1. Stolen Rose
Chapter one
Stolen Rose
Ace
The magic still hadn’t stopped humming. It thrummed against his body, bone-deep, a discordant echo of the kiss he’d stolen and the terrible choice that followed.
The Null Veil shivered around them—volatile, splintering apart into ash and frost. The moment they crossed the edge of the wards and landed deep in the woods behind the Crimson castle, Ace’s knees nearly buckled from the weight of it.
The Null Veil was never intended to be used in this manner.
Not for abduction. Not for love—But for war.
Scarlett yanked herself free the second their feet hit frozen soil. She stumbled, barefoot on the frosted floor, the thin red of her nightgown clinging to her thighs and tangling around her knees. Moonlight burned along her hair like flames, her eyes flashing like cut garnets.
“You bastard!” Her voice weakened from the veil, raw and venomous, but it struck him harder than any blade. “Do you know what you’ve just done?”
Ace held her gaze without flinching. “I chose you,” he said simply.
Her fury sharpened, carving into the air between them.
“I am not yours.” She hissed, loud enough that the forest seemed to freeze.
The trees themselves leaned in like they were listening.
“You think dragging me out of my kingdom is some grand romantic gesture? That I’ll fall at your feet, thanking you because you stole me away? Are you mad?”
Ace’s mouth twisted. What had he expected?
Gratitude? Lust? That she’d fight him and then forgive him for the crime of wanting her too much?
But seeing her now—wild and divine in her rage, he realized he hadn’t thought beyond the taking.
Beyond the heat of her mouth on his and the image he couldn’t burn from his mind: Maddox in her bed.
Arley’s hands were at her hips. The marks they left on her skin, proof she had let them close, confirmation she had given what he couldn’t bear to lose—her love.
He couldn’t stop seeing it. Couldn’t stop hearing the phantom echo of her breathy moans, admitting she belonged to them.
“No,” he said quietly. “I think you're furious. I know you're going to hate me for this. And I think if I left you there, I'd hate myself more.” The words hung between them were heavy. “I didn’t come for gratitude,” he said, his voice low and trembling with something dangerous. “I came because I couldn’t breathe at the thought of Maddox and Arley touching you.”
Her gaze cut into him, sharp as steel, as if she could see all the fractures splitting him apart. Maybe she could. A bitter laugh escaped her.
“So that's what this is?” she said coldly, “This is just jealousy, because you couldn’t stand to lose. Not the throne and not me. Now that I've made my choice, suddenly you've decided to fight for me.”
A silence stretched, terrible and infinite.
His lungs ached with it. “I didn’t lose,” Ace whispered.
“Not yet, anyway, this hand is far from over.” But the awful truth pressed mercilessly against his mind.
He wasn’t sure which he was trying harder to win—her heart, or the war that would bleed from standing at her side.
Beneath everything, a darker truth quietly lingered. It was never about winning at all. Perhaps it was about destroying anyone who tried to take her from him.
Scarlett’s hand flew before she even thought about what she was doing.
The crack of her palm against his cheek echoed through the trees, sharp enough to make the silence shatter. His head jerked sideways, skin burning and blooming red, the sting grounding him. It was nothing compared to the weight already crushing his chest.
He didn't argue or flinch. He didn’t lift a hand to stop her.
Because gods, if anyone deserved her anger, it was him.
Before she could strike again, before she could spin and run into the dark skeleton of the forest, Ace caught her wrists and pulled her close.
Not rough, not cruel, but with the desperation of a drowning man clinging to the only thing keeping him above water.
“Scarlett,” he rasped, his voice cracking open with the weight of her name. “Hate me. Strike me again. Curse me to the afterlife if you want. But don’t—don’t turn away from me.”
She thrashed, her fury searing through her veins, but his arms only tightened. Not to trap her, but to plead. To hold her like she was the only anchor left in a storm he had made with his own hands.
“Let go of me.”
“No.” The word came low, but firm.
“I should have fought for you sooner,” he whispered against her hair, regret pouring out of him like poison from a wound.
“I should have burned down that cursed chapel, torn Maddox from your bed, ripped Arley’s hands off of him before they ever touched you.
” His breath shuddered, his chest caving as he buried his face against the curve of her temple.
“But I didn’t. I let them have pieces of you that should have been mine.
I let them steal what I was too much of a coward to claim. ”
Scarlett froze in his arms. For one heartbeat. Two. Her breath trembled, sharp and uneven breaths, her nails carving crescent moons into his skin. “You don't get to say things like that,” she whispered.
“You were going to go through with the wedding,” she hissed, voice splintered between fury and something unnameable.
“You were going to let me become a puppet. I would be tethered to my mother’s claim on my magic and your father’s hunger for power.
It would have ripped out everything I have left inside me. ”
“I know.” His lips ghosted over her hairline, trembling.
“I should have stood with you the moment you said no. I should have torn the world apart for you instead of hesitating, letting them shove you toward a life that would just cage you. I failed you then… and I’d give everything to take it back. ”
His words hung heavy, dangerous, trembling with both devotion and destruction.
Because it wasn’t just her forgiveness he wanted.
It was her whole, entire, belonging to no one else.
His arms were both iron and fire, and every part of her wanted to shove him away. To claw at his chest, to scream until the whole forest knew she was not his prisoner, not his queen, not his anything.
But gods help her—her body remembered him, the way their kiss sparked something deep within her magic.
The press of his mouth in her chambers, the taste of him still lingering like smoke on her tongue. His heartbeat slammed against her ribs where their bodies locked together, wild and ragged, as if he was holding her, not out of power but out of terror that she might vanish if he loosened his grip.
