Updated Nov 6, 2025 • ~8 min read
The almost-kiss happened on day twenty-two.
They were in the shadow gardens again—their place, apparently. Where they went to talk when the palace felt too formal, too watched. The eternal twilight made everything feel suspended in time, like the real world couldn’t touch them here.
“I’m close to breaking the binding,” Draven was saying, walking beside her along paths that shifted with his mood. “The magic is complex, but I’ve found the key. Eight more days, and you’ll be free.”
“Eight days.” Raven stopped by their fountain. “And then I choose.”
“And then you choose.” He stopped too, close enough that she could feel the cold radiating from his fae nature. “Have you decided what you’ll choose?”
“I think so. But I want to be sure it’s me deciding, not the binding magic influencing me.”
“Smart.” He smiled. “Though I have theories about what you’ve decided based on—”
He stopped mid-sentence, shadows suddenly alert around him.
Raven felt it too. That sixth sense that said hostile intent, trained killer, danger approaching.
“Guild?” She asked, hand moving to her blade.
“Multiple targets. Professional. Coming from three directions.” His eyes glowed violet, shadows expanding his awareness. “They’re coordinated. This isn’t one assassin. This is a team.”
“The Guild sent a kill squad.” Raven’s stomach dropped. “They’re not trying to retrieve me anymore. They’re tying up loose ends.”
“How many?” Draven’s tone shifted to combat focus.
“Standard kill squad is five operatives. Different specializations. I’ll know the tactics—they trained me the same way.” She scanned the gardens, counting exits, identifying cover. “We need to move. Staying here makes us easy targets.”
“Or we stand and fight.” His smile was sharp, dangerous. “I’ve been wanting to show you advanced shadow combat. This is perfect opportunity.”
“This isn’t training, Draven. These are Guild elites. They’re coming to kill us both.”
“Good. I’ve been bored since Tempest.” He pulled her closer, shadows wrapping around both of them. “Stay with me. Fight with me. Let’s show them what happens when they threaten what’s mine.”
The first attacker came from above—arrow aimed at Raven’s heart, silent, professional.
Draven dissolved them both into shadow. The arrow passed through empty darkness.
They rematerialized ten feet away, and Raven immediately identified the shooter. Rooftop, north side, already nocking another arrow.
“Sniper,” she called. “North roof. I’ll—”
“Handle ground assault. I’ve got the roof.” Draven dissolved again, and shadows streamed toward the building.
Two more attackers emerged from the gardens—blade users, Guild-trained, moving with the same efficiency Raven had learned. They saw her, adjusted tactics, came at her from two angles.
Standard pincer maneuver. She’d practiced this a thousand times.
But always as the attacker. Never as the target.
Raven drew her blade and moved to meet them. Blocked the first strike, deflected the second, read their patterns like she was reading a book she’d written herself.
They were good. Guild-trained meant they were excellent.
But she’d had twenty-two days of training with a five-hundred-year-old fae combat master. She’d learned to fight differently. Better.
She disarmed one, disabled the other’s knee, rolled away as a third attacker tried to grab her from behind.
“Three on ground,” she called. “Draven?”
“Sniper handled. Fourth assassin on west wall.” His voice came from shadows all around her. “Need help?”
“I’m fine. Get the fourth before they flank us.”
They moved like they’d been fighting together for years instead of weeks. He trusted her to handle ground assault. She trusted him to control the high ground. They communicated in short calls, adjusted tactics instinctively, covered each other’s blindspots.
The third attacker—the one who’d tried to grab her—was faster than the first two. Recognized her style, adapted, pressed her hard.
“Raven Storm,” the woman said, blade work aggressive. “The Guild says hello. And goodbye.”
“Tell the Guild I’m busy.” Raven deflected a killing strike, countered with one of her own. “I’ll send my regards when I’m done not dying.”
They fought across the garden, blade meeting blade. The assassin was good—maybe even better than Raven had been before Draven’s training.
But Raven had learned from the best killer in the fae realms.
She read the pattern, found the opening, struck precisely where Draven had taught her. The assassin went down.
“Ground clear,” Raven called, breathing hard.
“West wall handled.” Draven materialized beside her, not even winded. “Fifth assassin?”
“Should be—”
A blade appeared from nowhere, aimed at Draven’s heart. The fifth assassin had been hiding in shadows—Guild’s best stealth technique.
