What happens when Samantha Ray’s dark prince claims her soul?

Tendrils of mist curled around Samantha Ray’s ankles as she hurried down the rain-slicked London street, the click of her heels echoing off the cobblestones. She pulled her trench coat tighter, shivering as an unnatural chill seeped into her bones.

This was no ordinary fog. It clung to her skin like phantom fingers, cold and clammy, sending prickles of unease down her spine. The streetlamps flickered, their wan halos swallowed by the thickening haze.

Samantha quickened her pace, one hand drifting to the taser holstered at her hip. Fifteen years as a private investigator had honed her instincts for danger to a razor’s edge. Right now, those instincts screamed that something was very wrong.

The mist swirled, and for a heartbeat, she glimpsed a figure striding through the gloom. Tall and lean, moving with a predator’s deadly grace. A trick of the light, it had to be…

Then a hand clamped over her mouth, wrenching her into the shadows of a narrow alley. Samantha twisted, driving an elbow into her attacker’s ribs. Iron bars for arms trapped her in an unyielding embrace.

“Don’t struggle.” A man’s voice, low and darkly seductive against the shell of her ear. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

Samantha stilled, pulse pounding. That voice… She knew that voice. Slowly, her assailant turned her to face him and her breath seized in her lungs.

Eyes the color of absinthe glittered down at her, framed by aristocratic cheekbones and a chiseled jaw. Raven hair fell across his brow, melting into the mist-shrouded night. He was beautiful. He was dangerous.

He was her client.

“Caelan,” she breathed, the name ash on her tongue. Prince Caelan Darkthorne, to be exact. Heir to the Onyx Throne of the Unseelie Court. A throne currently occupied by his mother, the mad queen feared as the Black Thorn.

The queen who had enslaved her own son. The queen Samantha had been hired to help overthrow.

Caelan’s sculpted mouth quirked, a ghost of a smile. “Hello, Samantha.” He released her, but his woodsmoke and frost scent lingered, far too enticing. “Apologies for the abrupt meeting. I’m afraid we have a problem.”

“What kind of problem?” Her gaze flicked to the mist still eddying thick and cold around them, coiling like a living thing. Unease skittered through her.

“My mother knows.” Caelan’s expression turned grim, shadows gathering in those wild green eyes. “She knows you’re helping me. She’s cast a curse, Samantha. A curse to make you her puppet.”

Ice flooded Samantha’s veins. “What?” The word was a breathless rasp, horror stealing her voice. To be enslaved to the Black Thorn, a woman known for vicious cruelty and twisted mind games…

“I can help you fight it,” Caelan said urgently. “There are ways to turn her curse against her. But you must trust me.”

Samantha searched his gaze, torn. Trust a fae prince? It went against every rational bone in her body. But what choice did she have?

Slowly, she placed her hand in his offered palm, his skin cool and electric against her own. “Tell me what I have to do.”

Caelan’s fingers closed around hers. In the swirling fog, thorny vines crept along the brick walls, unfurling skeleton leaves. The queen’s magic, a tangled web to snare her.

The mist clung to Samantha like a second skin as she followed Caelan through the twisting labyrinth of London’s back alleys. With each step, the modern world seemed to recede, brick and steel giving way to ancient stone and gnarled, whispering trees.

A shiver chased down her spine, primal and foreboding. She was crossing into the realm of the fae, a world where magic bled into madness and mortal lives were the currency of twisted games.

But she had no choice. Not with the Black Thorn’s curse coiled around her heart like thorny chains, ready to strangle her will at a whim. Her only chance was to play the deadly game, to dance to the tune of a mad queen until she could find a way to break free.

And her only ally was the prince who walked the knife’s edge between savior and betrayer.

As if sensing her unease, Caelan glanced over his shoulder, moonlit eyes meeting hers. “We’re almost there. Stay close, and whatever you do, don’t eat or drink anything once we cross into the Onyx Court.”

Samantha forced a sharp nod, not trusting her voice. Caelan had warned her of the dangers — the food and wine of the fae realm was a gilded trap, binding mortals for eternity.

Eternity as a plaything for cruel immortals. The thought sent bile rising in her throat. She swallowed it down, along with the tattered remnants of her fear. She was Samantha Bloody Ray. She’d clawed her way out of hell before, and she’d do it again.

The air shimmered before them, and reality rippled like a mirage. Between one blink and the next, a doorway appeared in the mist — a portal of ancient stone engraved with writhing vines and snarling gargoyles.

