A Crown of Ashes

youth. They smiled from the canvas, but their eyes held none of the fire I faintly remembered. To the kingdom of Virelia, they were martyrs of a g

s must incline her head. I learned that a courtier's smile was a weapon and their flattery a poison. I wore the mask of the perfect heir, dutiful and poised. B

he shape of a man. His grief for his brother was a blade he kept honed and hidden, visible only in the unyieldi

ng its prey. He was a constant, unnerving pressure. Our conversations were clipped, formal exchanges about statecraft or security. Yet, the unspoken things vibrated in the space between us. A shared gl

that bloomed in my chest when he entered a room, a silent yearning that watched the corded muscles in his forearms as he studied maps. The unmated she-wolves of the cour

King. The ghost in

sence made me feel devasta

*

I'd worn it, not from ambition, but as penance. A king must be a king, and so I ruled. I rebuilt what

and grief was Seraphina. My ward. My niece. The

worn to a blood oath, every lesson designed to sharpen her mind into a weapon. I built a wall of vigilance around her,

of a man-and worse, that of a Lycan. I found myself cataloging the cadence of her laughter, the intelligence that sparked in h

ummer rain, with an undertone of storm-charged air. It was the scent of a female nearing her prime. It coiled in my lungs, making the

enthralled me i

els and thinly veiled offers for her hand. The thought of another male standing beside her, breathing her scent, laying claim to what I

nd her youth as my reasons. It was a lie. The truth was a primal, ugly thing: posse

el pulling me toward her isn't one forged from a promise to my dead brother. It

losing his war