Something…mine.
I staggered back a step, shaking my head, arguing with myself in disbelief. Denial.
No.
This man was a Death Mage. A Revenant. One of their worst, most powerful. Most feared. The Spire’s crest was fastened at his collar, faintly glowing with sigils I couldn’t read. I knew the stories. I knew what they were. What they could do.
I should run. Hide. I couldn’t tear my gaze away. I should have been afraid.
I was.
But I was also…burning.
My cheeks flushed. My pulse roared in my ears. I hated it—hated that my body responded to him, hated that I didn’t recoil like I had with Jarrik. This one… I wanted to touch. Wanted to feel his skin on mine, his hand fisted in my hair, his cock thrusting deep as I begged for more.
No. No, no, no.
I yanked my hood low over my brow and turned, forced myself to walk fast, nearly running as I pushed into the crowd, determined to disappear.
My thoughts were a whirlwind of denial and confusion, my chest tight, breath uneven. I didn’t want a death mage. I didn’t want a husband. I wanted to be free.
I ran, arms and legs pumping, heart pounding. But I knew it was too late. Something inside me had awakened, something dark and needy. Long forgotten. That part of me had looked into the eyes of a stranger—andseen itselfreflected back.
2
~Devin Grimm, Death Mage, Revenant Protector of the Realm, The Cursed One ~
The capital stankof rosewater and desperation.
Even under the warded hood of my cloak, I could feel it—magic clinging to the air like wet silk, heavy with enchantment and expectation. The capital had thrown open its gates for a royal wedding and a tournament, two events I couldn’t care less about, save that they gave me the only opportunity I had left.
I needed an audience with the Shadow Fae’s High Enchantress—Lady Myrienna, the fae-blooded sorceress who served as both seer and spellcaster to the royal line of Abrakearth, my home. She was said to be as old as the mountains, as powerful as the Veil itself, and more merciless than either. She was my last hope.
And she had denied me an audience in my own capital city, the fortified seaport less than a day’s sail from The Spire. Denied one of her own citizens. A death mage who had sacrificed his entire life in service to our people.
Denied metwice.
“She’ll see me now,” I said quietly, voice muffled beneath the hood. “Even if I have to tear down the gilded walls of this city stone by stone.”
Beside me, Prince Kassio Polaris—heir to the Dark Spire and my closest friend for longer than either of us cared to count—sighed like a long-suffering saint. His shadow magic flared briefly beneath his illusion, sending a shimmer across the glamour that masked his silver sigils and the infernal crown inked into his skin.
“Must we do this now?” he asked. “I was rather enjoying not being hunted for once.”
“You gave me your word,” I said flatly.
Kassio’s smile vanished. “I did.”
He didn’t need to say the rest. We’d already spoken the vow in blood and magic. If I slipped beyond the threshold—if the curse that rotted my soul from the inside devoured what was left of my will—he would end me.
Quickly. Cleanly. Before I became a monster.
The line between Revenant and Wraith was razor thin. I’d been walking it for years. Now I could feel the edges of my soul fraying. Every breath ached. Every spellcasting left me hollow. And the hunger… gods, the hunger in my bones had begun to whisper. I was ravenous for more. More power. More magic. More souls. Soon I wouldn’t be able to silence that hunger.
I didn’t want to die. But I refused to become one ofthem.
A Wraith. The horror of horrors. A soul-stealing, parasitic evil that never stopped hunting. Killing. Devouring everything in its path. More ghost than man. I needed Lady Myrienna’s shadow magic to bind the darkness within me.
She’d refused to see me, but she was in this city. Somewhere. Her powerful shadow magic, calling me like a few drops of blood in water, could summon the deadliest sharks.