The entrance to the Onyx Court.

Caelan held out a hand, an unreadable expression on that too-handsome face. “Once more into the abyss, Samantha Ray.”

She placed her icy fingers in his, a thrill arcing through her at the contact. His skin was cool silk, his touch searing her soul. Dangerous. So dangerous to crave it.

Steeling herself, she stepped through the portal at his side…and into a nightmare.

The Onyx Court was a savage, sinister beauty. Towering hedges of black roses and entwined thorns stretched as far as the eye could see, a macabre garden of living shadows. Will-o’-the-wisps bobbed through the darkness, casting an eerie blue glow. The low, haunting strains of an unseen orchestra snaked on the breeze, promising decadent pleasures and eternal regret.

And everywhere, the fae danced.

Ethereal and terrible, they spun through the garden in an endless revel, gossamer gowns and gem-crusted doublets flashing beneath the moonlight. But there was a vicious edge to their poisonously beautiful faces, a cruelty shining in their cat-slit eyes. Predators, cloaked in silks and glamour.

At the center of it all, lounging on an onyx throne, was the Black Thorn.

If Caelan was a fallen angel, his mother was Lucifer incarnate. White as snow, red as blood, black as ebony. A dark queen from a twisted fairy tale.

Her ruby lips curled in a viper’s smile as her gaze locked on Samantha. “Welcome, mortal. I’ve been expecting you.”

Icy fear slithered down Samantha’s spine as the queen’s power crashed into her. It battered against the edges of her mind, insidious tendrils seeking cracks in her defenses. The curse mark on her chest flared white-hot, searing obedience into her bones.

Bow, it commanded. Kneel before your queen.

Samantha gritted her teeth, fighting the compulsion with every ounce of her will. But her traitorous knees started to buckle, her back bending under the onslaught of dark magic.

Caelan’s fingers tightened around hers, a lifeline in the tempest. “Remember, the curse can’t make you surrender your heart,” he murmured, his breath hot against her ear. “You are its mistress, not its slave.”

Drawing on his strength, Samantha wrenched herself upright, defiance battling the curse’s hellish fire. She would not grovel. Not now, not ever.

The queen’s eyes glittered dangerously, a spider eyeing a fly in her web. “Such spirit. I will enjoy breaking you, bit by bit.” She flicked her fingers, and invisible strings jerked Samantha forward, a marionette on a tether.

“Let the games begin, little hunter. I have such delights in store for you.”

Bleakness threatened to swamp Samantha as she stumbled to an unwilling halt before the queen. The curse shackled her, eager to dance to its mistress’s tune. And beneath it, the forbidden ache in her blood whispered treacherous truths.

The fae realm was seduction incarnate. Already, it wound around her soul, sinking barbed hooks into her humanity. Each “delight” would be another step into shadow, the yawning abyss that had devoured so many mortals before her.

In this twisted wonderland, the path to salvation wound through the darkest of sins. And the only way out was through.

The queen’s laughter pierced the night, edged in malice and cruel anticipation. Caelan’s hand slipped from Samantha’s as the court swept him away, leaving her alone before the onyx throne.

Alone, bound by a curse, in a world bent on destroying her.

In that moment, Samantha realized the chilling truth. The Black Thorn didn’t want to break her.

She wanted to make her a monster.

And so the nightmare began.

The days bled together in a fever dream of dark decadence and twisted cruelty. Samantha danced on puppet strings, a reluctant performer in the queen’s macabre theater. By day, she navigated the treacherous intrigues of the court, smiling through gritted teeth as barbed compliments and poisoned fruit were pressed upon her. By night, she prowled the shadow-drenched halls, seeking whispers of the queen’s weaknesses, even as her curse-chains tightened with every labored breath.

And through it all, Caelan remained maddeningly, tantalizingly out of reach.

Oh, she glimpsed him in snatched moments — a flash of raven hair in the garden of black roses, the brush of cool fingers in the swirling dance. But always, he was whisked away before she could do more than meet those absinthe eyes, before she could drink in the intoxicating rush of his presence.

A maddening game of keep-away, orchestrated by a spider queen’s sadistic glee.

Until the night of the blood moon revel.

The great hall of the Onyx Court was wreathed in crimson shadows, pulsing in time to the savagely sensual beat of drums. Fae crowded the obsidian dance floor, a writhing mass of alabaster limbs and velvet finery, eyes fever-bright with bloodlust and cruel anticipation. At the center of it all, the Black Thorn presided from her throne, a study in sinful scarlet.

