Consciousness returned not as a gentle dawn, but as a violent shove back into a nightmare.
Aisling's first breath was a gasp of smoke and ash. Her head throbbed with a dull, heavy beat against her skull, and every muscle ached as if she'd been trampled. She was lying on the worn velvet settee, the one piece of furniture her mother still polished with pride. Now, it was an island in a sea of its own ruin.
The memory hit her like a physical blow. The Enforcers. The splintering door. Her mother's cry. The fire—her fire.
She sat up, her movements stiff, her eyes struggling to adjust to the gloom. The front of the cottage was a disaster. The door hung in splinters from a single hinge, letting in the cold, misty air of the Westmarch night. The floor was littered with debris, and the air was thick with the ghost of burned leather and something else… something coppery and sharp that made her stomach turn.
Then she saw them.
Her family. Huddled near the hearth as if for warmth, though the fire had long since died. Her father sat on a low stool, his head in his hands, his shoulders shaking in silent, shuddering sobs. Her mother stood ramrod straight, her arms wrapped around a pale, trembling Eireen. Elenya's face was a mask of cold fury, her eyes fixed on the two figures who stood by the shattered doorway, commanding the room with their stillness.
They did not belong here.
One was leaning against the stone mantelpiece with a lazy, insolent grace, as if he owned the very ruin around him. He was tall and lean, dressed in a tailored coat of dark silk that seemed to drink the meager candlelight. His dark hair was a tousled mess, and his face was one of cruelly perfect angles. As he turned his head, his eyes caught the light, and Aisling saw they were a startling, piercing blue.
The other man stood near him, a stark contrast in his severe composure. Older, with silver-gray hair tied neatly at the nape of his neck, he was impeccably dressed and held a leather-bound book in one hand, his finger marking a page. His onyx eyes were devastatingly observant, missing nothing.
The Enforcers were gone. The one she'd burned… he was gone, too.
Aisling's own hands tingled with a phantom heat. She stared at them, half-expecting to see them glowing again. They were just hands. Pale, trembling, and utterly foreign to her.
The man with the blue eyes spoke, his voice like velvet smoke, startlingly gentle in the wreckage. "Ah, she wakes. I was beginning to worry you'd sleep through the entire negotiation."
Aisling's head snapped up. Her voice, when she found it, was a raw rasp. "Who are you? What have you done?"
The man pushed himself off the mantelpiece and took a slow, deliberate step toward her. He moved with a liquid grace that was entirely inhuman. "Done? My dear girl, I believe we saved you."
The older man spoke without looking up from his book, his tone as dry as autumn leaves. "A debatable assessment. We merely postponed the inevitable."
"Cedric, please," the blue-eyed man sighed, a hint of playful exasperation in his voice. "A little optimism wouldn't kill you."
"It has been known to," Cedric replied placidly.
The man stopped a few feet from the settee, his gaze sweeping over Aisling with an unnerving intensity. "My name is Kylian Hawkrige. This perpetually cheerful shadow is my advisor, Cedric Mornell."
Hawkrige. The name landed in the room with the weight of a coffin lid. A name of power, of ancient lineage. Of vampire nobility. The cold dread that had been seeping into Aisling's bones now froze them solid. These weren't just saviors. They were predators of a far higher order than the Council's thugs.
"The Enforcers…" she began, her throat tight.
"Have been dealt with," Kylian said smoothly. "The wounded one was convinced, with some persuasion, that his injuries were the result of an unfortunate accident involving a spilled lantern."
"He was remarkably open to a narrative that did not involve him being set aflame by a teenage girl," Cedric added, finally closing his book with a soft thump. "It would be ruinous for his career."
Aisling's fists clenched at her sides. "And what do you want?" she demanded, pushing herself to her feet. She would not be spoken down to, not in her own home. "Kindness from a Hawkrige is a fable told to frighten children."
A slow, appreciative smile touched Kylian's lips. It transformed his face from cruelly handsome to devastatingly charming. "Fiery," he murmured, his blue eyes glinting. "I was told as much." He gestured around the ruined room. "As for what I want… I am here to offer you a solution to your rather pressing predicament."
"We have no predicament that concerns you," Elenya cut in, her voice like ice. Her gaze was locked on Kylian, filled with a venomous history that Aisling couldn't begin to decipher.
Kylian's smile didn't falter, but his eyes were cold as he looked at her mother. "Don't you, Elenya? The Council now has a report of witchcraft originating from this house. Not just whispers of consorting, but a firsthand account of... pyrotechnics." He let the word hang in the air. "When they return—and they will return, with a magister this time—they won't be knocking."
Tavien looked up, his face a mess of tears and terror. "Please, my lord," he begged, his voice cracking. "She didn't know what she was doing. She's just a girl—"
"Quiet, Tavien," Elenya hissed, her glare silencing him.
