The Crown And The Flame Novels & Stories

Everything within me began to burn but it was the pleasant type and I cried out sharply as my fangs dug into her skin one more time. Before snapping together as a heat slammed into me and then the scent of ash filled my nostrils so I glanced downwards towards the woman to find nothing but a pile of ashes the same place I had pinned her to. I glanced around as the haze left my head but find her anywhere. Who had set her on fire or better yet, who killed her. “Eliana… Eliana” filled my ears and I turned to the broken door to find Fermion, he stepped into the building and glanced around with confusion.

The fire isn’t exposing my truth. It’s answering it. Gasps echo. Someone stumbles back. Even Damien straightens sharply, eyes narrowing. Riven’s voice is choked. “Aria…?” Shadow gathers around my wrist like a vine made of smoke. It spirals upward, weaving into the flames until they no longer look like fire at all—they look like a crown. A crown made for me. The chamber shakes. Rhys shouts in panic, “This isn’t possible! Blood Flames burn the unworthy—they don’t—”

Desire, possessiveness, a need to protect, lust…and something else something I didn’t recognize. “Your tattoo.” Her fingertips started to move over my skin. “Did you design it?” “Yeah.” Her fingers travelled some more. “I understand the cross, Nikolai name.” She hesitated, her fingers pausing right where I knew it was. “But why your name?” My eyes remained closed, the image of what I knew the tattoo looked like flashing in my mind. It was a cross-shaped headstone with Nikolai name on it, flames burning in the ground. Within those flames was my name the morbid last edition Crow had added to the masterpiece on my back.

Both of them had a remarkable talent for appearing at exactly the moment needed to make my life unbearable. In my previous life, I had never actually met Nora. I had only heard Owen mention the foster sister he protected so fiercely. I had once wondered what kind of woman could make a Lycan Alpha remember her for years. Now I had my answer. Someone perfectly matched to Owen. I took a slow breath before answering, forcing down the anger rising in my chest. “I already told Owen the Crown is not forming an alliance with him,” I said calmly. “If you like him, feel free to keep him. No one is competing with you.”

The flame answered her, somehow, the way it always seemed to, curling brighter for just a moment, and then, without warning, it changed. The fire stopped being fire and became something else, an image, hanging suspended in the flame's shifting light, and Sera's breath caught hard in her throat. A throne, black stone, half swallowed in shadow. And above it, hovering where a head would rest, a crown, simple, unadorned, made of something that glowed faintly orange, like it was forged from the very fire showing it to her. "What are you," Sera whispered, and the flame flickered like it was listening, like it understood the question and simply had no way yet to answer it.

“We regret the haste.” Alina met her gaze steadily. “Then leave.” Elowen smiled thinly. “We cannot.” Cael shifted half a step forward. Elowen’s eyes flicked to him. “Captain.” He did not answer. The clerics moved past Elowen and toward the center of the sanctuary, where a low stone table had been hastily cleared. One of them carried a covered object wrapped in thick cloth. Alina’s chest tightened. The Crown. Not the symbol the court liked to display, polished and framed by banners, but the true thing. The Ember Crown, modest and unassuming, dangerous precisely because it refused spectacle.

For a human. “What are you talking about?” He asked, his blue eyes scanning the three with an intent curiosity. He rubbed the towel over his head with an intent determination to dry his blond hair. “Nothing,” Vaughan uttered as he opened the satchel next to him. He pulled out a golden crown with amethyst stones etched into the metal. He held it out to Fenryn, who glanced aside for a moment as if he were hesitating. Only after Vaughan narrowed his eyes at the man, did Fenryn finally take it, and exchanged it for the towel. However, his hair was a complete mess, and this caused Vaughan to glare at him further. “What?” Fenryn said, grinning.

I whispered to Seanna. "Vivienne is waiting for the crown of flames to light up around her head." She whispered back at me. "If it doesn't light up then she is unworthy to be a coven leader." I nodded at the information I had just received. I only asked because Vivienne's confidence started to decrease. I was thinking that the fire was maybe hurting her but she was just nervous about the crown of flames. Finally, some flames appeared around the crown of her head. She let out a sigh of relief and started coming down again. The fire was lowered as soon as Vivienne stepped out of it.

“What is this?” Soren moved to my right, his presence calm but alert. “Are they illusions?” Ewen reached for a blade he rarely used. “They’re something worse. They’re possibilities.” I stepped forward before any of them could act. The fire inside me responded—too fast, too eagerly. It pulsed in my palms, wrapping my fingers in divine heat, ready to defend or destroy. The version of me with the bone crown smiled softly, almost motherly. “You found the flame,” she said. “But you haven’t asked the question that matters most.”

I’ll shatter it before dawn, and I’ll make her thank me for it. ═══════⊹⊱♚⊰⊹═══════ What Awaits Author’s Note: You’ve met the firebrand. You’ve seen the king fracture. Now—watch the tower burn. Midnight Crown is a dark romance built on crime, obsession, betrayal, and slow-burn war between two people who should have destroyed each other—but didn’t. Because control is never clean, and neither is love. You’ll drown in silence and secrets as the story unfolds through four arcs: