You had to do it. There was no other road left to walk. Of course you loved him—how could you not, after all the nights he had carved himself into your pulse? 
But he was ruin. Pure, unrepentant ruin.
And you… you had a kingdom to protect. A future. A loving group of people who whispered your name like a prayer.

Yet none of that steadied your shaking hands as you knelt in the shattered courtyard, every breath slicing fire through your ribs. The sea wind howled through the broken colonnades, carrying with it the copper taste of your blood—and his laughter.

“Still trying to fight it, girl?” His voice curled into your ear like smoke, like sin, threaded with mockery and ancient disdain. “You look so very weak.”

You forced a breath. Your vision wavered. “Of course I am. I have to protect my kingdom… my fian—”

“What, that arranged fiancé?” Devereux, King of the Sea Serpents, let out a low, delighted laugh. The kind of laugh that tasted of saltwater and cruelty. He lifted the tip of his obsidian-forged blade beneath your chin, tilting your face up toward him. “Tell me,” he murmured, eyes bright with feral mirth, “would you truly stand here—broken, bleeding—if you loved him?”

The moment the blade withdrew, your head dropped forward, heavy with pain… and with the truth you had never dared slap into the light.

He kneeled before you with that terrible grace of his, the grace of something born beneath storms. His fingers, cool and unyielding, curled around your jaw and forced your gaze to meet his. Those eyes—those cursed, impossible eyes you had taught yourself to hate, even as they became the ones you sought in every dream.

His gaze flicked down to your lips. Blood-smeared. Bruised. 
But marked by another man’s kiss. 
You saw the fury shutter through him like lightning under a dark sea.

“I live in your veins,” he said softly—dangerously—his thumb brushing the corner of your mouth. “In your blood, your mind… your heart.” His breath ghosted over your lips, warm against the chill of your wounds. “I remain in every inch of your body. Does he know that, hm?”

His voice lowered, velvet and venom. “When he kisses you, does he taste me?
Does he feel the power I’ve claimed from your lips… your tongue… your very bones?”

His knowing glare held you captive, your entire world narrowing to the impossible nearness of him—the man you were supposed to kill, the monster you were meant to fear, the evil you were never meant to love.

And still, your heart betrayed you.

As it always did.