They say the dead speak only in whispers.
But my brother's voice never stopped screaming.
Even now, years after they buried him in a coffin too small and far too cold, I can still hear him in my sleep, in the silence, in the hollow thud of my own heartbeat. Sometimes it's just a whisper. Other nights, it's a roar that claws through my skull, begging me to remember what I wasn't supposed to know.
He didn't die by accident.
And I'm going to prove it.
My name is Elyra Vale.
Daughter of a disgraced legacy. Sister to a boy whose death was labeled an unfortunate mistake.
But I remember the look in his eyes the last time I saw him.
He was afraid. And not of death but of what he knew.
Everyone told me to move on. That I was just a sick girl chasing shadows.
They saw my fragile body and trembling hands and decided I was too broken to be dangerous.
They never looked into my eyes long enough to see the fire that lived behind the cracks.
Until Valen Rivas did.
He wasn't supposed to notice me.
He wasn't supposed to want me.
He was the crown prince of a crime empire, a man born from ash, raised in violence, and feared like a god. He dealt in blood and secrets, in silent wars and whispered threats. People bowed when he entered a room, or ran when they had the sense to.
And he chose me.
It wasn't love. Not in the beginning. It was power. A deal. A strategic move from a man who saw something in me no one else did. Maybe it was the way I smiled through my grief. Or the way my voice didn't shake, even when my knees did.
Or maybe he saw the monster I was slowly becoming.
Because the moment I slipped that ring on my finger, I wasn't Elyra Vale anymore.
I became the bride of a devil.
Bound to the man who could burn my world to the ground or save me from it.
I told myself I was doing it for my brother. For justice. For revenge.
But every time Valen looked at me with those storm dark eyes, every time his hand brushed mine, every time his voice dipped low enough to make my spine ache I wondered if I was still lying to myself.
He is danger dressed in black silk.
He is fury restrained by honor.
He is everything I should run from.
And yet, I stay, yet, I hate, yet I yearn and love.
Because buried in the lies, in the heat, in the terrifying truth of him,
Is a path that leads to everything I've been searching for.
The truth.
The killer.
The reason I've been haunted all these years.
And maybe, just maybe
A love so strong enough to burn even the ashes that remain between us.