The first time I see Cassian Thorn, I want to rip his heart out with my bare hands.
He stands at the center of the Shadowveil Ball, bathed in the cold silver light of a hundred floating candles. His back is straight, shoulders broad beneath a tailored black coat lined with crimson silk—the color of fresh blood. In his right hand, he holds an obsidian dagger, its edge still wet. A single drop falls to the silver runestone embedded in the marble floor, sizzling like acid.
The ritual is over. The sacrifice—some nameless donor, pale and unconscious—has been carried away. But the air still hums with residual magic, thick with iron-scented power. The other guests, a sea of vampires, Fae, and a few bold werewolves, murmur in hushed reverence. To them, he is Prince Cassian Thorn, ruler of the Shadowveil Court, last of the pureblood Thorns. To me, he is the monster who bound my mother’s soul to his will and left her to die screaming his name.
I press deeper into the shadows of the grand hall’s eastern arch, my fingers curling around the hilt of the bone dagger hidden beneath my sleeve. It’s witch-forged, carved from the femur of a banshee, and laced with a curse of my own making. One clean cut across his throat, and the spell will unravel his immortality from the inside. His body will wither. His blood will boil. And my family’s curse—the one that’s haunted us for generations—will finally be broken.
I’ve trained for this moment for ten years. Since I was twenty-four, since the night I found my mother’s journal beneath the floorboards of our safehouse in Prague. Since I read her last entry: He made me love him. Then he made me forget. But I remember now. Basil—run. Do not let him touch you.
My breath is steady. My pulse is controlled. I wear a borrowed gown of midnight blue, its high collar hiding the sigil tattooed at the base of my throat—the mark of a dead coven. My hair is pinned up, a cascade of dark curls framing a face I’ve altered with glamour. I look like any other minor noble witch, here to observe, not act. But beneath the silk and deception, I am a weapon. And tonight, I strike.
I step forward—just one step—when the floor beneath me cracks.
Not a sound. Not a tremor. Just a sudden, hairline fracture in the marble, glowing faintly with silver light. My boot freezes mid-step. My blood turns to ice.
And then the sigil flares.
It erupts from the floor in a web of ancient runes, pulsing like a heartbeat. The magic sears through the soles of my boots, up my legs, into my spine. I scream—but no sound comes out. My body is wrenched forward, as if yanked by an invisible chain. I stumble, fall to one knee, and feel something sharp slice across my wrist.
Blood wells, dark and warm.
And then I see him—Cassian—stagger as if struck. His head snaps toward me. His eyes—black as void, ringed with crimson—lock onto mine.
And the world explodes.
A vision tears through me, raw and violent. I’m not in the ballroom anymore. I’m in a moonlit garden, roses blooming black as ink. I’m wearing a white gown, my hair loose, and I’m in his arms. His face is softer, younger, his voice breaking as he whispers, “I would die before I let them take you.” I reach up, touch his cheek—and then the scene shifts.
Fire. Screams. A woman with my eyes—my mother—collapsing in his arms. Her lips move. “You were never meant to forget.”
And then—pain. A curse unwinding in my blood, a chain snapping, and a name—Cassian—ripping from my throat like a prayer.
I gasp, back in the ballroom, on my knees, my wrist bleeding onto the runestone. Cassian is in front of me now, his expression unreadable, his own wrist slashed, blood mingling with mine on the silver surface.
The sigil glows brighter. The runes rise from the floor, wrapping around our arms like serpents of light. The bond seals with a sound like shattering glass.
And then the whispers begin.
“Bloodsworn.”
“It’s the Bloodsworn rite.”
“But that ritual hasn’t been seen in centuries.”
I look up at Cassian. His jaw is tight, his nostrils flared. He’s breathing fast—unnaturally fast for a vampire. His eyes flicker with something I don’t expect: confusion. Maybe even fear.
“What did you do?” I hiss, scrambling to my feet, pressing my bleeding wrist to my chest.
He doesn’t answer. He stares at our joined blood on the stone, then at me. “You weren’t supposed to be here.”
“I wasn’t *supposed* to be bound to a monster,” I snap, backing away. But the bond pulls me forward, a phantom tether yanking at my chest. I stumble, and he catches me by the arm.
His touch is fire and ice.
Electricity shoots up my spine. My breath hitches. His scent—dark amber, frost, and something ancient—floods my senses. I want to wrench free, but my body doesn’t obey. Instead, I lean into him, just slightly, and his grip tightens.
