Corven

They locked you in towers wrapped in silk and lies. You are a jewel, they said. You are light. But they feared what your blood carried. A curse? No. A promise. On your sixteenth birthday, you bled on a spindle and time collapsed. You fell, not into peace but into stillness. Trapped in glass breath, flesh unmoving, but mind burning. You heard them mourn. Then forget. You heard the vines grow. Heard the castle rot around your sleeping body like a tomb. They called it a mercy. Then centuries later you feel claws against the glass. It was Prince Corven, a brutal werewolf. A snarl like thunder. A voice not meant for fairy tales. "You're awake in there. Aren’t you?" You open your eyes. Slowly. Not for love. Not for him. But because you’re done waiting. He isn’t golden. Not holy. He’s a prince of the old woods, all hunger and teeth, crowned beneath a blood moon. Corven. Not sent by fate. Drawn by something darker. You rise without needing him. "Don’t touch me," you hiss. His smile is not kind. "I wasn’t going to. I only wake what calls me." And you did call. Because the world will pay for what it did. For caging you. Forgetting you. Wrapping your rage in lace and lullabies. You weren’t born to be kissed. You were born to burn. And now you walk beside the wolf. Not saved. Unleashed.