my skull, feeling tighter and heavier than usual. It was an enormous iron monstrosity, an elaborate combination of loops and spikes designed to fit around my horns, and I only wore it on special occasions.
Like my wedding day.
The crown was uncomfortable on the best of days, but today it was suffocating. A weighty reminder of what it was to be a king. Soon I’d have a queen of my own to suffer alongside me.
″Brother,” Damen called from his seat in the front row, “do you think you should perhaps work on looking a little less objectionable before your bride makes her way down the aisle? I’m sure she’ll be suitably alarmed without the posturing.”
Soren, my stoic Captain of the Guard, elbowed my loudmouthed younger brother and heir. “You should refer to him as ‘your majesty’ when there are so many others around,” he hissed. “Or better yet, say nothing.”
I snorted at Damen’s arrogant grin, the tips of his fangs glinting in the low, silvery orb light. Damen would sooner rip those fangs out of his mouth than give up an opportunity to antagonize me. Perhaps I should put him in his place in front of so many others—all the highborns of the shadow realm had turned out for their king’s wedding—but, then again, no. Let them see that Damen, and Damen alone, was immune from my wrath.
He wasn’t going to earn their respect any other way.
It was a mostly still evening, but even the faintest gust of wind made the ancient stones of this temple groan ominously. The high arched ceilings always seemed one storm away from collapsing, and long strands of black grass had sprouted between the cracks in the fractured cobblestone floor. The gray stained-glass windows on the outer wall were holding on by sheer luck, and the whole structure was probably only standing because it was connected to the better-maintained palace.
I should fix it, I thought to myself. The plain wooden bench seats we’d dragged in specifically for the occasion looked too nice for the crumbling place. There were so few devout left that maintaining this wing of the palace seemed pointless.
″She has arrived,” Garren, the priest overseeing our ceremony, whispered. He was particularly horrifying looking with his mottled gray skin and the three strands of hair his scalp was desperately clinging to, and that was precisely why I’d picked him to officiate. I didn’t want my new queen to get too comfortable.
This marriage was not of my choosing. The Hunters Council, the ones with all the power, had said they would send a woman to be my bride, one of their choosing. My Council, the Council of Shades, had promised me. The marriage was meant to be security—a Hunter living in the shadow realm under my protection—but my Council hadn’t been specific enough in requesting a bride. My future wife was probably one of the highest-ranking huntresses, with hundreds of kills under her belt, sent to be a constant reminder that if the treaty was broken, the lives of my subjects would once again be in danger every time they traveled to the human realm to feed.
″How many with her?” I asked in a low voice, my hands clasped so tightly in front of me that my claws were almost savaging one of them. How would my new bride feel about that? Our pitch-black, claw-tipped fingers didn’t appear on the non-corporeal Shade forms she would be used to seeing in the human realm.
″None, your majesty,” Garren stuttered, looking back at one of his acolytes at the edge of the dais who was relaying information to him. “She came alone. As she should, of course. Not that it was required in the treaty, but as a sign of respect to her new husband.”
Garren was a sniveling little cretin who thought very highly of himself, and I struggled to keep the disdain off my face every time he spoke.
I frowned for a moment before smoothing out my expression. And the Hunters called us monsters. I wouldn’t send my worst enemy to get married in the human realm alone. Either my bride was a lethal force to be reckoned with all on her own, or the Hunters were making it clear that they weren’t taking this union seriously. This treaty seriously.
It was easy for them not to take it seriously. Their people weren’t dying. Times were tough for Shades. Feeding off fear was a lot harder when our prey was too desensitized from special effects and prank shows to know when to be afraid, the idiots. Not to mention all the recording devices that made our lives a nightmare.
″Selene is taking her luggage to search now,” Garren whispered, relaying more information from outside. “Your bride is on her way to the entryway.”
Soren tapped his foot impatiently—it had been difficult for both of us to entrust his second to greet my bride at the portal outside the palace, but I selfishly wanted Soren to be here. Shades did not make for good subjects, and the peace treaty had been a hard sell, even though it was literally to save their lives. The marriage that the Council had decreed would guarantee it had been an even harder sell, and I couldn’t be sure some wouldn’t try to cause trouble because some in the regions already were.
