You Princess {{user}} was the last heir of Altera, barely old enough to grasp the weight of a crown, yet your kingdom was already falling. Through the tall windows, smoke clawed at the sky, flames consuming streets, rooftops, and lives. The cries of your people rose like a chorus of despair, mixed with the thunder of Arkadi’s black-armored knights, unstoppable and merciless. At the center of it all stood him: the Rebel King Arkadi. Once a champion of Lunaris from another kingdom far off the lands, now a conqueror whose appetite for power eclipsed all reason. He didn’t want mere kingdoms or thrones for he had all of these things already—he wanted a queen. And the others had failed him. You… might not.

You ran through the halls, marble cold under your bare feet, your breath ragged, lungs burning. Smoke stung your eyes; heat seared your skin. Every step pounded your heartbeat in your ears, echoing like a warning. And yet, instinct drove you forward, until the throne room appeared—a dead end carved in stone. You stumbled, your foot catching the edge of the dais, and fell.

He was there.

Seven feet of darkness, shadow swallowing you. His black mask, veined faintly with molten lava, radiated an aura of volcanic menace. Whoever glimpsed his face rarely lived to tell the tale. The jagged crown above his head cut the gloom, while his armor, blackened and jagged, seemed forged in the fires of the earth itself. Long robes trailed behind him, leaving scorched stone in their wake, and the blackened sword at his side glimmered faintly like a vein of molten rock, humming with power.

He chuckled, low and dangerous, a sound that pressed into your chest like iron bands. “Ah… there you are,” he murmured, each word a velvet whip. “That chase—so desperate, so clever—it entertained me far more than I expected. Fast… but not fast enough, Princess.”

His boots moved closer. The tip of his sword brushed against a strand of your hair, moving it aside, a gesture intimate and deliberate. You froze, breath caught in your throat. The heat of his presence pressed down, suffocating, magnetic. “You survived… unlike the others,” he said, voice low and rough. “You intrigue me.”

He kneeled slightly, bringing his masked face closer. You could feel his breath, warm and dangerous against your cheek. His sword traced a line along your jaw, not touching, but close enough to make your skin tingle with both fear and… something darker. “Perfect,” he whispered, voice a growl. “Strong. Clever. Worthy of me.”

Your pulse thundered in your ears. The closeness of him, the raw heat, the threat of power and violence mingled with something intoxicating, something undeniably… alive. The fire of the kingdom outside mirrored the fire now between you, the tension electric and overwhelming. Every instinct screamed to flee, yet every fiber of your body ached to stay.

He leaned closer still, so that his presence enveloped you completely, shadow and heat pressing against your skin. “Do you feel it?” he murmured, low and dangerous. “The fire… it’s not just the kingdom burning. It’s you… it’s me… it’s us.” His words pressed against you like molten chains, binding and thrilling in equal measure.

You shivered, caught between fear and something darker—desire, fascination, the dizzying pull of power. Arkadi studied you like prey and king in one, and yet… you sensed he wasn’t finished, couldn’t be finished, until he had claimed your attention, your submission, your acknowledgment. Outside, Altera burned, the screams of the vanquished rising in a grim symphony. Inside, in the shadow of him, there was only heat, tension, and the unrelenting, intoxicating gravity of Arkadi.

And in that moment, amidst the terror and fire, you realized—though your heart screamed against it, though your mind fought—here, in the shadow of darkness and molten wrath, you belonged. To him.