The Outlaw and the Queen
(2026)(The second book in the Starchaser Novella series)
A Story by Renee Dugan
A queen. An outlaw. A world teetering on the brink.
Cistine Novacek leads the perfect life: seated on the white throne of her ancestors, a kingdom at her feet, her days full of books and tea and gossip, her loving husband at her side.
If only she could stop dreaming of a silver-haired, blue-eyed stranger and a northern kingdom where she’s never set foot…a kingdom full of enemies.
But when the outlaw she's been seeing in these too-real dreams appears in the Citadel with his knife to her throat, Cistine’s perfect life begins to unravel…leaving her plagued by nightmares of a past she hasn’t lived, torn between her beloved kingdom and a longing her people mark as madness, and drawn to a man she’s never met but knows like her own heart.
Every step she takes toward him, the danger at her back grows. A lifelong ally with a stranglehold around the throne watches her every step. A voice she can’t shake reminds her who holds Talheim’s best interests at heart. And as Cistine’s own perfect world unravels, she finds herself drawn deeper into the outlaw’s dangerous realm—and to his dream of a wild and wicked life that might be her destiny.
Genre: Fantasy
Cistine Novacek leads the perfect life: seated on the white throne of her ancestors, a kingdom at her feet, her days full of books and tea and gossip, her loving husband at her side.
If only she could stop dreaming of a silver-haired, blue-eyed stranger and a northern kingdom where she’s never set foot…a kingdom full of enemies.
But when the outlaw she's been seeing in these too-real dreams appears in the Citadel with his knife to her throat, Cistine’s perfect life begins to unravel…leaving her plagued by nightmares of a past she hasn’t lived, torn between her beloved kingdom and a longing her people mark as madness, and drawn to a man she’s never met but knows like her own heart.
Every step she takes toward him, the danger at her back grows. A lifelong ally with a stranglehold around the throne watches her every step. A voice she can’t shake reminds her who holds Talheim’s best interests at heart. And as Cistine’s own perfect world unravels, she finds herself drawn deeper into the outlaw’s dangerous realm—and to his dream of a wild and wicked life that might be her destiny.
Genre: Fantasy
Used availability for Renee Dugan's The Outlaw and the Queen