PROLOGUE
The worldas we knew it ended twenty years ago, but nobody wants to admit it yet.
When the Fae courts tore through the barriers between worlds, everyone expected war. Fire and blood and the end of human civilization as we knew it. Instead, we got something much worse—we got diplomacy.
The Fae didn't conquer us. They didn't need to. They just smiled with their perfect faces and offered us deals we couldn't refuse. Magic to heal our dying planet. Technology beyond our wildest dreams. Protection from the chaos that followed the Sundering. All they wanted in return was a little cooperation. Some territory here and there. A few trade agreements. Nothing too unreasonable.
And if some of our daughters happened to catch the eye of their princes along the way? Well, that was just the price of peace.
The return of omegas started not with a bang but with a sigh of resignation. Fae researchers "discovered" that certain women had dormant blood that could be awakened by Fae magic, turning them into perfect matches for fae alpha biology. These women were special, they said. Chosen. Their transformationwas natural, beautiful even. The lucky families received wealth and status. The transformed women seemed happy in their new lives.
Everyone won.
Except nobody talks about what happens if an omega tries to come home. Nobody asks why the cultural exchange programs only go one way. Nobody wonders why the families who "volunteer" their daughters always seem to get the best government contracts afterward.
Because asking those questions would mean admitting that we're not partners in this arrangement—we're cattle being managed by very patient farmers.
Eight courts now control most of the habitable world, ruled by princes so old they remember when humans were enslaved by fae, before the Sundering separated our worlds. Each court offers something we desperately need. The Thorn Court feeds us. The Stone Court protects us. The Frost Court heals us. The Vine Court sustains our harvests. We've become so dependent on their gifts that the thought of losing them is unthinkable.
Which is exactly what they wanted.
Hidden in the deepest vaults of each court lies an ancient prophecy, written before the Sundering, before Lyralei Ravencrest, when humans knew to be afraid of the beautiful monsters who ruled over them. Eight bonds, it says. Eight matings between court rulers and human women of specific bloodlines. Eight love stories that will weave a spell so powerful it will make rebellion not just impossible, but literally unthinkable.
The prophecy calls it the Blood Debt—payment for an ancient crime humanity committed when the worlds were young, so long ago that we've forgotten what it was. It's the final step in a plan centuries in the making. A way to ensure that humanity'ssurrender becomes permanent, encoded in magic so deep that future generations won't even remember they had a choice.
The Fae have been breeding us for this moment. Encouraging certain bloodlines. Placing their people in key positions. Shaping our culture until we produce exactly the daughters they need—smart enough to be useful, strong enough to be interesting, but naive enough to think they're different from all the other women who've disappeared into Fae courts with stars in their eyes.
These daughters know about omega claiming. But they've been raised to believe it happens to weak women. Desperate women. Women who secretly wanted to be swept away by powerful alpha magic.
They have no idea that wanting it was never part of the equation.
The prophecy is finally ready to unfold. Eight diplomatic missions. Eight "cultural exchanges." Eight women who think they're too smart, too strong, too independent to fall for ancient magic and older seductions.
Eight love stories that will end human freedom forever.
The first bond begins now.
CHAPTER 1
ELISE
DAY 1
The sapphire gownmocks me from where it lies crumpled on my bedroom floor. Wrong. All wrong. I asked for powder blue—the exact shade of morning sky over the harbor, delicate and refined. This garish thing looks like it belongs on a tavern girl, not the daughter of Edgar Montgomery.
The fabric seems to shimmer in the afternoon light streaming through my windows, and something about that shimmer makes my skin crawl. It's too bright, too bold, toomuch. Like everything else in my perfectly curated life that should satisfy me but never does.
I grab the nearest object—a crystal perfume bottle worth more than most people earn in a year—and hurl it at my vanity mirror. The crash is satisfying in a way that nothing else has been today. Glass explodes across imported marble, scattering like ice across a frozen lake. The scent of roses floods the room, cloying and thick, making me gag.
But even destruction doesn't fill the void. Nothing ever does.
"Miss Elise!" My maid Clara appears in the doorway, her face pale with the kind of practiced terror that comes from months of cleaning up my wreckage. "What's happened?"
"What's happened?" I spin toward her, my silk robe billowing around me like storm clouds. The movement sends another wave of that strange restlessness through my body—like my skin is too tight, like I need tomoveorrunorbreaksomething else. "What's happened is that every single person in this household is incompetent. I asked for powder blue. Powder blue. Does that—" I gesture wildly at the offending gown, "—look powder blue to you?"
Clara's eyes dart to the dress, then back to me, then to the shattered glass covering my floor. She's calculating, I can see it. Trying to figure out what answer will cause the least damage. The smart ones always do that now—treat me like a wild animal that might strike without warning.
They're not wrong.