“The first blood rite begins,” she purred, voice slithering through the crowd. “A test of devotion, of obedience. My pet, step forward.”

Cold horror crystalized in Samantha’s gut as the curse seized control, wrenching her forward like a dog on a choke chain. The queen’s tests never boded well for her playthings.

Or her victims.

“Kneel,” the queen commanded.

Samantha’s knees hit the flagstones hard, stone biting through gossamer silk. The queen snapped her fingers, and an attendant glided forward bearing an ornate dagger on a velvet cushion.

Dread curdled on Samantha’s tongue. She knew, with bone-deep surety, that blade hungered for blood. Her blood. To spill it would be to offer up a piece of her soul, another foothold for the curse’s corruption.

But to refuse meant unimaginable agony as the queen’s compulsion ravaged her mind.

“Take it,” the Black Thorn crooned. “Carve the runes of binding into your flesh. Prove you are mine.”

Bile seared Samantha’s throat as her hand lifted, fingers closing around the blade’s jeweled hilt, all while her mind screamed in silent rebellion. The metal was iridescent ebony, drinking in the blood-tinged light. A weapon forged in cruelty, honed on suffering.

Like the queen herself.

Slowly, inexorably, Samantha pressed the dagger’s razor-edge to the inside of her wrist. Crimson beaded against alabaster, a morbid promise. The curse shivered in sadistic delight, eager to drink her submission.

And in that suspended moment between heartbeats, between damnation and deliverance, a voice shattered the silence.

“Stop.”

The single word crackled with power, with dark authority. A black knight’s gauntlet, thrown down in challenge.

Caelan.

He stood at the edge of the crowd, a pillar of onyx and ice. Feral green eyes locked on Samantha, on the trickle of scarlet winding down her wrist. When he spoke again, his voice was low and lethal.

“I invoke the Right of Shielding. As her liege-lord, I claim this mortal as my sworn vassal. Her blood is mine to spill. Her soul is mine to keep. By Unseelie law, none may touch her. Not even you, my queen.”

The hall plunged into stunned silence. The Right of Shielding was an ancient rite, a blood-bond of absolute loyalty. To invoke it was to tie his fate to Samantha’s, irrevocably. If she fell, so too would he.

The Black Thorn’s face contorted in fury, a deadly bacchanal mask. “You would defy me? For a mortal?”

Caelan’s smile cut like a blade. “I would defy the Dark Gods themselves.”

He stepped forward, prowling through the parting crowd until he towered over Samantha’s kneeling form. This close, his power crashed over her in an onyx wave, all savage grace and leashed violence. He held out an elegant hand, pale fingers curled in command.

“Rise, Samantha Ray. Your place is at my side, not at my feet.”

Shakily, Samantha obeyed, the dagger falling from nerveless fingers. The clatter echoed like a gunshot, an execution drum. She felt branded, exhilarated, that Caelan would risk the wrath of the Unseelie throne for her.

That he had claimed her, down to her bones and blood and breath.

The queen seethed in silence, nails gouging grooves into the onyx armrests. To defy her would be to court civil war, to rend the very foundations of her power.

But the Right was older than any one ruler. To break it meant shattering sacred law, turning her own courtiers against her.

“So be it,” she hissed, each word dripping venom. “But hear me well, my son. This mortal will be your undoing. She will dance you into the dark, and I will be there to watch you fall.”

With that, she rose in a whirl of amethyst skirts, the crowd scattering like crows before a blood-storm.

In her wrathful wake, Caelan turned to Samantha, gaze molten. His cool fingers brushed her pulse-point, smearing the ruby rivulet. “You’re bleeding,” he murmured.

Samantha shivered, caught between cutting retort and helpless sway. “A scratch. I’ve had worse.”

One raven brow arched. “Is that so?” He lifted her hand, rings searing against her skin. Slowly, deliberately, he raised her wounded wrist to his lips.

And held her gaze as he licked the blood from her flesh.

Pleasure and panic exploded along her nerve endings, a maelstrom of warning and want. The curse purred in delight, even as her mind screamed danger.

But she was lost, drowning in sin and sensation, in the forbidden thrill of that wicked tongue. Of her blood on his lips, binding them together in their twisted tango.

The world narrowed to his arms and her thundering pulse, the poisoned apple of his kiss.

And Samantha understood the chilling truth…

The queen might be the Black Thorn.

But Caelan? He was the serpent in the garden.

