Chapter One — The Devil's Moonlight Bride
Aria's POV
The moon was too bright tonight. It made the forest look alive, every tree casting long, twisted shadows that reached for me like claws. My lungs burned, and each breath came ragged, but I didn't dare stop running. Not after what I'd seen. Not after what I'd heard.
It had started barely twenty minutes ago, at the edge of the village. I'd been fetching water from the well when the night air split with a sound—half scream, half growl. The kind of sound that freezes your blood before your mind catches up. Then I saw them. Three men, their faces masked, dragging Old Maeve's son toward the woods. I don't know why my feet moved—maybe I thought I could help, maybe I thought I could be brave. But the moment I stepped into the tree line, they noticed me.
I ran.
Branches tore at my dress, snagged in my hair, ripped at my skin. My heartbeat was a drum, loud enough to wake the dead. Behind me, their footsteps were steady, almost lazy. Like they knew the forest was theirs, not mine.
"Keep running, little doe," one of them had called out, voice thick with amusement.
I didn't look back.
The further I went, the stranger the forest felt. The air grew colder, the shadows thicker, as if the moonlight itself feared to touch certain places. Then the ground dipped, and I stumbled into a clearing—a place where the trees bent away, making a perfect circle under the silver moon.
That's when I saw him.
He stood at the far end of the clearing, tall and still, as if the world had stopped for him alone. The moonlight painted his dark hair silver, but it was his eyes—cold, grey, and ancient—that rooted me in place. He wore a black coat that swept the ground, the fabric whispering as the wind passed. And though he hadn't moved a step, I knew, without a doubt, he had been waiting for me.
The men chasing me slowed, their mocking laughter fading into uneasy silence.
"Lord Lucien," one of them stammered, bowing his head.
Lucien's gaze slid over them, then back to me. It felt like being seen and undressed all at once. "You trespass," he said, his voice low, carrying an authority that didn't need to be raised. "And you bring her."
One of the men took a step forward. "She saw too much. We'll take her and—"
"You will take nothing from me," Lucien interrupted, his tone smooth but final. He moved then—just one step—and the air itself seemed to shift.
They hesitated. I could see it in their eyes—fear. And yet, they still reached for me.
Lucien's voice cut through the clearing like a blade. "Touch her, and you will not live to regret it."
It wasn't a threat. It was a fact.
The men exchanged a glance, muttered something under their breath, and backed away. The forest swallowed them, leaving me alone with him.
For a moment, the only sound was the pounding of my heart. Then he turned those grey eyes on me again.
"Do you know where you've wandered, little one?" he asked, stepping closer.
I shook my head, too breathless to speak.
"You stand on cursed ground," he murmured, almost to himself. "A place where no one leaves the same as they came."
Something in his gaze softened—not much, just enough to make me wonder if there was more to him than the darkness.
He extended a gloved hand. "Come. Before the forest decides it wants you for itself."
Every instinct told me not to trust him. But standing there, shivering under the weight of his stare, I realised something terrifying—I already did.
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