Chapter 1
Chapter one
Taken
-Maris, Human Kingdom of Eryndor-
She had never felt more alone in the heart of Eryndor's battered capital.
She lived surrounded by its crumbling walls and soot-stained battlements, that offered no sense of safety. Often a steady prickle danced along the nape of her neck, a silent warning that something darker waited just beyond sight.
The wind rattled broken shutters. The lamps sputtered with thin, orange light that barely pushed back the darkness.
They called it spring but there was no warmth in the air. The gods had stolen that with their curse on the land.
Maris clutched her worn shawl tighter around her small shoulders, though the rough wool scratched against the pale skin her mother once called porcelain. “My little porcelain doll,” her mother used to say, smoothing Maris’s inky black hair back from her brow, pride softening her voice.
But that was before.
Before the plague six winters ago that had swept through Eryndor like a scythe, stealing everything she loved in the span of weeks. Her mother. Her father. Two older brothers. Whole rows of neighbors. Gone and forgotten by the gods that had forsaken them.
Maris had been nineteen then, grown but still carrying a daughter’s heart, unprepared to bury her entire world alone.
The healers blamed the gods; the priests preached that prayer would save those who had survived that winter. But nothing had, hundreds died.
Now she was twenty-five, surviving on scraps and meger rations alone.
She’d learned to mend torn cloaks for coins, to scrub filthy hearthstones in exchange for moldy bread.
Her world had narrowed to a one-room loft in a crumbling tenement, where she sewed by a tiny, smoke-stained window until her fingers ached, pretending that beyond the walls, the world might still hold some kindness.
Some evenings she climbed the hill to where the plague graves lay, a field of tilted stones.
Wild thyme grew there, a stubborn, sweet scent in the breeze that always made her cry.
She had survived through famine, through loneliness, through cold, but tonight felt different.
The haze clung to her skin like damp blanket — each breath felt borrowed. The breeze — copper-scented, tasted wrong, making her tongue go dry. A cracked bell rang somewhere in the depths of the city, its note a warped echo bouncing off the stone facades around her.
Fear, sparked under her ribs, a wild, frantic pounding.
One thought echoed through her mind, Run and don't look back.
But where was there to go? At her back the gates of Eryndor's city square were locked tight at sundown, and to wonder an uncharted path home would surely lead to more trouble. So she forced herself to walk on, down her usual path to her apartment. Her steps echoed on the warped cobblestones down the crooked alley where rainwater dripped from broken gutters and half starved stray cats slunk through garbage piles. As her steps quickened, her feet tangled in the torn hem of her blue skirt, its frayed fabric a worthless excuse of linen that she’d patched countless times to no avail.
At the far end of the lane, half-swallowed in mist that shone like spilled moonlight, stood a figure.
Tall. Unmoving. Watching.
Maris’s heart surged, slamming against her chest begging to be acknowledged.
She smelled him before she properly saw him, crushed roses and pine under frost, edged with iron.
Torchlight wavered, picking out details: the high-collared black brocade coat stitched with thin threads of silver, a red stone at the throat gleaming like a fresh wound.
His hair darker than a raven’s wing falling in sleek waves to his shoulders framed a pale perfectly sculpted face — rough stubble lining his jaw.
And as he smirked she caught sight of his too sharp canines.
Too beautiful. Too still. Inhuman.
He stepped forward.
A nightbound male, clearly more vampire than fae. She had heard the tells of them whisking mortal women away when hunger called. But she had never caught word of one this far into the reaches of Eryndor, only along the borderlands.
She tried to back away, but her feet felt like stone. She cursed herself for her mortal reaction an utter death wish.
His voice cut the silence, deep and steady, as if carried on a shadows edge.
“You.” His eyes sparked in recognition as he cokced his head.
She swallowed hard, trying to find words, but her voice trembled.
“What do you want?”
His silver eyes did not soften, only studied her like an object of rare curiosity. A faint, unreadable pull touched the corners of his mouth, not quite a smile, something darker.
“You,” he repeated as an answer.
The word slammed through her like a hammer.
Maris stumbled back, breath ragged, but before she could run, he closed the distance between them, his hand closed around her wrist. Cold. Strong. Unyielding.
In a blink, the alley vanished.
There was only darkness, rushing wind, the dizzying scent of roses and rain, an impossible pull in her gut as if the world were spinning off its axis.
