Lahat ng Kabanata ng BLOOD FOR A BRIDE : Kabanata 161 - Kabanata 170

ASARAIAH KAINEThe first thing I realized was that Malrik was heavier than he should have been.Not physically—he had always carried weight like armor—but spiritually, like the gravity around him had thickened, pulling everything down with it. Blood soaked through my hands no matter how hard I pressed. The symbols carved into the blade that pierced him burned my palms, reacting to my skin as if recognizing me.I screamed for help even though I knew no one could reach us in time.The courtyard had become a battlefield. Fire climbed the outer walls. Men lay scattered across the stone, some human, some very much not. The air stank of cordite and iron and something older—ozone and rot and ritual magic unleashed without restraint.“Stay with me,” I said again, my voice breaking despite my efforts to hold it steady. “You’re not allowed to leave.”Malrik’s breathing was shallow, uneven. His eyes flickered gold, then dimmed, then flared again, like a dying flame fighting the dark.“Asa,” he m

ASARAIAH The first thing I learned about exile was that silence is never empty. It breathes. It watches. It waits. The safehouse sat on the edge of nowhere—stone and glass pressed into the cliffside above a black, restless sea. No neighbors. No roads close enough to hear. Just wind, salt, and the steady rhythm of waves crashing far below like a pulse I couldn’t escape. Drayan said it was untraceable. I believed him. I still slept with a blade under my pillow. The mirror in the bathroom barely recognized me. My hair was darker now, dyed within an inch of black. The faint glow beneath my skin had dulled, contained by sigils Gaya burned into my bones before I left. They ached constantly, a low thrum of pain that reminded me I was still anchored to this body, this time, this life. I pressed my palms to the sink and breathed. Slow. Controlled. The power inside me was quieter here, like an animal forced to curl in on itself. But it wasn’t gone. It never would be. Neither was he

ASARAIAH A year can pass like a wound closing badly—skin drawn tight over something that still aches underneath. I learned the city again from the shadows. Different name. Different face to the world. Hair darker, cut shorter. Power folded inward so tightly it hummed beneath my skin like a restrained storm. I moved through airports and borders and back rooms with my child pressed to my chest, listening to the way people spoke Malrik’s name now. Not with awe. With fear sharpened by grief. Malrik Kaine had not remarried. Had not softened. Had not slowed. The city whispered that he’d become something worse after my death—more precise, less merciful, a king who no longer pretended there was anything human left in him. They were half right. The night I returned, the city was dressed for blood. The summit had been announced weeks earlier—every surviving faction called to the same table under Kaine protection. Mafia, syndicates, supernatural intermediaries pretending to b

MALRIK The council chamber was designed to intimidate. High ceilings. Stone walls veined with old sigils. A crescent table carved from blackwood that had absorbed centuries of fear, loyalty, and bloodshed. Men sat there who had ordered wars with a flick of their fingers and erased bloodlines over dinner. They were not prepared for her. The doors opened, and the room shifted—not dramatically, not with noise, but with that subtle instinct predators have when something stronger enters the territory. Asaraiah walked beside me, not behind. Our son rested against her shoulder, quiet, alert in that uncanny way children born of power often were. She wore no crown. No ceremonial armor. Just black fabric tailored to move, to fight if needed, to remind them she did not belong to their traditions. She belonged to consequence. A murmur rippled through the chamber. “She’s dead,” one of them whispered. “She was,” Asaraiah said calmly, her voice carrying without effort. “I found it ineffici

The palace was quiet in a way that felt unfamiliar, as though it were holding its breath. Asaraiah stood at the tall windows of the eastern wing, the city stretched beneath her like a living map—lights threading through streets, distant sirens dissolving into the night, the low thrum of a world that did not know how close it had come to burning. Her reflection stared back at her in the glass, blurred by the faint fog of her breath. She barely recognized the woman there. The crown had been removed hours ago. The formal gown exchanged for something softer, darker, meant for comfort rather than spectacle. And yet the weight remained. It pressed into her shoulders, settled into her spine, threaded itself into her pulse. Queen. No—ruler. Titles meant little when power lived in the blood. Behind her, the doors closed quietly. She didn’t turn. She didn’t need to. Malrik’s presence announced itself the way it always did—not with sound, but with gravity. The air shifted, deepened, as i