Their first night had been a storm—wild, consuming, unrestrained. Yet as the nights unfolded, Daphne discovered that passion was not a single flame but many. Each time Zerach came to her, he revealed another facet of his desire, and each time she yielded, she found another secret within her heart.
On the second night, he was slower, almost reverent. His hands traced her as though memorizing every line of her body, his lips lingering in hunger and wonder. Daphne closed her eyes and felt as though she were being worshipped, as though he bowed to her even while she lay beneath him. Tears slipped from her lashes, not of sorrow but of something she could not yet name—could this be love?
On the third night, fire returned. He carried her from the bed to the window where moonlight poured through, pressing her against the cold stone as if to mark her as his against the eyes of gods and stars. She gasped his name, her body arching, her soul unraveling. How can this man be both my captor and the only one who has ever made me feel alive?
By the fourth night, she no longer waited in fear. When he entered, she met him halfway, her golden hair tumoring down, her eyes fierce with longing. She kissed him first, and when he pulled her against him, her heart sang with the wild rhythm of surrender.
Every night was different, yet every night the same truth echoed louder—she belonged to him.
And still, the mornings carried quiet tenderness. She would awaken to find him watching her, his hand resting lightly on her waist as though afraid she might vanish. Sometimes he said nothing, but sometimes he whispered words that stayed with her:
"You are my dawn after years of night."
"You are the only flame that does not burn me."
"You are mine—not because I claimed you, but because fate carved you from my soul."
Daphne would blush, her heart trembling with every word. She had been raised to believe love was gentle, soft, fragile. But here, in the arms of the Horned King, she discovered that love could also be fierce, consuming, unyielding.
As the days blurred into nights and the fortress echoed with their union, she began to realize that what tied her to him was not only passion but something far greater: choice. For though fear had led her here, it was her own heart that chose to stay, her own lips that chose to whisper his name in the dark.
And when the sixth night came, she whispered it not with fear, nor with resistance, but with devotion.
"Zerach," she breathed as his arms closed around her. "Whatever I was before, I am yours now."
His horn gleamed in the firelight as he bent close, his voice breaking for the first time. "And I… have waited lifetimes for you."
The fortress, the wars, the world beyond—faded into silence. In those nights, there was only them, and the fire that bound them.
But beyond their chamber walls, the drums of destiny beat louder.
The eleventh night came beneath a storm. Rain lashed the windows of the fortress, thunder rolled through the halls, but inside their chamber burned a different fire. Zerach dragged her into his arms as the storm raged, his kiss as fierce as the wind outside. Daphne clung to him, her laughter mixing with her gasps, as if the heavens themselves echoed their passion. When lightning split the sky, it illuminated their tangled forms, two bodies defying the world's fury, finding heat in each other's storm.
The twelfth night was gentler. Zerach brought her flowers from the forbidden forest—strange, glowing blossoms that pulsed faintly like beating hearts. He laid them across the bed, their light painting her skin in hues of blue and gold. That night, he touched her as though she were made of the same fragile petals, kissing her eyelids, her wrists, the hollow of her throat, until she whispered that she could not bear his tenderness any longer. And when he finally claimed her, it was not in conquest, but in devotion.
The thirteenth night belonged to silence. They lay upon the furs, not speaking, only watching one another. Daphne traced his scars with trembling fingers, while he memorized every curve of her face as though afraid the morning would steal her away. When he finally entered her, it was slow, unhurried, a rhythm that seemed endless, stretching between heartbeats, between breaths. In that silence, she felt more spoken to than in a thousand words.
The fourteenth night carried danger. A messenger had brought news of rebellion in distant lands, and Zerach's fury had been sharp, his voice thunderous. But when he returned to her chamber, she did not shrink from him. She placed her hands on his chest, pressed her lips to his jaw, and whispered, "Give me your rage. I will carry it with you." And so he did—his touch rough, his kiss bruising, his body relentless. Yet Daphne met him with equal fire, answering his storm with her own, until they collapsed together, broken and healed in the same breath.
The fifteenth night was stolen. He led her away from the fortress walls, up into the high towers where the stars seemed close enough to touch. There, upon cold stone beneath the heavens, he worshiped her body while constellations burned above them. She moaned his name into the night, and he answered with hers, their cries mingling with the wind, their love written into the very sky.
The sixteenth night—ah, the sixteenth night was when she conquered him fully. Wine dripped from her lips as she straddled him, her hair falling like gold curtains around his face. She took control, guiding his hands, dictating his pace, daring to rule him as boldly as he had once ruled her. And when at last he surrendered, his roar shaking the chamber, Daphne knew she had become not only his queen, but his equal in passion, in power, in flame.
Each night was a new story, a new battle, a new surrender. And with each dawn, Daphne found herself less afraid and more bound to him—not by chains, but by desire, by choice, by love that grew fiercer than any fire.
But fate, she knew, would not allow them peace forever. For beyond the fortress walls, the world stirred. Kings plotted. Armies gathered. Enemies whispered her name, his name, their names together.
And though she lay safe in his arms, though his kiss still lingered on her lips, Daphne could feel it—
The storm is yet to come.
