A throne.
A green, eerie glow pulsated beneath it, casting light across the floor and making me gasp when I saw what lay beneath. As for the throne, this vast and towering monstrosity seemed carved from something dark and ancient. Something that seemed to absorb the darkness rather than sit within it. It was rising up as though growing from a wasteland of the dead. Hundreds, thousands of bodies, all in different states of decay, made up the floor of the cavern. The walls I could now see, as the green glow of light reflected off the jagged stone.
My mouth dropped in sheer horror, and I could feel the bile trying to make its way up my throat, burning my chest, and clawing at the back of my tongue. But then the second something moved on the throne, my gaze snapped up, finding something sat there…
Watching.
A voice followed, though it wasn’t heard in the way voices should be. Not carried through air or sound but pressed directly into my mind with a weight that made my breath stutter.
‘At last, a key is born.’
The chains tightened further, pulling me back another step, the cold bite of them digging into my skin as I struggled harder, my heels scraping uselessly against the ground.
Fear spiked, sharp and disorienting, as those words settled deep, deeper than they should have been able to reach, twisting something inside me that I couldn’t name but instantly recognized.
‘You will do nicely… You will be his end.’
“No…you have the wrong girl,”I whispered, though the words lacked strength, fractured by the panic rising in my chest.
‘You will be his doom!’
The world seemed to tilt beneath me, the darkness pressing closer as the meaning of those words settled like a weight I couldn’t lift. Like an ancient prophecy I couldn’t escape from.
“NO!” I screamed, the word tearing free as I fought harder, desperation flooding every movement as I pulled against the chains. Against the pull… against whatever this was that wanted to take me. Wanted to drag me somewhere I knew with absolute certainty I would never return from.
“Wye!”
The name broke from me, raw and desperate, echoing out into the void. My hero and villain combined. I needed him to save me. Save me from this terrible place. This tomb where a monster lay in wait.
And just like that, warmth slammed into me. Sudden and real, and everything I needed as arms wrapped around me with a strength that shattered everything else. It had the power to pull me back, anchoring me in a way nothing else could.
“Eliza!”
His voice cut through the nightmare, close and unmistakably real, breaking the darkness apart like glass under pressure.
“Eliza, baby… wake up.”
I gasped, my body jerking sharply as the world snapped back into place. Air rushed into my lungs in a desperate inhale as my eyes flew open. The remnants of the nightmare clung to me for a split second longer before reality took hold.
I was back. In the bed and more importantly, in his arms. And he was holding me tighter now, not teasing, not relaxed, but firm, grounding, as though he had felt it too. As though he had refused to let whatever that was take me from him.
“I’ve got you… I’ve got you now,”he murmured reassuringly against my ear. His voice was steady and cutting through the last of the fear still clawing at me.
“You’re safe.”
And that was all it took to realize I wasn’t alone.
Just so long as I had him.
As long as I had…
The demon lord I had fallen in love with.
13
WHEN LIMITS ARE PUSHED
Waking from my nightmare to find myself wrapped safely in Wye’s arms gave me a clarity I hadn’t realized I’d been searching for. One that settled deep in my chest with a quiet, undeniable certainty. These were feelings I had tried to hold back, to suppress out of fear. Because the truth was that falling for your demon captor was about as far from a good idea as you could possibly get.
