He needed a bride to claim his throne. She needed a way to disappear. King Kael Vortigen — ruthless Lycan king and feared mafia overlord — must marry before the blood moon rises to keep his throne. But he refuses to marry a wolf. He wants a human bride — rare, forbidden, and impossible to tame. When Elira Cole — a fugitive hiding from a past that cost her everything — is auctioned to the highest bidder, Kael buys her with one goal: own her, break her, rule beside her. But Elira is not the helpless pawn she appears to be. And Kael is not just a king… he’s the monster her bloodline was cursed to destroy. One throne. One marriage. One brutal bond that might save them — or end them both.
View MoreSold to the Beast
The collar itched like it was laced with fire. Elira Cole stood barefoot on the cold marble, her wrists bound behind her back, throat raw from screaming hours ago. Her white dress — if it could even be called that — was little more than a torn slip of silk that clung to her like shame. She wasn’t supposed to be here. Not her. Not a girl with a name, with blood too dangerous to spill. But the auctioneer didn’t care about that. “All the way from the Lower Quadrant,” he bellowed to the crowd. “A rare find! Human. Untouched. No records. No family.” Lies. All of it. Except the last part. Her family had died the moment they found out what she was. The crowd below the platform swelled with power and money. Lycans. Vampires. Witches. And a few corrupted humans who fed off blood-soaked gold. They sipped wine like it wasn’t laced with spellroot. Their eyes glowed red, silver, emerald. None of them saw a girl. They saw property. The auctioneer’s voice dropped into a growl. “Starting at one hundred thousand dracs. Who wants the fire-eyed little vixen?” A hand lifted in the far back. The figure was cloaked, masked in black from head to toe, standing motionless as the room buzzed around him. He didn’t speak. He didn’t move. But the room shifted the moment he lifted his hand. “Ah, a shadow bidder,” the auctioneer sneered. “Dangerous taste.” “Two hundred thousand,” growled a vampire lord from the side. “Three-fifty!” barked a Lycan warrior. The shadow bidder raised two fingers. The auctioneer stilled. His grin faded for just a breath. Then he snapped back to life. “Half a million dracs! Going once…” Elira’s heart slammed against her ribs. No, no, no— “Going twice…” Fight. She twisted her hands behind her, fingernails digging into the ropes. “Sold!” The hammer dropped. The crowd erupted. But Elira didn’t scream this time. She ran. Bare feet pounded across the marble, her shoulder crashing into a tray of spiced wine. Bottles shattered. A guard lunged — she ducked. Another reached for her — she spun under him, grabbing a shard of glass on her way down. Her wrists tore free. Blood bloomed across her skin. She didn’t feel it. Only the cold rush of air as she sprinted toward the back exit. Ten more steps. A blur of black. A hand caught her by the throat mid-sprint and slammed her against a pillar. She gasped. Air fled her lungs. The glass dropped from her grip. And she looked up into eyes the color of burning winter. Silver. Brutal. Hungry. “Little human,” the voice was low, cruel. “You run well.” He didn’t wear a mask anymore. His face was carved from fire and war. A scar ran from his temple to his jaw. His mouth twisted in a smirk that wasn’t amusement — it was a warning. “You’re him,” she breathed. “The Lycan king.” He said nothing. Just leaned in, nose grazing her throat. “You smell like old blood,” he murmured. “And secrets.” She spat in his face. He didn’t flinch. Just dragged his tongue across his lips like he’d tasted something sweet. “I like you already.” He dropped her. She hit the ground, coughing, grabbing her torn wrists. “I won’t marry you,” she hissed. He crouched beside her, gripping her chin. “Oh, but you will,” he whispered. “Because now you belong to me.” She jerked back. “I’d rather die.” The king rose, towering over her. He turned to the guards. “Prepare the rites. Tonight, she becomes my queen.” She froze. “No—” “And if she tries to run again…” his gaze flicked back to her, cold as steel. “…cut off her feet.”The Crownless and the CursedThe iron door stood like a buried wound, pulsing faintly with Kael’s energy. It wasn’t just ancient—it was alive, reacting to his presence like it remembered him. Cradle stared at the crown sigil embedded into its surface, feeling something cold and sharp coil around her spine.“Should we open it?” she asked, barely above a whisper.Kael didn’t answer right away. His jaw clenched, eyes fixed on the door like it might speak first. Like it might confess.“It knows me,” he said finally. “More than I know myself.”Cradle stepped beside him. “Then it’s time you start asking the right questions.”Kael’s palm hovered over the sigil. The moment his skin made contact, the iron sizzled, hissed—and melted into liquid shadow before re-solidifying in a circular lock that turned by itself.The door groaned open.Behind it was a staircase, narrow and descending into an impossible darkness.Cradle’s pulse kicked up. “Well, that’s not ominous.”Kael gave a dry smile. “Welc
