(Adrian's POV)
The council chamber emptied with the shuffle of robes and murmured voices, leaving behind the faint odor of candle smoke and ink. My court had lingered too long, their questions redundant, their fears tiresome. I waved them off with a flick of my hand, dismissing their endless prattle about borders and raids.
"Leave me," I commanded, and they obeyed, reluctant but obedient.
The heavy doors shut, sealing the chamber in silence. For a moment, I allowed my shoulders to sag, the weight of the crown pressing harder when no one was watching. Even kings, after all, grew weary.
I moved through the long corridors of my castle, torchlight casting shadows across stone walls etched with the history of my line. Every tapestry spoke of conquest, every carved pillar of victory. It was supposed to remind me who I was, Adrian Veylor, King of Vampires, eternal, unshakable.
Yet tonight, those reminders felt hollow.
By the time I reached my chambers, exhaustion clung to me like a second skin. I dismissed the attendants before they could speak, before they could fuss over candles and silks. Solitude was all I wanted. Solitude and maybe a dreamless sleep.
I removed my cloak, letting it pool onto the chair, then lay back against the silken sheets, staring up at the carved canopy above me. The bed was vast, made for a king who never shared it. And still… it felt smaller these days. Confining.
I shut my eyes, chasing silence. But silence, when left unchecked, births memory.
And my mind traitorous, and relentless returned to him.
Damien Blackthorn.
The wolf king who should have been my greatest enemy. The man who had become something far more dangerous.
I tried to will the thought away, but it clawed back, sharper than any dream. So I surrendered, letting the memory take me where it always led. Back to the night I first saw him.
It was three winters ago, under a moon swollen and red as if painted with blood. Our clans had come perilously close to open war. A border village half-human, half-neutral ground had been raided, its inhabitants slaughtered in the crossfire of fang and claw.
Neither side claimed responsibility, and yet both were blamed.
Tradition demanded a meeting. A parley.
I remember arriving at the clearing, my retinue at my back, armored knights gleaming like shadows under the moonlight. The wolves were already there, a dark mass of fur and steel, their breath fogging in the cold.
And at their head, Damien.
I hadn't expected him. The old wolf king still lived then, though weakened by years of war. I expected some scarred general, some feral brute. Not him.
Damien Blackthorn was… striking.
Tall, broad-shouldered, with hair blacker than the night around him. His presence filled the clearing before his voice ever did, and when those eyes, wolf-gold, burning met mine across the firelight, something inside me stilled.
The world hushed. For a moment, I forgot the council at my back, the war at our throats, even the centuries of blood spilled between us. There was only him.
I masked it, of course. I was a king, I could not falter. My face remained cold, unreadable. But my heart, immortal as it was stirred in a way I had thought long buried.
He bowed his head slightly in greeting, though it was more mockery than respect. "King Adrian," he said, his voice deep, edged with a growl that seemed to rumble through the ground itself. "I expected someone older. Colder. Less… alive."
It was an insult dressed as curiosity, and I should have been offended. Instead, I found my lips twitching. "And I expected a beast. Not a man who hides teeth behind charm."
The air tightened between us, charged with something neither of us acknowledged. The parley dragged on accusations, threats, empty promises, but my attention strayed again and again to him. The way he stood, unyielding. The way he smirked when I spoke. The way his people looked at him with unshakable trust.
When the meeting ended without resolution, we lingered. Just a moment too long. Just long enough for his hand to brush mine as we exchanged parting scrolls, for his eyes to meet mine with a spark I couldn't mistake.
Desire. Challenge. Recognition.
And in that instant, I knew my life had shifted.
Back in my chambers, I exhaled slowly, opening my eyes to the dark canopy above. My chest ached with the memory, sharper now because I understood it better.
I hadn't just been intrigued that night. I hadn't just seen a rival worth watching. I had seen the man who would undo me.
And I had let him.
A bitter laugh escaped me, soft and humorless. How easily it had begun. How impossible it had become to stop.
I turned onto my side, pressing a hand to my lips as if I could still feel the phantom of that first night, that first spark. Damien Blackthorn had burned his way into me with nothing more than a look and a word.
And gods help me, I wanted more.
Even now, even knowing the risk, the betrayal of my people, the ruin it could bring, I wanted him.
Not as an enemy. Not as a conquest. But as the one thing kings are not allowed to have.
Something for themselves.
Someone for themselves.
The candles guttered lower, shadows stretching across the chamber. I let the darkness have me, curling around the ache in my chest, the fire in my blood.
"Damien," I whispered into the emptiness, a name not meant to be spoken here.
Not in this castle.
Not in this bed.
Not in this war.
But whispered all the same.
Because no matter how I fought it, the truth remained.
From the night I first saw him, he was mine.
And I was his.