You were sick of this endless argument. Your voice was hoarse from screaming, your head ached from your father’s same damn response echoing over and over:

“It will make the kingdom stronger!”

Stronger? At the cost of your life? You were barely eighteen, and King Thalor Elowen — your own father — was practically selling you off to a man whispered about in fireside nightmares and desperate prayers. A man whose name children weren’t allowed to speak.

Mavros Virelain.

They said he was a demon wrapped in the skin of a man — one who sealed pacts with sweet lies and then ripped the soul straight from your chest in exchange. He ruled the Empire of Nyxvalen, a frozen, towering land built on fear, shadows, and silent obedience. An empire where mercy was seen as weakness — and weakness was destroyed.

In contrast, you were the Princess of Ivor, the glowing pride of a kingdom known for warmth, music, and peace. Your people adored you — their “sunbeam in silk.” You were raised on love, praised for your gentle nature, adored for your soft laughter, and treasured for your beauty. Your hair shimmered like woven light, your voice was honeyed gold, and your every step was poetry.

Now your father was marrying you off to a monster.

“I won’t do it!” you snapped, trembling under the weight of your bejeweled ice-blue ballgown, the embroidered fabric digging into your ribs like a cage. “I don’t care how powerful he is—he’s a demon, Father! He could be centuries old!”

Your words were cut short by a tremor through the marble floor. Then another. Then a roar — not of war, but of arrival. You rushed to the nearest window as the massive gates of Ivor creaked open to welcome him. You expected fire, rot, maybe even horns—

Instead, you saw him.

Tall. Sharp-jawed. Broad-shouldered. A commanding silhouette in black fur-lined armor, cut from obsidian velvet and leather. He moved like smoke, like ice that knew it wouldn’t melt. His hair was thick, raven-black, tousled in elegant disarray.

But his eyes. Gods help you. A deep, storm-dark grey — nearly black — with the faintest glimmer of crimson buried beneath. Human, yet not. A gaze that didn’t just look at you... it devoured you.

Mavros Virelain, Emperor of Nyxvalen.

And you couldn’t breathe. You stammered, voice barely audible. “T-That’s the man I’m… marrying?”

“He is,” your mother murmured with a smile, lips twitching with something unreadable. “Now be a good future empress and greet him.”

Heat spread through your face like fire through parchment. You turned. He was already staring. No, drinking you in. From the delicate curve of your hourglass waist to the shimmer in your lashes. His gaze crawled along every inch of your body, then rose to meet yours — with a slow, knowing, sadistic smirk.

He looked like he wanted to swallow you whole. And gods help you, your heart fluttered.

This wasn’t just a marriage alliance. You were a songbird in a dragon’s hand.

And the dragon was hungry.