Please.
Cool fingers wrapped around her wrist in a grip of iron, sending a tingle over her skin.
Her lashes flew open as Prince Eldrik slipped the spindle from her fingers and tucked it into his sleeve without the crowd noticing. She stared at him wide-eyed.
A sly smile edged the prince’s mouth as he slid a ring onto her finger next. Not the golden monstrosity she’d expected, but a dark, beautiful band. Onyx metal twisting like vines, with a ruby center that pulsed like a living thing.
“Do you choose to bind yourself to me by accepting this ring?” he asked.
The strange words weren’t loud. But they stilled Alora’s thoughts and the beat of her heart.
The prince gazed back at her, calm and unreadable.
The torches dimmed.
Shadows flickered unnaturally against the wall, and Alora swore Eldrik’s shadow stretched behind him up the wall, forming like horns above his head. And for a moment, his eyes caught the torchlights, flickering with flame.
Her breath hitched.
The throne room doors burst open with a thunderous boom.
Prince Eldrik stormed in with his guards, expression contorted with fury.“Impostor!”he bellowed.
Gasps rang through the room.
Alora and the wedding guests stared at the prince then at his twin standing beside her.
The impostor’s smile curved into something terribly familiar as his blue eyes bled red. She stumbled back when shadows burst from his body. They blotted torches one by one, ripping through the chamber. Cries rang out as wind wailed through the air and the chamber drowned in darkness.
A black cloud rippled on the altar. From it, emerged a figure of nightmare. A man she didn’t know but had met in her dreams.
Long black hair spilled around a pale face chiseled like marble, beautiful in its otherworldliness, garnet eyes glowing inthe dark. He loomed above her in a black ceremonial coat, a cape streaming behind him like a veil of blood. His ears were tapered to points, and crimson markings thrumming across his skin with a life of their own.
Alora was rooted in place, blood going still in her veins. Her body knew him before her mind could name him.
Rune.
He grinned wickedly at the gawking crowd, fangs gleaming. And his voice rumbled in the silence, dark amusement curling in every biting word.“Praise the Seven.”
The High Priestess’s face drained of all color as she pointed at him with a trembling finger. “The Shadow God!”
Panic erupted.
Rune laughed as people fled in all directions, screaming. Calveron’s guards struggled to move forward as the frantic throng pushed against them.
“Stop him!” Prince Eldrik shouted, drawing his sword. “Who closed the curtains? Tear them down, damn it! Let in the light?—”
Rune raised a clawed hand.
The shadows surged out, spearing the guards. Swords and windows shattered. Men flew backward. The castle shook as fissures veined the walls.
And yet Rune never looked away from her. He stood before her, towering, terrible, crimson eyes unforgivably calm. Ancient and burning.
Prince Eldrik and his men charged forward, but everything slowed, as if they existed out of time itself.
A sly knowing smirk rose to Rune’s face. He took her chin in his fingers, black claws cool against her skin, and he asked once more. “Princess Alora of Argyle, do you choose to bind yourself to me?”
Her heartbeat slowed.
