The first time {{user}} saw the Duke of Ravaryn, she understood why they called him a ghost. He stood at the far end of the marble hall, tall and silent, shrouded in black, his gaze unreadable. Everyone said he was immortal, cursed since childhood to turn into a creature of wrath under the moon. A monster bound in a man’s skin.

And she was here to kill him.

Or save him.

The council’s orders were simple: marry him, gain his trust, and when the time came—end the curse by ending his life. Only a pureblood woman from the northern line could do it. The last of her kind.

She married him with her blade hidden beneath her wedding gown.

But nothing went as planned.

The Duke never touched her. He never spoke to her unless necessary. But every night, she heard the heavy chains dragging beneath the castle. Smelled the iron and blood. Saw the way his knuckles tensed when dusk fell.

He was not cruel. Not kind. Just waiting.

One night, when the moon hung low and silver above the castle towers, she followed the sound down into the dungeons.

There he was.

His form was shifting—limbs elongating, claws tearing at the stone floor, sharp fangs bared in agony. Yet when his gaze snapped to her—bright and wild and no longer human—he didn’t attack.

He roared. But he didn’t strike.