The soldiers couldn't tear their eyes off her.
Even wrapped in a threadbare cloak, face bare of jewels and paint, Princess Hazel looked like sin wrapped in moonlight. Her golden-blonde hair was hidden, but nothing could hide the way she moved — graceful, lethal, untouchable.
Whispers rippled through the ranks.
"Gods… even disguised she's breathtaking."
"She could step on me and I'd thank her."
Hazel pretended not to hear. She tucked the last rebellious strand of hair beneath her hood, then turned to the crimson-eyed knight beside her.
"Simon."
The knight lifted his head. Those blood-red eyes made half the men flinch.
"Yes, Your Highness."
"Set up camp. I'm scouting the city alone. Wait for my signal."
She mounted Aria in one fluid motion, thighs clenching around the warhorse's sides.
"Let's go, girl."
Aria lunged forward like she'd been waiting for this moment her entire life. The wind tore at Hazel's cloak, whipping stray golden strands free as the city gates grew closer.
For one blissful minute, the road belonged only to her.
Then the metallic stench of blood slammed into her nostrils.
"Aria. Stop."
She dropped from the saddle before the mare had fully halted and followed the scent like a hound. Twin daggers materialized in her palms, already flickering with latent golden fire.
Demons.
She melted into the treeline, heart pounding.
Five of them circled a lone figure in shredded black robes. The stranger's face was hidden beneath a deep hood, but a cold violet glow leaked from beneath it — beautiful, wrong, and so intense it made her stomach tighten.
One demon hissed, "A half-blood."
All five heads snapped toward her.
Hazel stepped out of the shadows, blades igniting.
"These woods are forbidden to your kind," she said, voice low and lethal. "Leave. Now."
The nearest demon sneered and lunged.
She danced aside. Its claws shredded the tree behind her. Another demon blurred in from her blind side — she barely blocked, the impact hurling her into an oak. Pain exploded across her ribs.
She spat blood, grinned, and let the fire rise.
Her hazel eyes flashed molten gold.
The world blurred into streaks of flame and shadow.
She became a storm — slashing, spinning, leaving trails of golden light that burned the air. A demon's scream cut short as she opened its throat. Another tried to flank her; she vanished in fire and reappeared at its back, driving both daggers through its spine.
The hooded stranger never moved.
He simply watched.
Every twist of her body, every flicker of golden flame, every gasp of effort — he drank it all in like a man starving.
When only Durian remained, Hazel raised her hand. A bow of pure golden fire formed in her grip. She drew the string.
"Locked."
The arrow split into five blazing lances.
They struck true.
Durian clutched the smoking ruin of his chest, eyes wild with fury.
"You've just painted a target on your pretty little back, half-blood. Lord Bael will enjoy breaking you."
He tore open a portal and fled, dragging the corpses of his comrades with him.
The moment the rift snapped shut, Hazel's power guttered out.
Her knees buckled. Black spots danced across her vision. Forcing her bloodline always came with a brutal price.
She sagged against a tree, breathing ragged, when soft footsteps approached.
The stranger crouched in front of her.
Up close, he was devastating.
Tall. Broad-shouldered. The violet glow beneath his hood revealed sharp, aristocratic features and eyes the color of amethysts soaked in midnight. His scent — damp cedar, rain, and something darker, like smoke and old blood — wrapped around her like a promise.
Hazel tried to lift a dagger. Her arm trembled.
A slow, wicked smile curved his lips.
"Such fire," he murmured, voice low and velvet-rough. "And yet here you are… trembling."
Long fingers brushed a strand of golden hair from her sweat-damp cheek. The touch was gentle, but there was possession in it — like he was already claiming something that didn't belong to him.
Hazel's breath hitched.
He leaned closer, until his lips nearly brushed her ear.
"You fought like a goddess," he whispered, thumb tracing the line of her jaw, then slowly — deliberately — dragging across her lower lip. "But you bleed like a mortal. How… fascinating."
Heat pooled low in her belly despite the pain. She hated how her body reacted to him — hated the way her lips parted on a shaky exhale when his thumb pressed just hard enough to feel the edge of his nail.
His violet eyes darkened with something hungry.
"Pretty little half-blood," he breathed, tilting her chin up so she had no choice but to meet his gaze. "You have no idea what you've walked into."
He pressed his thumb between her parted lips for the briefest second — just long enough for her to taste the salt of his skin — then withdrew.
"Go to sleep, beautiful."
Power laced the words.
Her eyelids grew impossibly heavy. The last thing she felt was the brush of his knuckles against her throat, gentle as a lover's caress… and twice as dangerous.
Then darkness swallowed her whole.