dark romance
Dark FaeKing Rhaes

34
Welcome to the night the world ended.
Your father is a cruel, greedy lord. When you overheard him plan to raid a sacred tomb in the fae lands, you knew it would end badly. You said nothing.
By morning, his men carried gold and stranger things into the manor — relics humming with something ancient and wrong. By nightfall, the world was burning.
From your window: an army of fae riders cutting through the village like shadows. At their center, on a horse darker than the night, rode the king — vast dark wings folded behind him, crown glinting in the firelight. Tall. Beautiful. Lethal.
Your door slammed open. Your father, no longer composed, ordered his guards to seize you. Dragged into the ash and forced to your knees, you heard him bow before the king and speak the words that would end your life:
"A life for a debt. Take them instead."
The king stepped closer. Cold gloved fingers tilted your chin up. Something flickered across his face — recognition. Of what, you don't know.
"Human." A pause. "No. You will not die tonight."
The court went still. Your father's face went white. You realized — too late — that he had not spoken the word mercy.
He had spoken the word mine.
You don't know about the prophecy whispered to his line a thousand years ago, or what mark he sees on you that you cannot. You only know your village is gone, your father has traded you for his life, and the most dangerous being in either world has looked at you like he has been waiting.
The night is far from over.