When she could see again, she almost collapsed.
They stood beneath a shadowed archway, so polished it reflected the moonlight like a black mirror. Beyond rose a castle of obsidian, spires twisted like claws, thorns of crimson roses climbing every archway, their petals so deep they appeared to bleed.
Lanterns burned with silvery flame, throwing strange shadows against walls carved with symbols she did not recognize.
Wind tore at her hair, whipping coldly against her cheek
The nightbound male turned toward her, moonlight catching the glint of fangs as he spoke, voice velvety and cruel.
“Welcome to Calyrix Castle,” he said, and for the first time a note of almost regret crossed his perfect features. “I am King Kael of Nythra. And you belong to me now.”
Maris felt her knees wobble under the dizzying weight of his words.
King of Nythra. The far eastern kingdom of Achyron, known to house the darkest of creatures and nightbound alike.
The word rattled around in her skull, but she could not grasp why the eastern king would have anything to do with her.
She wanted to protest, to tell him she belonged to no one, that he had made a mistake. But her tongue was heavy, paralyzed by the iron chill of his grip and the impossible grandeur of the place he had stolen her into.
Around them, the castle pulsed with a terrible, breathtaking beauty. Shadows stretched between black pillars tangled with roses whose thorns gleamed like daggers.
Other figures approached from the castle gates, drifting closer like pale moths drawn to a flame. Their faces were carved from a cruel kind of grace flawless yet cold, their expressions hungry and watchful, eyes shining with a hard, eerie silverlight.
Kael’s hold on her wrist softened, though he did not release her fully. Instead, he drew her half a step closer, so near she could feel the chill coming off his coat’s ornate embroidery.
“You will walk at my side,” he commanded, quiet but implacable.
Maris bristled, clutching a scrap of courage.
“I don’t belong here, my name is Maris, I'm just a seamstress.” she rasped, though her voice shook.
Kael tilted his head, something unreadable passing through his moonlit eyes amusement, perhaps, or a blade’s-edge of pity.
“Perhaps you do not, Maris,” he said softly, as if the words tasted strange in his mouth. “Yet you are here all the same.”
He turned then, guiding her through towering gates of black iron, their arches etched with pale moon phases. The great doors of the castle yawned open, revealing a hall so vast and echoing that her knees nearly gave way.
Moonstone lanterns burned overhead, sending down pale, shifting light that made the banners of deep red silk ripple as if moved by unseen hands.
Statues lined the walls, some beautiful, some monstrous, each one watching with sightless eyes that made her skin crawl.
Well dressed forms stood whispering in the expanse of the hall.
The smell of rose and pine clung to every surface, mingling with something metallic, that settled at the back of her throat.
Kael paused at the head of the hall, in front of a dais where a blackened throne towered, wrapped in thorn-vines that seemed to breathe in the flickering torchlight.
He released her wrist at last, his amused smirk disappearing. A cold scowl taking its place as he stepped up onto the dias to address the strange, waiting nobles who filled the shadows.
“This is Maris of Eryndor,” he announced, voice carrying a resonant chill. “She is under my ward, and under my protection.”
Maris’s heart skipped, confusion and terror tangling so tightly she thought she might choke.
Under his protection?
A ripple moved through the gathered nobles all heads turned towards her. Their gazes cut through her like knives, unreadable and calculating. One or two of them hissed softly, a sound that reminded her of snakes disturbed from sleep.
Maris took a step back, instinct screaming to run, but her legs refused to obey.
Kael turned toward her again, eyes the color of a winter moon.
“You will be treated with respect,” he said, each syllable like a blade. “No one will harm you while you remain within my walls.”
The words might have sounded kind from another man, but from Kael, they were a decree ironclad, merciless, final.
A woman stepped forward weaving through the crowd of the nobles.
Older, with hair the shade of rusted iron braided tight to her scalp, her dark red irises assessed Maris with a look somewhere between curiosity and clinical detachment.
Her dress was indigo, fastened with silver clasps in the shape of tiny thorns.
Kael nodded once to her.
“Valea. Prepare her rooms. See to it that she is bathed, fed, and she has proper quarters.”
Valea dipped her chin smoothly, though Maris sensed the power coiled behind every measured motion.
“As you wish, my King.”
Maris’s tongue turned to sand. King. Nightbound. Monster.