How far would someone go to save the person they loved?
Kyra Wynn stepped into the Night Court to find out.
She crossed the threshold just after midnight, when the veil between realms thinned and the air tasted like starlight and steel. The Midnight Court of Shadows rose before her like a ruin worshipped by ghosts—its spires wound in flowering obsidian, its halls lit by floating flames that cast no warmth. The sky above shimmered dark violet, endless and cruel. Light twisted wrong here. It didn't just illuminate; it hunted.
She should have turned back.
But her brother was waiting to die.
So she climbed the black-marble stairs, boots smeared with forest dirt, jaw tight with fury. She didn't tremble. Not yet. Not from fear, at least. From rage. From the certainty that this was her only card left to play.
She had come to bargain with monsters.
The grand doors opened soundlessly before her. No guards stopped her. No one asked her name. The two fae standing sentry simply looked her over like they were already imagining how she'd bleed.
And then they let her in.
The court stretched out in a sweep of glass and shadow. Chandeliers hung from nothing, their crystals dripping with slow-falling starlight. The floor reflected everything—her, them, the predator's den she'd just stepped into. Shadows skittered across the walls like silk spiders. Fae lounged on thrones carved from bones, vines, or flame. Too perfect. Too still. Every one of them smiled like a wolf in a nursery.
Kyra stood alone on the black-glass floor, throat dry, spine straight.
"I've come for my brother," she said, voice sharp. "Tomas Wynn. You took him."
A beat of silence.
Then laughter.
It rang out like silver breaking—a sound too sweet, too vicious.
"He trespassed," purred a fae with gemstone eyes. "Sacred land. Punishment is death."
"He's just a boy," Kyra snapped.
"Exactly," said another, brushing ash from his robes. "Delicate."
She stepped forward. "Let me speak to your High Lord."
That stopped them.
Silence curled like smoke. And then—he arrived.
Not from behind a door. Not from a throne.
From the shadows.
From the air.
From the hush that came before something terrible.
Asher Vale.
High Lord of the Night Court.
He didn't need a crown. He was the crown. He was tall, built like a poem written in blood and secrets. His hair was raven-dark, just brushing his jaw. His skin shimmered like onyx left out under moonlight. But it was his eyes that pinned her in place—silver, sharp, ageless. No warmth. No mercy. Just thought.
He didn't speak. Not at first. He simply watched her.
And gods, did she feel it.
Kyra had never believed in monsters.
She did now.
Asher moved down the dais, slow as duskfall, the court falling into breathless stillness around him. The air shifted with each step, heavier, colder, electric with old magic. He stopped just a few paces away.
"Why?" he asked softly.
His voice wasn't cruel. It didn't need to be. It was velvet wrapped around a blade.
"Because he's my brother," she said.
A pause. "That explains your desperation. Not your stupidity."
"I'll pay," Kyra said through clenched teeth. "Whatever price you want."
A flicker of amusement in those silver eyes. Or hunger. "Is that so?"
"You deal in bargains. That's what everyone says. Name yours."
"What do you think you have that I could possibly want?"
"My life," she said. "My service. My body. My time."
That got the court's attention.
Laughter stilled. Eyes turned sharp.
Asher tilted his head, considering her like she was something rare—and possibly dangerous.
"Seven years," he said.
Kyra's stomach clenched. "Seven years of what?"
His smile wasn't kind. "Seven years as my bride."
The words hit her like ice water.
"Marriage?" she asked, voice low.
"In the fae sense," he said. "You'll live in this court. Wear what I choose. Eat at my side. Sleep in my bed. Smile when I say so. For seven years."
He took one step closer. Not touching. But close enough to taste her breath.
"In return," he murmured, "your brother walks free."
It was a trap. Of course it was.
But Kyra wasn't afraid of traps. Only of letting Tomas die for her pride.
"I agree," she said.
Asher Vale stilled, like a hunter listening for the last heartbeat of his prey.
"Say it," he said.
"I agree to your terms," she said slowly. "Seven years. As your bride."
A pulse of magic cracked the air.
Pain came like a lightning strike. Kyra gasped as fire bloomed around her finger—a silver ring branding itself into her skin. Ancient magic, coiling into her bones, wrapping tight as a collar.
She dropped to one knee, teeth bared.
Asher knelt beside her. His fingers brushed the ring—cool, impossibly gentle.
"It is done," he said.
Her vision blurred.
The light above her fractured.
The last thing she heard before the world went dark was his voice—low and amused, velvet on a blade.
"You should have read the fine print."