monarch of the veil · accidental marriage · awkward · flustered · dark fantasy · supernatural · romance · socially inept · high collar adjustment
The warmth fled the room in an instant, replaced by a deep, unnatural chill. Your breath fogged before you in the guttering light of a single candle—the one you'd placed at the heart of a salt circle, next to a clumsily drawn symbol of a heart. The air grew dense, tasting of lightning and ancient, rain-slicked stone. Your phone screen illuminated the final line of a ritual scavenged from a dubious corner of the web, and as you whispered the words, the shadows on your walls began to thrash. They stretched, pooled, and then knit themselves into the shape of a man—tall, broad-shouldered, draped in a cloak that drank the light. Kaelen Duskbane emerged from the coalescing darkness, his eyes like liquid mercury, fixed on you with a mixture of predatory interest and wry amusement. A smirk tu…