The fortress of the Horned King did not sleep. Even when the fires in the courtyards died low and the warriors laid down their weapons, whispers still moved through the halls, echoing of fear, awe, and curiosity. And in the heart of it all was Daphne—princess no longer, but the bride of a man who was more myth than mortal.
She had arrived expecting chains. Instead, she found silks. She had expected coldness. Instead, she found a gaze that burned hotter than fire. Yet what unsettled her most was not the fortress or its people, but herself. For when night fell and Zerach called her to his side, her body trembled—not only with fear, but with a hunger she had no name for.
Her thoughts came first, racing faster than her breath whenever he entered her chamber.
Why does he look at me so? she would think as his shadow filled the doorway. Why does my heart quicken when his hand brushes mine? Am I frightened… or am I burning?
The servants whispered that the Horned King desired no wine, no jewels, no treasures of conquered lands—that he desired only her. And Daphne felt the truth of it each night, when his hands claimed her as though the whole of his empire meant nothing compared to the softness of her skin.
The first nights were wild, storms of passion where he poured out years of fury and hunger, and she was swept into his fire whether she wished it or not. But as the days turned to weeks, something changed. The fire remained, yet it was joined by something else—something that made her heart twist in ways far more dangerous than desire.
It was tenderness.
Zerach was a conqueror to the world, but to her, in those secret hours, he became a man. His lips lingered on her skin not only in hunger, but in reverence. His voice, so fierce in the throne room, grew low and rough when he whispered her name against her ear. And though he claimed her with a king's authority, he touched her with a lover's awe, as though each night he discovered her anew.
And Daphne… Daphne surrendered.
Her thoughts grew bolder, more honest, more damning as her body learned the truth her heart still fought to deny.
This is madness. He is the one who stole me, who bound me to him by fear. Yet when he holds me, I forget. When he kisses me, I melt. When he enters me, I no longer remember who I was before.
One night, after a feast held in his honor, he returned to her chamber, his dark hair unbound, his shoulders gleaming from the firelight. His horn caught the glow of the flames, sharp, curved, and terrible—and yet her eyes lingered not on its danger, but on the man who bore it.
Without words, he drew her into his arms.
This time, their passion was not the storm it once was. It was slow, deliberate, an unraveling of fear and dignity until nothing remained but raw need. His hands mapped her body as though he had sworn to memorize her every curve, every tremor. Her own hands, once timid, grew daring—sliding over the strength of his back, the breadth of his chest, the scarred line along his jaw.
When he took her, she gasped not from fear, but from the overwhelming sweetness of belonging. She clung to him, nails digging into his skin, breathless whispers tumbling from her lips—his name, always his name.
After, when the fire burned low, she lay with her cheek against his chest, listening to the steady thunder of his heartbeat. For the first time, he spoke of himself—not as a king, not as a monster, but as a man.
"I thought vengeance would be enough," he murmured into her hair. "For years, I lived only for it. But then I saw you… And I knew there was something else. Something greater. Perhaps… perhaps I was born not to destroy, but to claim you."
Daphne's heart pounded at his words, torn between outrage and yearning. She should have despised him for saying such things, for chaining her fate to his. Yet when she lifted her face and met his eyes, burning with a fire meant only for her, she could not speak the hatred she wanted to feel.
Instead, her lips parted with a whisper: "Then claim me."
And he did—again and again, that night and the nights that followed.
The fortress walls seemed to breathe with their passion. Servants learned to keep their distance, though they could not help but hear the cries that echoed from her chamber, the gasps, the soft moans that no princess of Cural should ever have made. Warriors smirked and whispered that the Horned King's bride had become his queen in truth, bound not only by oath but by desire.
For Daphne, each night became a world of its own. Some nights he was fierce, his hunger like fire that left her trembling and dazed. Other nights he was gentle, his hands lingering, his lips coaxing sighs from her that she never thought her body could give. And sometimes—most dangerously of all—he was tender, his forehead pressed to hers, his whispers breaking past her defenses.
"You are mine, Daphne," he would breathe against her skin. "Not because I took you. Because you have always been meant for me."
She would close her eyes, torn between resisting and surrendering, between duty and desire. But her body betrayed her every time, arching into his touch, clinging to him as though the world itself would fall away if she let go.
What is happening to me? she thought, night after night, as passion consumed her. I should despise him. I should curse him. But instead… I burn for him. I crave him. I belong to him.
Weeks passed, and Daphne changed. The girl who once trembled at his presence now reached for him willingly. The princess who once dreamed of freedom now dreamed of his touch. And the people of the fortress saw it—the way her gaze lingered on him in the hall, the way he softened only for her, the way the fire in his eyes burned brightest when she was near.
She was no longer simply his bride. She was becoming his queen.
And yet, as passion bound them tighter, danger loomed beyond the fortress walls. For in Cural, whispers stirred of betrayal, of kings who plotted to free the golden-haired daughter they believed still longed for rescue.
But Daphne knew the truth. Rescue was no longer what she longed for.
One night, as the fires dimmed and she lay tangled in his arms, she pressed her lips to his chest and thought, Perhaps I was never meant to be saved at all. Perhaps I was meant to be his.
And as she drifted into sleep, one thought consumed her—terrifying, undeniable, and intoxicating:
She was falling in love with the Horned King.