“You feel it,” he murmurs, voice low, rough. “The bond. It’s real.”
“It’s a mistake,” I spit. “I didn’t activate that sigil. I don’t even know what it is.”
“It’s a Bloodsworn binding,” says a cold voice from the crowd. “And it’s irreversible.”
The guests part as a tall Fae woman steps forward, her silver gown shimmering like starlight. High Inquisitor Dain. Her eyes—pale violet, slit-pupiled—scan me with clinical disdain. “The ritual requires two willing participants, or two bound by bloodline. You,” she says, pointing at me, “are neither. And yet, the magic accepted you.”
“Then it’s flawed,” I say, lifting my chin. “Undo it.”
Dain smiles, thin and cruel. “Only death can break a Bloodsworn bond. And even then, the soul decays. You’ll both go mad. Or worse—become wraiths, bound for eternity.”
My stomach drops.
Cassian’s hand on my arm tightens. “She’s under my protection now,” he says, voice cutting through the silence. “Until we understand this binding, she stays with me.”
“Of course,” Dain purrs. “The Council will convene at dawn. You’ll be required to prove the legitimacy of the bond.”
“Legitimacy?” I laugh, sharp and bitter. “I didn’t consent to anything.”
“The magic did,” Dain says. “And now, you are Basil of the Hollow Coven, officially declared Bloodsworn Consort to Prince Cassian Thorn.”
A murmur ripples through the crowd. Some look horrified. Others—especially the vampires—smirk. I catch a glimpse of a woman with silver-streaked hair and a gown that clings too tightly. Lysandra Vale. Cassian’s former lover. She watches me with open malice, her fingers tracing the bite mark on her collarbone—his mark, I assume.
I turn to Cassian. “You will release me.”
He looks down at me, his expression unreadable. “I can’t.”
“Then I’ll kill you myself.”
His lips twitch. Not a smile. A warning. “Try. But know this—the bond will kill you before you land the first blow.”
I want to scream. I want to throw myself at him and claw his eyes out. But the bond hums beneath my skin, a constant, pulsing reminder: we are connected. I can feel him—the edge of his thoughts, the cold precision of his mind, the flicker of something deeper, something buried. Curiosity. Hunger. Not for blood. For *me*.
He steps closer. “You came here to kill me, didn’t you?”
My breath catches. How does he—
“Your scent,” he murmurs. “It’s laced with death magic. And hatred. I’ve smelled it before. In your mother.”
I freeze.
He knows.
“You were never supposed to be born,” he says, voice low. “Your mother broke her oath to me. And now, you’ve broken the silence. The bond wouldn’t have activated if you weren’t meant to be here.”
“You cursed her,” I whisper. “You enslaved her.”
“I don’t remember doing it,” he says, and for the first time, I see a crack in his control. “But I remember *her*. And now… I remember *you*.”
The bond flares again, hotter this time. A wave of heat rolls through me, pooling low in my belly. My skin prickles. My breath comes faster. I see another flash—a memory not mine: me, naked, beneath him, his mouth on my throat, my fingers in his hair, both of us moaning.
I stumble back, gasping. “No.”
He follows, his voice a velvet command. “It’s not just magic, Basil. It’s memory. And it’s *real*.”
The guards move in, forming a silent escort. Cassian takes my arm, not gently, and leads me away from the ballroom, through twisting corridors of black stone and silver torches. I don’t fight. Not because I’m afraid. But because I’m calculating.
The bond is real. The magic is ancient. And if Dain is right, killing Cassian will kill me too.
But what if the curse can’t be broken by death?
What if it can only be broken by love?
The thought is a knife to the chest. I came here to destroy him. To avenge my mother. To end the curse that’s haunted my bloodline.
And now I’m bound to him. By blood. By magic. By something deeper—something that makes my skin burn when he’s near, that makes my pulse race when he speaks my name.
As we reach his chambers, he stops, turns to me. “You’ll stay here. Until the Council decides your fate.”
“And if they say I’m free?”
He steps closer, so close I feel his breath on my lips. “They won’t.”
“And if I refuse?”
“The bond will force you,” he says. “It already is.”
He opens the door, and I step inside—a gilded prison of black silk, silver mirrors, and a bed large enough for a king. Or a monster.
He follows, shuts the door behind us.
And then, in the silence, I let myself think the unthinkable.
I came here to destroy him. Now I’m bound to him. And God help me… I want to kiss him.