Aisling felt a tempest of rage and fear warring within her. He was toying with them, a cat with a family of broken mice. "So you've come to watch the execution? To bargain for the scraps?"
"On the contrary," Kylian said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "I've come to stop it. I am prepared to absorb your family's entire debt. Every last coin. I will see to it that the charges of witchcraft are… permanently misplaced. I will provide a physician for your sister, the finest in Westmarch."
Aisling stared at him, suspicion hardening her features. In Westmarch, nothing was given for free. Every gift was a hook. "Why?"
"Because he is a philanthropist," Cedric said dryly. "He has a deep and abiding passion for the destitute and the magically incontinent."
Kylian shot him a warning look before turning back to Aisling, his expression softening into one of grave sincerity. "I require something in return, of course."
"Of course," Aisling scoffed. "And what is the price for this miraculous salvation, Lord Hawkrige? My soul?"
His smile returned, wider this time, showing the barest hint of elongated canines. The devil in silk. "Don't be so dramatic. I don't want your soul." His gaze roamed over her, lingering on her defiant eyes, her cascade of auburn hair. "I want you."
The air left Aisling's lungs. Behind her, she heard her father make a choked sound.
"You will become my bride," Kylian stated, the words spoken as if discussing the weather.
The silence that followed was so absolute, Aisling could hear the blood roaring in her ears. Bride. The word was a shackle. A cage.
She laughed. It was a raw, broken sound, full of disbelief and fury. "You want to buy me? Like chattel? Like a horse you fancy at the market?"
"It is a contract," Kylian corrected gently. "A marriage in name only, I assure you. A strategic alliance. You would live under my protection at Hawkrige Manor. Your family would be safe, their name restored. Your sister would want for nothing."
He knew exactly where to strike. Eireen. He glanced toward the frail girl huddled in their mother's arms, and Aisling felt a fresh wave of protective fury.
"My family's name was ruined by dealing with your kind in the first place!" she shot back, her voice ringing with righteous anger. "You offer me a gilded cage and call it safety. I call it vassalage."
"The alternative," Cedric interjected calmly, "is a pyre. A very hot, very public cage made of wood and flames. And for your family, a cold, dark one made of iron and stone. The choice seems rather clear from a practical standpoint."
Aisling whirled on him. "There is nothing practical about selling yourself!"
"Why?" she demanded, turning her glare back to Kylian. The question burned in her mind. Why her? A fallen noble's daughter from a ruined cottage. It made no sense. "There must be a hundred girls of better standing who would leap at the chance to be the Hawkrige bride."
Kylian's charming facade flickered for an instant, revealing a glimpse of the ancient, calculating power beneath. His eyes held hers, and she felt a strange, unnerving pull, as if he could see the wild magic itching under her skin.
"Let's just say that the other girls," he said softly, "lack your… fire. I have an appreciation for rare and beautiful things. And you, Aisling Rutherford, are very, very rare."
He knew. The words were a confirmation of her deepest terror. He didn't just see a girl; he saw the witch. He didn't want a bride; he wanted a weapon, a curiosity, a secret to be owned.
She looked at her family. Her father, a broken man willing to sell his daughter for a chance at redemption. Her mother, silent and rigid, her face a battleground of pride and terror. And Eireen, her wide, frightened eyes fixed on Aisling, a silent plea in their depths. Eireen, who coughed blood in her sleep and dreamed of a darkness that was coming for them all.
Burning on a pyre would be her end. But her family would follow her into ruin. Cian was gone. If she died, Eireen would surely fade, and her parents would rot in a debtor's prison.
Her defiance was a luxury. Her mother's words echoed in her mind: We don't have the luxury of ideals, Aisling. We have survival.
The choice was no choice at all. It was a blade pressed to her throat.
Aisling lifted her chin, her emerald eyes locking with Kylian's piercing blue ones. The tempest inside her settled into a cold, hard resolve. If she was to be a storm, she would not be one he could control.
"Fine," she said, her voice clear and steady, cutting through the silence.
Tavien let out a ragged sob of relief. Elenya closed her eyes, a single tear tracing a path down her stoic face.
Kylian's smile was triumphant. "A wise—"
"I am not finished," Aisling interrupted, her tone sharp as steel. She took a step closer, closing the distance between them, refusing to be intimidated. "I accept your terms. I will be your bride in name. I will wear your name and live under your roof."
She paused, letting her words sink in, letting him see the unbroken will in her eyes.
"But know this, Lord Hawkrige," she continued, her voice a low, dangerous promise. "I am not a prize to be won or a pet to be kept. I am not your property. I am a debt. And one day, I swear to you, you will have to pay it."
For the first time, the charming mask on Kylian Hawkrige's face slipped entirely. He stared at her, not with amusement, but with a flicker of genuine, startled surprise. A hint of something that looked almost like respect.
Cedric, standing in the shadows, allowed himself the smallest, most infinitesimal of smiles.
The devil had made his bargain. But he had not yet met the storm.