Thread of the Stolen Name: A Twisted Rumpelstiltskin Retelling

She traded her name for gold, then fell for the monster who meant to own her future.

To save her family, a miller’s daughter agrees to a midnight bargain, and the price is her name.

When famine tightens its fist, Maren Voss becomes her father’s lie. He swears she can spin straw into gold, and the court drags her to a cold tower lined with looms and locked doors. The king offers one mercy. Make gold by dawn, or watch your family burn for the debt he decides you owe.

Straw bites her fingers. The wheel stays silent. Then the shadows shift, and a stranger steps from the dark with ink-stained hands and eyes like old coins.

He spins gold with thread-magic and a smile sharpened by secrets. He asks for small things first. A ribbon from her hair. A ring from her hand. Each payment tightens the rules around her throat. Each night he returns, closer than fear should allow, teaching her how to lie with grace, how to bargain with hunger, how to want what will ruin her.

On the third night, he demands what no king has earned.

Your name.

Maren gives it to keep breathing. The moment the word leaves her, the tower listens. The contract seals. The court forgets who she is, and the stranger gains a claim no blade can cut.

She has three days to break the deal by speaking his true name, but every clue leads deeper into a web of spun gold, stolen titles, and a curse built from promises. The more she learns about the man behind the magic, the more she risks wanting him, even while his bond pulls her toward a fate written in ink and thread.

Because the king is not her only captor.

And the man who owns her name is starting to act like he means to keep her.

Thread of the Stolen Name is an adult dark romantasy retelling of Rumpelstiltskin, featuring bargains, name-magic, obsession, and heat.

This is Book Ten in Wicked Ever After. Each book is a complete, standalone romance with its own twisted fairy-tale spine.