“I should hate you,” Scarlett whispered, her voice trembling against his throat. “I should despise you for every selfish thing you’ve done.”
“Then hate me,” Ace breathed, his lips grazing the curve of her ear. “Hate me, and still let me have you. Don't pretend you don't feel this between us, too.”
Her knees weakened, betrayal of the worst kind. She had dreamed of escape once, of freedom, of love that didn’t come tangled in blood, crowns, and knives in the dark. Yet, here she was, heart pounding against the very man who was going to just walk her into a cage.
His hands were gentle on her back, sliding from iron to worship, his touch no longer binding, but pleading.
“I don’t want your kingdom,” he confessed, voice rough with a breaking he’d never let anyone else see.
“I never wanted anything to do with my Father’s tyranny.
I just want you, Scarlett. And if marrying you was how I'd get you, then I was willing to play the part as Heir to the Spade’s throne. ”
Scarlett’s breath hitched, her fury tangling with something reckless in her magic. And gods, that was the danger—because she believed him.
For the briefest of moments, she let her head tip against his chest, let his warmth soak through the frost of the walls she’d built up. Scarlett let herself imagine what it would be like if wanting him didn’t feel like betraying everything else she’s just fought for.
Her lips parted, a confession balanced at the edge of ruin. But then she tore herself back a single step, her eyes glittering like blades in moonlight.
“You’ll destroy everything,” she whispered. “If your father gets his hands into this, he'll burn Underland to the ground.”
Ace’s gaze never left hers, a storm brewing in the depths. “Then we let it burn.” The words wrapped around her throat like smoke.
Her breath tangled with his, so close now their mouths a whisper apart. She could taste the heat of him, the storm inside him he carried like a second skin. His thumb brushed her jaw, his touch trembling as though he was terrified she’d vanish if he didn’t memorize every angle of her face.
Scarlett's pulse raced, wild and treacherous. She wanted to scream, to strike him again, to never forgive him for the ruin he'd caused—and yet, she couldn't tear herself away.
She leaned that fraction closer, pulled by that recklessness that resonated in her magic.
Ace’s mouth ghosted hers, not quite a kiss, not yet, but a vow. “I’ll never let them take you from me again,” he murmured against her lips. Leaving behind the ghost of a kiss before her knees gave out.
The world tilted. Her body folded against him, limp, her fury swallowed by the violent pull of The Null Veil unraveling in her veins.
The ash from The Null Veil clung to his fingers. He pressed his thumb to her chest, rubbing the ash into her skin before drawing the sigil—each line deliberate, taken straight from the ancient texts he’d memorized long ago. The shape formed cleanly just above her heart.
It was simply a subduing mark, one designed to quiet the power of the Crimson Deep and halt resistance.
“You’re mine,” he whispered—not a threat, but a raw, unguarded truth. “Even if it ruins me.”
The sigil sparked faintly as it settled into her skin, its glow tightening around her magic and stilling it so he could take her without a struggle.
He bent his forehead to hers, ash still staining his hands, and he took one deep breath. It was too late for him to undo all of this now.
In the silence of the frozen woods, Ace Spade vowed—not to the crown, but to the girl he had stolen from both.
Her breath stayed shallow against his chest, but steady enough to assure him that The Null Veil hadn’t broken her completely.
The ancient magic wasn't too overpowering for her; she would live.
That was all that mattered. This was a risk he was willing to take, using such an old, vicious magic that's been so hidden and unknown for so long.
But she was no longer in control; he needed her to give him time. Not Maddox. Not Arley. Not even the Heartland’s, with its gilded chains, would get in his way right now.
“Hide us,” he commanded. The night shadow obeyed him. Ace held her limp body, the forest shifting at his command. Shadows closed in fast, masking the clearing and wiping away every trace of her escape.
He carried her as though she weighed nothing, her nightgown trailing frost, her hair spilling like blood and fire across his arm. He did not falter, mounting his horse.
The Spade bloodline in him—the commander he was trained to be—had already set the path. This was no reckless act, no momentary lapse of obsession, as though his father thought. This was a siege, and she was the prize he refused to surrender.
“You can curse me when you wake,” he told her, voice low and unyielding. “But you’ll hear me. You’ll listen. And by the time the war comes from Cyrus, you’ll understand why you’re mine.”
The shadows bore him through the frosted woods, away from Heartland soil, into the jagged mountains that crowned the horizon. The Warden's Reach. Stone, silence, and secrecy. No court would find her there. No soldier would pry her from his grasp.
Finally, the cliffs opened enough to reveal a narrow cove carved into the mountains—a place so hidden even the mapmakers had forgotten it existed. Deep, quiet, and untouched for years since the Blood Wars.
He set her down on a bed of furs and black silk, the ash-mark he’d drawn still faintly glowing on her chest in the firelight he summoned. His mark. His claim to her.
He didn’t kneel or plead at her side. He stood over her like a guard, jaw tight, eyes locked on her face.
“You’ll wake to me, Scarlett,” he said, his voice low and steady. “Not Maddox. Not Arley. Just me. And when you do, you’ll understand that I’m the only one who can hold you through what’s coming.”
He brushed the remaining ash from her skin, wiping away the sigil and releasing its hold on her.
The cavern was cloaked in darkness, every jagged stone conspiring to keep his secret. When the last flicker of Null Veil ash vanished from Scarlett’s skin, Ace knew he hadn’t just taken her; he’d declared war long before she would ever open her eyes to him.