And she had just let him past her shield.
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Middle Act Part 2 (Act 2B)

The obsidian halls of the Onyx Court seemed to breathe with sinister life as Samantha walked at Caelan’s side, the weight of watchful eyes heavy on her skin. Courtiers parted before them like a dark sea, veiled glances and barbed whispers rustling in their wake.

The mortal pet. The prince’s plaything.

She was an intruder in their twisted fairy tale, a pawn thrust onto the board in a deadly game of crowns and thorns. And now, with Caelan’s claim burning in her blood, she was a threat.

A potential queen.

Samantha shoved that treacherous thought down deep, even as the curse purred in wicked delight. She couldn’t afford weakness, not when enemies lurked in every shadowed alcove, eager for any crack in her armor.

And the most dangerous enemy of all strode at her side, seduction incarnate.

They reached the prince’s private chambers, an onyx door swinging open at Caelan’s touch. Inside, a world of opulent darkness beckoned.

Velvet drapes the color of spilled wine. A canopied bed draped in furs and silks. Everywhere, the glint of gold and the reek of power, heady and cloying.

A gilded cage, as much as a sanctuary.

The door thudded shut with grim finality, Caelan turning to face her in the guttering faelight. This close, she could feel the heat of him, the uncanny cold of immortal flesh.

“You’re shaking,” he murmured.

Samantha fisted her hands, willing stone into her spine. “Adrenaline. It’s not every night I’m cursed by a mad queen and blood-bound to her dark prince.”

A ghost of a smile. “No, I suppose not.”

He prowled closer, predator-graceful, until only a whisper of air separated them. One long finger tipped her chin up, forcing her to meet that absinthe gaze.

“Are you afraid of me, Samantha?”

“Should I be?”

A beat. A shared breath. Then, rough and raw-

“Yes.”

And his mouth crashed down on hers, a brutal claiming. His lips seared her own, branding, burning, tongue delving deep to taste her moan. Caelan kissed like he killed — without mercy, without quarter, a dark god glutting on prayers and pain.

Samantha spiraled under the onslaught, drowning in black silk and darker sin. She should fight, should rage against the hands fisting in her hair, the lean body caging her own. But the curse crooned its twisted praise, even as something molten uncurled low in her belly.

Want. Violent and visceral, a wildfire in her blood. It terrified her, this gnawing hunger, the insidious whisper that this was meant, fated, written in the twisted stars above.

That she was his, in all the ways that mattered.

Caelan gentled the kiss, a deliberate easing that wrenched a whimper from her throat. His lips brushed her temple, the velvet rasp of his voice sliding down her spine.

“Do you trust me, Samantha?”

A jagged laugh. “I’m not a fool.”

“No. You’re the woman who will help me bring down a kingdom.”

Slowly, so slowly, he released her, stepping back to hold her gaze. “The queen’s curse gives her a foothold in your mind. But the blood-bond gives me a foothold in your soul. Together, we can turn her weapon against her.”

Samantha shivered, trapped between recoil and craven need. To open herself to Caelan, to let him into the darkest corners of her psyche…it was madness, a cobra inviting a viper to nest.

But what choice did she have? The Black Thorn’s poison spread with every beat of her heart, a noose tightening around her humanity.

She had to risk the devil she knew, to save her soul from the devil she didn’t.

“What do I need to do?”

Caelan’s smile was a blade in the dark. He held out a hand, elegant and lethal. An unspoken demand.

An unbreakable vow.

Samantha placed her palm against his, the curse shivering in twisted benediction. His fingers closed around her own, cold conquering heat, shadow devouring light.

Power hummed in the air, ancient and hungering, the drumbeat of savage magic. Of King and Consort, Liege and Vassal, Captor and Captive.

And beneath it all, the bitter truth…

To play the game was to become a piece on the board.

A sword to be wielded, a queen to be sacrificed.

Samantha met Caelan’s gaze, jade and absinthe, summer and winter. In that suspended moment, she saw her own dark reflection.

The huntress. The hunger.

The thorn, poised to draw immortal blood.

And then the world exploded in a maelstrom of agony and ecstasy, obsidian and ice, as their curse-connection roared to life.

As her soul opened…and the dark prince rushed in.

The curse was a living thing, a twisted parasite burrowing deep into Samantha’s psyche. It coiled around her thoughts, her memories, insidious tendrils seeking the cracks in her iron will. Every breath was a battle, a bloody push-and-pull for control of her own mind.

But she wasn’t fighting alone.