Raven moved without thinking. Threw herself between the blade and Draven, felt steel cut across her arm, blocked the follow-up strike with her own weapon.
“Mine,” she snarled at the assassin. “He’s mine.”
The Guild killer’s eyes widened in recognition. “You’re protecting the target? You have been compromised.”
“I’ve been liberated.” Raven attacked with everything Draven had taught her. “There’s a difference.”
They fought brutally, and Raven felt Draven’s shadows supporting her—not fighting for her, but stabilizing her footing, warning her of attacks from behind, giving her every advantage.
They were fighting together. Partners.
She disarmed the fifth assassin and put them down hard.
Silence fell over the garden except for her heavy breathing.
“Five down,” Draven said calmly. “All alive but disabled. Well done.”
Raven looked at her arm—bleeding, but not deep. “I just protected you from an assassin sent to kill you.”
“I noticed.” His expression was unreadable. “Why?”
“Because—” She stopped, realizing what she’d done. Thrown herself between a blade and her target. Protected the person she was contractually obligated to kill. “Because I didn’t want them to kill you.”
“Even though that would complete your contract?”
“I don’t care about the contract anymore.” The admission came out fierce. “I care about you. About this. About not losing twenty-two days of finally learning who I am.”
Draven stared at her, shadows swirling intensely around him.
“You protected me,” he said quietly. “Put yourself in danger to save your target.”
“You’ve done it multiple times for me.”
“That’s different. You’re mine to protect.” He moved closer, examining her injured arm with gentle hands. “But you’re not mine to die for. Not while the contract still holds.”
“The contract is void.” Raven met his eyes. “It became void the moment I chose you over it. Eight days until the binding breaks, but I’ve already decided. I’m staying.”
“Raven—”
“I’m staying,” she repeated. “With you. As your partner. As someone who’ll fight beside you instead of against you. As someone who’ll protect you even from my own Guild.”
His hands stilled on her arm, shadows wrapping around the injury, healing it with cool magic.
“You’re sure?” His voice was barely a whisper. “You’re choosing this freely? Not because of the binding or the claiming or any magical compulsion?”
“I’m choosing you.” She said it clearly, certainly. “I’m choosing me. The person I’ve become in twenty-two days. The person who reads poetry and plays chess and fights beside a fae prince instead of trying to murder him.”
Draven’s expression shifted through several emotions too fast to track. Then he smiled—genuine, relieved, radiant.
“Then I’m claiming you back,” he said. “Officially. Partners. Equals. When the binding breaks and you’re free, we’ll make it formal. But here, now, in private—I claim you, Raven Storm. Not as assassin or weapon or challenge. As the person you’ve become. As my equal.”
Raven felt something click into place. Something that had been building for twenty-two days.
“I accept your claim,” she said formally. “And offer mine in return. Draven Shadowfire. Shadow Prince. Insufferable chess player. Teacher. Partner. Mine.”
The shadows around them exploded outward—not violent, but celebratory. The magic of their mutual claiming settling into place like two puzzle pieces finally connecting.
And then he was kissing her.
Or she was kissing him.
It didn’t matter who started it. What mattered was the way the world fell away, the way twenty-two days of growing tension released, the way his shadows wrapped around them both like they were celebrating.
His lips were cool, magic radiating from him, and he kissed her like she was precious, like she was chosen, like she was worth five hundred years of waiting.
When they finally broke apart, both breathing hard, Draven rested his forehead against hers.
“Eight days,” he whispered. “Eight days until the binding breaks and we can make this permanent.”
“Eight days until I’m free to choose this without magical coercion.” She smiled against his lips. “Until then, we have five unconscious Guild assassins to deal with.”
“Let them sleep.” He kissed her again, brief and soft. “I’m too busy being happy to care about assassination attempts right now.”
They stood in the shadow gardens, surrounded by disabled assassins, both injured but alive, claiming each other in ways the Guild had never prepared Raven for.
Eight days until she was free.
But she’d already chosen.
Already claimed him back.
Already decided that being his partner was worth more than any contract, any payment, any false freedom the Guild had ever offered.
She’d found real freedom.
In the arms of the man she was supposed to kill.
And she’d fight anyone—Guild, fae, or otherwise—who tried to take it from her.
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