The One Wearing His SkinThe voice that poured from Kael’s mouth wasn’t his.Not even close.It was ancient. Commanding. Cruel.It didn’t just speak—it took. Claimed the air. The silence. The space between heartbeats. Cradle stumbled back as Kael’s body twisted in front of her, his muscles flexing, his face a pale canvas overtaken by something dark and monstrous beneath.“Kael,” she whispered, voice raw.But he didn’t answer.His lips curled into a smirk that had never belonged to him.“The boy was a cracked shell,” the thing inside him said. “A weak heir. A walking grave.”Cradle’s hand hovered near her dagger, unsure. If she moved too fast, would he kill her? If she didn’t move at all, would he still?“You’re not him,” she said softly, pleading with the part of Kael she knew was still inside. “You’re just wearing him.”“No.” The creature grinned wider. “I am him. The part he buried. The king who never needed saving. The one who knew what it meant to rule.”Kael’s body began to glow
Ghosts of the CrownThe silence in the city was not peaceful—it was the kind that screamed under the skin. Cradle’s breath caught as she stared up at the statue, horror blooming like frost across her spine. The carving of her severed head in Kael’s hands wasn’t just a warning.It was a memory.Or worse… a prophecy.Kael stood frozen before the monument. His jaw clenched so tight it looked like it might crack. The crown carved onto his stone head wasn’t the one from the Lycan throne room. This crown was older, jagged, like it had been forged from broken blades.A king of ruin.The statue’s eyes glinted with something unnatural, like they were watching him watch them.“This isn’t real,” he muttered.Cradle stepped forward slowly. “You’ve seen this before.”He didn’t answer.Because he had.Not with his waking eyes. But in flashes. Nightmares. Buried visions the Dream-Eater had tried to twist and break him with. Only this time, they weren’t dreams. They were roots. Truths clawing their w
The Crownless KingThe sky should not have been able to bleed.But it did.As Kael shielded Cradle with his body, crimson streaked the clouds like veins ripped open across the heavens. The wind stilled. The birds silenced. The trees bowed low—not to the breeze but to the presence that stepped through the Gate of Forgotten Things.A figure cloaked in something older than shadow.Something primordial.The air around him hissed and bent, light refusing to cling to him.Cradle gripped Kael’s arm, her voice barely a breath. “That’s not the Dream-Eater.”“No,” Kael murmured, his pulse thudding like war drums in his ears. “That’s something worse.”The man wore no crown, and yet the sky crowned him.The earth yielded to his steps.And in his eyes—two pits of collapsing galaxies—Kael saw his own end reflected.This wasn’t a king of this world.This was the one who created kings and then unmade them when they disappointed him.The being stopped several paces from them. Silent. Unmoving. Watchin
The Man Who Shouldn’t ExistThe air inside the Gate of Forgotten Things was not air at all.It felt like Kael was breathing memory—thin, brittle strands of moments he’d never lived. Whispers tugged at the back of his mind, slipping in under his ribs, brushing the inside of his skull. A hundred voices, a thousand faces, and not a single one belonged to him.But the man standing over Cradle?He wore Kael’s face better than Kael ever had.Same eyes—only both were molten gold. Same jaw, same mouth, same goddamn scar above the left brow. But where Kael looked like war had chewed him up and spit him back out, this version stood tall, untouched, regal. Complete.And Cradle knelt before him like she’d already given up.“Get away from her,” Kael growled, stepping forward.The other Kael—the copy—didn’t even flinch. He just tilted his head, curious, almost amused.“You’re late,” he said.His voice was Kael’s too.But it sounded… cleaner. Like it hadn’t ever broken from grief or bled in the dark
Beneath the Golden EyeThe golden eye inside the seal didn’t blink.It just watched.Wide. Unmoving. Ancient. As if it had seen the first flame flicker to life in a world long buried under time.Kael’s breath hitched in his throat. His heart pounded, too loud, too fast—like it was trying to outrun what he was seeing. The seal should’ve held. The Cradle had given everything. She’d taken his place. She was the seal now.But then how was that thing still watching him?The air turned cold. Not the kind of cold that prickled skin—but the kind that lived in nightmares. That peeled away memory. That whispered your name like it knew what you’d done.Kael took a shaky step back.“Cradle,” he whispered. “What did you leave behind?”The eye twitched.Not a blink.Just a flick of attention, like a predator adjusting focus.And then, like a shockwave through his bones, Kael heard the first whisper.Not out loud. Not in his head.In the blood.“The seal was never meant to hold forever.”He stumbled
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