Caelan’s presence blazed through her like black fire, a dark star pulsing in the secret spaces of her soul. Their bond hummed between them, a live wire of power and possession, agony and ecstasy. It horrified her, this yawning need, the craven knowledge that some primal part of her craved his shadows, his ice, his cruel beautiful darkness.

But it was a weapon, honed and deadly, a double-edged blade to be wielded against the queen who sought to enslave them both.

And so Samantha breathed through the pain, through the writhing wrongness, and let the curse think it was winning. Let it gloat and glutton, a snake gorging on its own venom, even as she and Caelan planned its downfall in the locked vault of their linked minds.

They would strike on Samhain, when the veil between worlds was thinnest and the queen’s power at its peak. A dangerous gambit, a spider dancing on the edge of its own web. But it was the only way to shatter the curse at its source, to rip out the root of the queen’s malevolence before it devoured London whole.

And so they danced the endless nights away, a mortal huntress and her immortal prince, spinning ever closer to the edge of the abyss. To the outward eye, they were the picture of dark devotion — Caelan, the faithful son and merciless enforcer; Samantha, the loyal pet, the precious pawn to be pushed across the board.

But in the shadows, in the space between heartbeats and stolen breaths, they schemed.

Poisoned goblets passed hand to hand, a deadly waltz of deceit. Whispers of betrayal and rebellion, sown like seeds in the fertile soil of a restless court. A forged alliance with the Winter Knight, Caelan’s haunted shadow, a once-mortal bound by love and blood to the cruel prince’s side.

Piece by painful piece, they assembled their arsenal, a gambit of thorns and shadows, poised to strike at the black heart of the Onyx Court.

But the Black Thorn was an ancient evil, a spider-queen weaving her webs for long centuries. And she had secrets of her own, writhing in the forgotten catacombs beneath her midnight throne.

Secrets that would shape the curse’s endgame…and shatter Samantha’s world to bleeding shards.

It began with a summons, a honey-sweet command from smiling scarlet lips. Caelan and Samantha, called to kneel at the queen’s feet, a puppet-prince and his mortal toy, obedient to her whims.

But when they entered the throne room, it was to a scene out of nightmare.

The Winter Knight hung in thorny chains, ebon armor stained crimson, once-bright eyes clouded with agony. At his feet, an infant wailed, pink and perfect and so terribly fragile, cradled in a nest of razor-vines. And above it all, the Black Thorn laughed, a wild, witching cackle, drunk on cruelty and triumph.

“You thought you could betray me?” she crooned. “Thought you could turn my curse against me, use your mortal whore to usurp my throne?”

Icy talons sank into Samantha’s mind, a meteoric burst of pain, even as Caelan roared his fury, thorns ripping at his sword-arm, holding him back.

“I have tolerated your insolence, your unnatural lusts,” the queen hissed. “But no more. You will be scoured clean, remade as the weapon you were always meant to be.”

Her eyes, black and bottomless, fixed on the wailing babe. “And your abomination will be the instrument of your obedience.”

Horror screamed through Samantha, a bone-deep revulsion. The child… it was Caelan’s. Impossible, unholy, fae and mortal blood mingled in cursed union. And the queen would use it as leverage, a leash to bind her wayward hound.

Unless Samantha did what must be done.

The queen’s control lashed at her, red-hot irons searing her will, even as the curse gloated in savage joy. But Samantha gritted her teeth, dropping to her knees, head bowing in mocking obeisance. Letting the queen believe her cowed, even as she reached for the ember of power glowing at her core.

The curse-bond, turned inward. Transformed from shackle to sword, a weapon of her own making.

Caelan sensed it, his eyes flaring wide. “Samantha, no-”

But she was moving, a blur of shadow and steel, a dagger of pure will hurtling towards the wailing bundle at the Winter Knight’s feet.

The queen saw her intent, a shriek of thwarted rage. Thorny tendrils lashed out, seeking to bind, to rend, to punish this mortal upstart, this thief of unhallowed blood-

Only to falter, withering in the onslaught of searing light.

Samantha blazed like a newborn star, the curse’s power turned against itself, fueled by her loving sacrifice. She would give all to save Caelan, to free him from his mother’s malice.

Even if it meant embracing her own monster, the darkness forever caged behind her breast.

The dagger struck true, a mercy blow, severing the innocent life before it could become a pawn. The babe fell silent, blood blooming like a grotesque flower. And with it, the queen’s leverage shattered, her hold on Caelan broken.

