truth. "You won't know your full power until you find him. And when you do...everything will change."

Each of them had grown stronger, their powers simmering just beneath the surface, waiting to be unleashed. But without their mate, they were incomplete, only a fraction of what they could become. The journal had predicted it all. The hunt was inevitable—not only for the demons they were destined to destroy but for the one soul who would unlock their true potential.

The Grimm Files were more than a family curse. They were a prophecy. One that could either save the world—or destroy it.