Page 1 of Her King

Chapter One

Bound By Magik

Cassandra

I never thought magik could be this loud. It hums beneath my skin, curling around my spine like a serpent with nowhere to go. Since arriving in Runic, I’ve been bombarded by color, sound, and sensation. Everything here is amplified—especially the expectations.

The air outside the palace window smells of honey and heat. Somewhere down in the courtyard, a group of Fae nobles is debating whether I’m fit to stand beside their soon-to-be king. I doubt any of them know I can hear every word.

“She’s human-born. That magik is unstable,” a woman says.

“She nearly drained herself saving a boy she didn’t know,” a man retorts, coming to my defense.

“She’s soft.” Venom drips from the woman’s words.

I press my fingers into the stone windowsill. Let them talk, I don’t give a shit what they think of me, I tell myself for what feels like the hundredth time. It does nothing to silence the storm of rage brewing in my chest. How could they be so callous about the life of one of their own?

“Niko’s Consort should be strategic,” someone else sneers. “Not sentimental.”

Though, I’m not sure what part offends me more, that they think I’m weak or that they think I’m unworthy of him. They have no idea what it costs me just to stand still here. What it took to leave everything behind.

I gave up everything on Earth and in Bantry Bay—my home, my coven, my business, and my history. All for a future I never asked for and was never trained to survive. Witches don’t travel through the realms to marry Fae princes. We marry humans or warlocks if we’re lucky.

But I didn’t hide. I chose him. I chose this world.

Even if this world hasn’t yet chosen me.

Runic is beautiful, blindingly so. The palace alone is carved from living crystal and bone-white stone, its towers veined with gold and lit by spell-fire. Fae courtiers dress in draping silks and illusions like something from a movie. The servants speak in riddles, or at least it sounds that way to me. The very walls of this place carry memories of magik older than anything I learned from my coven.

How the hell am I supposed to belong here?

“What are they saying today?” Niko’s voice comes from the doorway. Deep, warm, and dangerous in all the ways that make my knees weak and my pussy flutter.

I don’t turn. “That I’m going to ruin you. That I’m too weak to rule by your side and I will be the downfall of the entire realm.”

He chuckles. “They said that about my father’s Consort too. Right before he and my mother rewrote half the laws of Runic.”

I finally face him. He’s barefoot, shirtless, and his chest still damp from training. He smells delicious even with the space separating us, but that doesn’t make sense. The smell of his sweat shouldn’t make me want to lick him. Do Fae even sweat the same way humans do? Goddess help me, the man is insanely distracting.

His tattoos glow faintly in the low light. They are wards woven together with past lineages, layered in sweeping script across his arms and torso. He is history made flesh. And he is mine, or he will be soon.

He crosses to me in three long strides, his hand brushing mine. The hum of magik flowing through me stills and recalibrates. It is as centered by him as I am.

“Niko...”

His finger rests against my lips, silencing me. “There’s a Conclave meeting tomorrow. We will announce the merging ceremony date.”

My heart lurches. “Already?”

“They won’t stop until we do, and Quietus is growing bolder every day.” His words are solemn. “Besides, we should have already been merged if my mother had not insisted on putting on such a show. The eclipse will only last so long and we need to complete the ceremony before it passes.”

“It’s important to her,” I reply with a smile. “And it’s part of your traditions, your people’s traditions.”

He grins, leaning closer, his breath stirring the tiny hairs at my temple. “I don’t care what anyone thinks or wants except you. I will allow my mother to plan the ceremony she thinks is needed, but this isn’t for her or for our people. We are merging.” His fingertip brushes along my jaw and my eyes flutter closed as his thoughts slam into my mind. Dark, erotic thoughts. “I also don’t give a single flying fuck if anyone thinks you aren’t worthy because I chose you, and I know you are. And we will show them true power once the ceremony is complete.”

He always makes it sound so simple. As if power were a fire we could simply hold between our hands without consequence.

I glance back out the window, where the moonlight casts faint reflections across the crystalline rooftops. There’s a part of me that still aches for my coven, and my home in Bantry Bay, for its dirt and grit, for streetlight flicker and the smell of rain-soaked pavement. There, I knew who I was. Here, I feel like a story someone else is still writing.

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