Updated Nov 6, 2025 • ~10 min read
Ember stared at Prince Blaze across the desk, certain she’d misheard.
“You… what?”
“I plan to set you free,” he repeated calmly. “In approximately four to six weeks, depending on how convincing we are.”
She must have hit her head during the journey. She was hallucinating. Because there was no way the Ember Prince—the cruelest fae in all the courts—had just said he was going to free her.
“I don’t understand.”
“I know.” He stood, moving to the window. The red sunlight painted him in shades of flame and shadow. “And I’m going to explain. But first, I need you to understand something critical.”
Ember waited, heart hammering.
“Everything you’ve heard about me,” Prince Blaze said quietly, still facing the window, “is a carefully constructed lie. The cruelty. The sadism. The mortals I’ve supposedly tortured and killed.” He paused. “All of it. A performance.”
“That’s not possible. Fae can’t lie.”
“No. But we can act.” He turned to face her. “For fifty years, I’ve maintained the reputation of being the cruelest prince in all the courts. Do you know why?”
Ember shook her head, unable to form words.
“Because cruelty gives me cover.” His voice was low, intense. “When I buy mortals at market, everyone assumes I’m bringing them here to hurt them. They don’t question it. They don’t watch too closely. And when those mortals mysteriously ‘die’ a few weeks later…” He spread his hands. “No one is surprised. No one investigates.”
Understanding began to dawn, impossible and dizzying.
“The mortals you buy—”
“I free them.” The words were simple. Definitive. “I stage their deaths, give them gold, and smuggle them back to the mortal realm. I’ve freed forty-three people, Ember. You’ll be the forty-fourth.”
Ember’s mind reeled. This couldn’t be real. It was too good, too convenient, too—
“Prove it,” she said. “Prove you’re telling the truth.”
Something that might have been approval flickered in his eyes. “Smart. You should question me.” He moved to his desk, opening a drawer. “Lark. The woman who brought you food. She was the twelfth person I freed. That was five years ago.”
“She’s still here.”
“By choice. She chose to stay, to help with the others.” He pulled out a leather-bound book. “This contains the name of every mortal I’ve purchased and freed. Dates. Locations where I sent them. Some even sent me letters, later, when they were settled.”
He handed her the book.
Ember took it with shaking hands. She opened it to a random page.
Names. Dozens of names, written in elegant script. Thomas Wren. Sarah Fielding. Marcus Stone. Each with notes beside them: Sent to Millbrook with 50 gold marks. Blacksmith now. Settled in Riversend. Married. Has two children.
She flipped through more pages. More names. More lives.
More proof that the monster everyone feared was actually…
“A hero,” she whispered.
“No.” His voice was sharp. “I’m not a hero. Heroes don’t let injustice continue for centuries because they’re afraid of dying. Heroes don’t sacrifice dozens while saving ones. I’m a coward, Ember. Just a coward who couldn’t stomach the screams anymore.”
She looked up at him. His expression was raw in a way it hadn’t been before. Unguarded.
“Why are you telling me this?” she asked. “You could have just freed me without explaining.”
“Because I need your help.” He sat back down, and suddenly he looked tired. Ancient. “My court expects me to torture you. To break you. If you disappear too quickly, they’ll be suspicious. So I need you to pretend.”
“Pretend what?”
“To be my captive. My victim.” His jaw tightened. “In public, you’ll need to act terrified of me. Broken. Like I’m hurting you. And I’ll have to act the part of your tormentor.”
Horror crept up Ember’s spine. “You want me to… what, fake being tortured?”
“Yes.” He met her eyes. “I know what I’m asking. I know how wrong it is. But it’s the only way to keep both of us alive.”
“Both of us?”
“If the court discovers what I’ve been doing, they’ll kill me. And they’ll hunt down every mortal I’ve freed and kill them too.” His voice dropped. “Including Lark. Including you, if you’re still here.”
The weight of it settled over Ember like a shroud. He wasn’t just risking himself. He was risking dozens of lives.
“How long would I have to pretend?”
“A month, maybe six weeks. Long enough to make it believable. Then we’ll stage something fatal—an ‘escape attempt’ where you ‘fall’ into lava. Very tragic. Very final. No body to examine.”
“And then?”
“Then Phoenix—my friend, one of the few who knows the truth—will smuggle you out through a portal. You’ll wake up in the mortal realm with enough gold to start over anywhere you want.”
Freedom. Actual freedom.
It sounded too good to be true.
“What’s the catch?” Ember asked.
Prince Blaze smiled, but it was sad. “The catch is that for the next month, everyone you meet will think I’m hurting you. They’ll think you’re suffering. And you’ll have to endure that without being able to tell anyone the truth.”
“Lark knows.”
“Lark figured it out after three years. You’d know from day one. That’s different.” He leaned forward. “I need to know you can do this, Ember. I need to know you can play the part convincingly. Because if you slip, if you let anyone see that you’re not actually afraid of me, we’re both dead.”
Ember’s mind raced. A month of pretending. A month of acting terrified while knowing she was safe.
Could she do it?
“What about the actual… torture?” she made herself ask. “How do we fake that?”
