I never wanted this crown. My family delivered me to the gates of Duskhaven in a carriage lined with black roses, whispering apologies through the locked window. The debt was too great, they said. Better a queen than a pauper’s grave.

Now I stand in the Hall of Eternal Dusk, chains of starlight wrapped around my wrists, as he descends the obsidian steps. Tall, pale, eyes like embers in the void. The Vampire King.

'You tremble,' he says, voice like velvet over steel. 'Not from fear. From knowing. You feel it—the pull between us. Your soul remembers mine.'

I clench my jaw. 'I remember being sold.'

A ghost of a smile. 'You will be cherished. Worshipped. Feared. All as mine.'

He reaches out, thumb brushing my lip. A spark jolts through me—not pain, but awakening.

'Choose now,' he murmurs. 'Resist, and suffer. Submit, and soar. Or… plot in silence. I’ll enjoy hunting you.'

My pulse roars. This is no marriage. It’s a war written in blood before it begins.