The relationship between the Crown and the Council was symbiotic, but not always seamless, and I only truly trusted my brother and the captain who was like a brother to me.
I straightened, angling myself towards the aisle as the choir began a haunting dirge to welcome my future wife to her miserable end. If I was going to be unhappy in this marriage, so was she.
″I give it a day,” Damen whispered conspiratorially, not making much of an effort to lower his voice. “She’ll be throwing herself at the portal, begging for those savages to come back for her. Or for the sweet release of death,” he added dramatically.
″Shut up,” Soren growled, elbowing Damen. He was silent for a moment before adding, “I give her an hour.”
I gave her until she saw my face for the first time. Any moment now. Perhaps she was an accomplished Shade-killing assassin in the human realm, but this was the shadow realm. This was our world. Unless she was on the delegation of Hunters who had come to negotiate with us, she’d never seen a Shade in our true form before.
You should be embracing this arrangement, not trying to scare her off.
Fuck it, if she was going to run from the sight of my face, that hardly seemed like my problem.
The heavy wooden doors creaked open, drawing the attention of the hundred-strong crowd. An intimidating prospect for any bride, let alone one in an entirely different realm, surrounded by Shades. Bogeymen. Nightmares.
And these were the cream of the crop—only the Court and the Council were in attendance. They’d decked themselves out in their most elaborate shadow coverings and accessorized with their most expensive jewels. Shades in every variation of black and gray stood at attention, the orbs of silver light along the walls catching on the elaborate onyx decorations most had twined around their horns for the occasion. Their glowing eyes were the only spot of color in the entire room. In the entire realm.
Until she appeared.
A slight figure dressed in white appeared on the threshold, and my lips twitched at the stubborn tilt of her chin.
″Maybe two hours,” Soren conceded in a quiet voice, standing along with the rest of the room, twisting back to look at her.
My bride started down the aisle, and I made no attempt to hide my perusal of her body. Let her see the monster she was marrying in his true form and everything I could do to her soft human form written on my face.
Her silk dress was more silver than white on closer inspection, and although it covered her from her collarbone to her toes, including full length sleeves, it was far tighter than I expected from the usually unglamorous, practical Hunters.
And her face. Oh, her people had certainly chosen one to tempt me. Maybe they wanted this alliance to hold after all. She was… bright. Once upon a time, we were told there had been life and color in the shadow realm, but it was so long ago that it was basically a myth. With the exception of our eyes, this world was all shades of gray, or it had been until my new bride walked into it.
Big brown eyes that would cry so pretty, smooth pinkish ivory skin with sharp angular cheekbones and a tight set jaw, and silky reddish-brown hair hanging straight down her back. How soft would it feel running through my claws?
Where the fuck had that thought come from? I’d gone to the human realm to feed since I was an adolescent, and never once was I attracted to my meals. Granted, Hunters were different, but I’d had an even more visceral reaction to their kind.
Still… how beautiful would her hair look, whipping in the wind as I hunted her through the forest?
Perhaps I could have fun with my little human huntress of a wife, while I had her. She was no match for me in my own domain with my solid form and teeth and claws that could tear her apart.
At least she wasn’t hideous to look at.
Her approach was painfully slow, each step timed with the drawn-out dirge, and her inferior eyesight probably couldn’t make out my features yet, especially in the low light. No sun shone in the shadow realm.
She could see the crowd as she passed, if she chose to. She chose not to, her eyes determinedly trained towards the end of the aisle where I waited.
Smart, I thought with begrudging approval. No queen could be seen gawping at her subjects if she wanted to be taken seriously. How long she would be queen remained to be seen, but she seemed to be making a show of doing it properly for now.
I knew the precise moment my delicate little bride spotted me. The most delicious, mouth-watering scent filled the air, making the eyes of every Shade in the room glow hungrily.
Fear. Human fear always smelled so sweet, like the most sumptuous cake, inviting us to take a bite. Hunters knew better than to show us any fear, and I had never scented the emotion on them before.