“Magic. Illusions. Phoenix is excellent at them.” Prince Blaze’s expression darkened. “There will be times when I have to appear to hurt you in front of the court. It will look real. It will sound real. But I swear to you—I will never actually harm you.”
“You swear?”
“On my life. On my court. On every mortal I’ve ever freed.” His eyes burned into hers. “I will never hurt you, Ember Quinn. That’s the one truth in all of this.”
She believed him.
Gods help her, she believed him.
Maybe it was the exhaustion. Maybe it was the hope she’d thought was dead. Maybe it was the way he looked at her—not like a possession, but like a person he was trying to save.
“Okay,” she heard herself say. “I’ll do it.”
Relief flooded his face. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. I’m doing this because I want to live.” She set the ledger on the desk. “But I have conditions.”
His eyebrows rose. “You’re negotiating?”
“You need me to be convincing. I need to trust you. So yes, I’m negotiating.”
A ghost of a real smile crossed his face. “Very well. What are your conditions?”
“First: you tell me the truth. About everything. What’s happening, what’s planned, who knows what. No surprises.”
“Agreed.”
“Second: if something goes wrong, if I’m in actual danger, you get me out immediately. I don’t care about the performance or the timing.”
“Agreed.” He didn’t even hesitate.
“Third: when I leave, I want help getting settled somewhere far away. Not just gold. Help finding a place to live, maybe work. A new name if necessary.”
“I always provide that. Phoenix has contacts all over the mortal realm.”
“Good.” Ember took a breath. “And fourth: I want you to keep saving mortals. After me. Don’t stop because this got complicated. Promise me you’ll keep going.”
Something shifted in his expression. Surprise? Wonder?
“Why would you ask that?”
“Because forty-three people is a good start, but there are thousands suffering in the fae courts. Someone has to help them.” She met his burning gaze. “Might as well be someone who’s already set up the world’s best cover story.”
This time when he smiled, it was real. It transformed his face, made him look younger. Almost human.
Almost like someone she could trust.
“I promise,” he said quietly. “I’ll keep going.”
“Then we have a deal.”
She extended her hand across the desk, a very human gesture of agreement.
Prince Blaze stared at her hand for a long moment. His expression flickered with something she couldn’t read.
Then he reached out.
The moment his skin touched hers, the world exploded.
Heat slammed into Ember like a physical force. Not burning—not painful—but overwhelming. A rush of sensation that started where their hands connected and radiated outward until every nerve ending in her body was screaming.
She gasped, trying to pull away, but her hand wouldn’t move. Couldn’t move.
Because something was happening. Something impossible.
The bond that had been hovering between them—waiting, potential—suddenly SNAPPED into place with the force of a lightning strike.
She could feel him. Not just his hand in hers, but him. His shock. His fear. His sudden, desperate panic that mirrored her own.
And underneath it all, something else. Something that felt like recognition. Like coming home.
Like destiny clicking into place.
The bond was activating. Fully. Irrevocably.
Prince Blaze jerked backward, breaking the contact. He stumbled, catching himself against the desk, and Ember saw that his eyes had gone completely flame. Actual fire dancing in his irises.
“What—” she started.
“Get out.” His voice was rough, barely controlled.
“What just happened—”
“GET OUT!”
Ember ran.
She stumbled out of the study, past the confused guards, down corridors she didn’t recognize. Her hand still tingled where he’d touched her. Her entire body felt like it was vibrating at a frequency just slightly wrong.
What was that?
What the hell was that?
She found her chambers somehow—instinct or luck—and slammed the door behind her. Pressed her back against it, breathing hard.
Her hand still felt warm. Like it was trying to reach back across the distance to his.
That wasn’t normal. That couldn’t be normal.
She’d read about fae magic, fae bonds, fae—
No.
No, that was impossible.
Mate bonds were rare. Mate bonds between fae and mortals were even rarer. Forbidden, even.
It couldn’t be that.
But her hand was still warm. Her heart was still racing. And she could swear—absolutely swear—that somewhere in the palace, Prince Blaze Emberclaw was feeling the exact same thing.
And he’d looked at her like she was his salvation and his damnation all at once.
Ember slid down to the floor, cradling her hand against her chest.
What had they just done?
In his study, Blaze stared at his hand like it had betrayed him.
The mate bond hummed under his skin, alive and demanding and absolutely catastrophic.
“No,” he said to the empty room. “No, no, no—”
But it was too late.
The bond had recognized her the moment he’d bought her at the market. He’d felt it then, tried to deny it.
And touching her just now had activated it. Snapped it into place. The connection was forged now, alive and demanding.
But not complete. Not yet. That would require acceptance. Conscious choice from both of them.
A fae-mortal mate bond. Forbidden by law. Punishable by death.
And if either of them consciously accepted it, they’d complete the transformation and damn themselves forever.
Or they could try to reject it. Which would probably kill them both.
He was trapped between two death sentences.
Phoenix burst into the study without knocking. “I felt—” He stopped, staring at Blaze. “Oh gods. Tell me you didn’t.”
“I didn’t know touching her would—”
“Blaze. Tell me that’s not what I think it is.”
Blaze couldn’t answer.
Because fae couldn’t lie.
And the mate bond burning through his veins was the most dangerous truth he’d ever held.
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