Page 172 of Savage Crown

The hall is in chaos.

But my voice is a blade that cuts through the noise.

“She is mine,” I declare, my gaze sweeping over the gathered nobility.

I let them feel it.

The power.

The finality.

I look down at Seraphina, brushing my knuckles against her cheek, softer now, intimate.

“And I would burn the world for her.”

She is the greatest treasure I have ever won.

There’s no way I’ll give up on her.

58

SERAPHINA

The moon hangs high in the sky, a pale silver eye watching over us.

The ceremonial grounds are bathed in a ghostly glow, the black stone beneath my bare feet warm with magic.

Rylan stands before me, clad in the darkest silk, obsidian embroidery twisting like vines over his broad shoulders. His silver hair is loose, falling past his sharp cheekbones, his emerald eyes burning only for me.

A king in his own right.

A conqueror who has taken power, vengeance, and fate into his own hands.

And tonight?—

He takes me.

The air hums with something ancient.

A magic older than time, woven into the foundations of the dark elf nobility, of the mate-bond that will bind us in life, death, and whatever comes after.

The high priest stands between us, his face hidden behind an ivory mask, his robes a deep, endless red.

Behind him, the great pyre burns, casting our shadows long against the stone.

This is not a human ceremony.

This is something darker, deeper—something final.

Because mating in dark elven tradition is not just a vow.

It is a binding of souls.

It is the promise that one does not live without the other.

He’s binding to me what remains of his soul after the magic consumed it.

I’m binding what’s left of mine to his as well. Together, we’re one.

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