The throne room exploded into chaos, Caelan’s bellow of grieving rage shaking the very foundations. His shadows lashed out, seeking the queen’s cold heart, even as the court erupted into bloody battle, loyalists clashing with revolutionaries, a mad monarch’s tyranny crumbling to ash.

And at the center of it all, Samantha burned.

She felt the curse consuming her, turning her body to crackling flame, even as her mind crystalized into merciless calm. This was her destiny, her damnation, to dance into the dark so that her prince could know the light.

Agony and ecstasy, a martyr’s pyre, the sacred and profane. She was the queen’s bane, the reckoning in mortal flesh, a blasted star heralding a new and terrible dawn.

And as the world scorched white, as Caelan’s howl pierced the void, a last thought flickered through the ashes of her mind.

To beat a monster, one must become a monster.

And in saving the man she loved…she had forever lost herself.

The ashes settled over a broken kingdom, a once-glittering facade reduced to smoke and rubble. The Onyx Court lay in ruins, its midnight halls haunted by the ghosts of sins past, its cruel queen a husk withered by her own malice.

And Caelan, once-prince of shadows, knelt in the dust of his shattered inheritance. Knelt and keened his grief to uncaring skies, cradling the scorched bones of the woman he’d dared to love.

Samantha. His bright star, his fierce savior, reduced to embers and regret. She had sacrificed all to free him, to sever the chains of his mother’s malevolence. Had cast herself into the abyss so that he might know the sun, the sweet ache of mortal hope.

And in doing so, had doomed herself to burn.

He gathered her ashes with shaking hands, a dark prince kneeling in supplication, in profane prayer. Tears carved pale rivers through the soot staining his cheeks, an outward mar of the scars slicing his soul to ribbons.

He had failed her. Failed to protect her, to cherish her, to love her as she deserved. He had used her as his mother had used him, a weapon to strike at the heart of his enemies. And in the end, it was she who had paid the price.

“Forgive me,” he whispered, pressing his brow to the scorched earth. “Forgive me, my love.”

But there could be no forgiveness, no absolution. Not for him, the monster who had led her into the abyss. Not for the prince who had sacrificed his soulmate on the altar of his own ambition.

He was damned, forever and always. A creature of shadow and sorrow, cursed to walk the endless nights alone.

But even as despair choked him, even as madness beckoned with its crooked finger, a flicker of movement caught his eye. A spark, dancing amidst the ashes.

Caelan stared, disbelieving. Hoping against hope, a drowning man grasping at gossamer straws. Slowly, infinitely slowly, he extended a hand…

And felt the feather-kiss of a familiar touch, achingly warm against his skin.

Samantha’s touch.

His head snapped up, eyes wide and wild. There, limned in the ghostly light of a waning moon, she stood. Translucent, ethereal, more spirit than flesh…but undeniably her.

“Samantha,” he breathed, joy and dread and desperate longing tangling in his chest. “How…?”

Her smile was a thing of sorrow and secrets, the endless mysteries of a woman’s heart. “You bound us, Caelan. In blood and shadow, curse and consummation.” Her phantom fingers drifted over the air above his cheek, not quite touching. “I am yours, in this world and the next. Even death cannot part us now.”

Caelan shuddered, torn between horror and a sick sort of thrill. She had sacrificed all for him…and now she was trapped, a wraith eternally bound to his side. The cruelest of fates, the darkest of fairy tales.

Beauty and the Beast, forever damned.

“I will free you,” he vowed, the words tearing at his throat. “I will find a way to break the bond, to release your soul-”

“No.” The single word fell like a guillotine blade, severing his wild hopes. Samantha’s eyes burned, unearthly in their intensity. “I made my choice, Caelan. I knew the price of loving you. And I would pay it again, a thousand times over.”

She held out a hand, an unspoken demand, an eternal invitation. The ghost of a smile curved her lips. “Dance with me, my dark prince. Let us waltz into the abyss, together as we were always meant to be.”

And Caelan, damn his black and blighted soul…reached out to take her hand.

She felt warm against his skin, a living flame, the blistering heat of her mortal heart. As he drew her into his arms, as they began to sway beneath the sorrowing stars, he knew this was their fate.

The fallen prince and his phantom bride, forever bound by sacrifice, by shadow, by the ashes of a love that would echo through eternity.

A twisted fairy tale, a forever after written in blood and pain.

And as they danced into the dark, as the world fell away and the curse wound tight…he couldn’t bring himself to regret a single step.

Because she was his. And he was hers.

And in the end, that was all that mattered.

The End.

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