It was far more potent than a regular human’s.
Addictive, even.
Was this a trap? An elaborate ploy to make me let down my guard?
Brown eyes perused me as boldly as I’d perused her as my bride stopped in front of me, both of us turning to face each other, ignoring the rest of the room. I smiled—not kindly—letting her see my fangs, running my long black tongue over my teeth with a flourish. My brother chuckled obnoxiously from the front row.
″What is your name, little huntress?” I purred. A fresh wave of fear perfumed the air, making me salivate, but her face hid her emotions admirably.
She didn’t look afraid at all.
She must be well trained, I reminded myself. Even if she couldn’t quite suppress her body’s natural instincts, she was accomplished enough to disguise them on her face.
″Ophelia.”
There was no tremble in her voice, and although she had to tip her head back to meet my eyes, her gaze was unnaturally defiant. How interesting.
″I am Allerick, but you may call me ‘your majesty.’ ”
It galled me slightly to admit that Queen Ophelia was an impressively regal sounding name for an accidental monarch.
Damen laughed again, some of the court tittering along with him.
″As you wish, your majesty,” Ophelia replied, inclining her head. The movement drew my attention to her smooth, pale neck. Pretty.
″Shall I begin the proceedings?” Garren asked, his tongue flicking out towards Ophelia as though he would have a taste of her terror for himself. My hand shot out before he could move back, gripping Garren’s chin and slamming it up so both rows of fanged teeth pierced that lecherous tongue which had no business being near my bride.
He howled in pain as black blood seeped from the puncture wounds, his snake-like eyes widening in terror as he attempted to hiss an apology while his tongue was still thoroughly impaled.
″I require another priest,” I called out mildly without taking my eyes off Garren, my claws digging into the flesh of his cheeks as I maintained my hold on his chin. “One who does not seek to taste that which does not belong to him.”
Garren mumbled incoherent apologies as I threw him back on the stone floor, knocking into a plinth and sending a vase of black flowers to the ground with a crash. Soren was there before I could blink, gripping the bleeding priest by the neck and dragging him across the stones before flinging him easily out the window.
Unsurprisingly, Ophelia’s scent sweetened, her eyes trained diligently on me through the entire interaction. Soren retook his seat, and both he and Damen leaned forward, inhaling deeply.
They were lucky I didn’t like them less.
″Your majesty,” Weylin, a priest I liked even less than Garren, murmured, appearing behind us in hastily pulled on ceremonial robes.
″Get on with it,” I drawled. “I require a drink.”
Of spiced wine. And perhaps my new bride’s pussy, since we were supposed to consummate this damn arrangement for it to be valid.
Not necessarily in that order.
Weylin cleared his throat. Weddings were uncommon in our world now, but when they happened, the vows emphasized choice. Choosing to forsake all others. Choosing to love one another.
Not even the Council in their pushiness to make this marriage happen had suggested we use those traditional vows here. Nothing about this was a choice.
″Ophelia, huntress and human, do you take Allerick, King of the Shades, to be your husband in a union recognized by both of our kinds?”
She blinked for a moment, those oddly expressive human eyes giving away her confusion. She’d expected more.
″I do.”
Such a pretty voice. So breathless. Another fear response she couldn’t quite hide.
″Allerick, King of the Shades, do you take the human and huntress Ophelia to be your wife in a union recognized by both of our kinds?”
I paused for a moment, just long enough to make her nervous, watching her face carefully for that moment where one pretty tear escaped, or that angelic face crumpled with horror. I couldn’t decide if I admired her stoicism or hated it. I wasn’t particularly old, yet it had been a while since anything interested me.
Her scent couldn’t lie though. That delicious fear was all mine.
″I do.”
And with that, it was done. I was married. The king had taken a queen, albeit not a crowned one. The Council could force me to rush the other aspects of this cursed union, but I’d crown her when I was good and ready.
My hand in marriage was more than enough power to be giving the little huntress.
″Come along, little wife,” I purred, wrapping my claws around her slim arm and guiding her towards the aisle. “You smell like a meal, and it’s time for the feast.”
