The copper tang of blood lingers on my tongue, a metallic echo that invades every breath. Each candle flares brighter than the last as I light the final one around the circle drawn in salt and blood. Their flames writhe and dance, casting shadows across the cellar walls until the stone looks like jagged teeth ready to devour me. The air reeks of smoke and my own fear.
I swore I'd never do something like this. Never call on what crawls in the dark. But my sister is dying upstairs. And the forum—the forbidden site hidden in the cracks of the web—promised this ritual could give me what I need.
I kneel, pressing my cut palm flat against the circle. The knife wound is still fresh, blood dripping onto the sigils scrawled across the cracked concrete.
I must be insane. This can't work.
Closing my eyes, I whisper the words scrawled on the paper in my trembling hand.
"Ol vinu elasa, ol ashaanis elasa… Adrial."
Nothing. Just the hollow echo of my own breath.
I peek an eye open, scan the candlelit room. Nothing stirs.
Gritting my teeth, I squeeze my eyes shut tighter and force the words out again, louder.
"Ol vinu elasa, ol ashaanis elasa, ADRIAL!"
When I open them, the circle is unchanged. The candles still flicker. The salt holds.
A bitter laugh escapes me as I crumple the paper. "I knew this was bullshit."
Then the overhead light sputters once. Twice. A long, grating buzz fills the silence.
I freeze. My breath shudders.
From the farthest, darkest corner of the cellar—something moves.
Fear rakes down my spine as a figure emerges, tall and impossibly composed, as though he's always belonged to the dark. His hair falls in tousled waves of ink-black, catching the candlelight with the sheen of a raven's wing. Shadows cling to him like a second skin, but his face—God, his face—strikes me breathless.
Sharp cheekbones, a jaw cut from stone, lips curved in the suggestion of a smile both cruel and beautiful. His eyes burn, molten red, not merely glowing but alive, pulsing with power. He's too beautiful. Too wrong.
I should be terrified. I am terrified. But that isn't all.
Every instinct screams at me to run, but something deeper, something buried in bone and blood, drags me toward him. My pulse stutters, my breath hitches, caught between fear coiling tight in my stomach and treacherous heat blooming beneath my skin.
Something twists low in my stomach, something hot and dangerous, pulling me toward him even as my instincts scream to run. My chest tightens, my pulse hammering in my ears, and for one fractured second all I can think is how inhumanly handsome he is.
My knees weaken. My hands tremble.
And the worst part? I don't want to look away.
His voice slides into the air, smooth, mocking, dangerous.
"Do you know how many centuries I've ignored pathetic cries like yours? And yet—" he glances at the blood dripping from my hand, his lips curving, "you cut yourself open for me."
"I—I just want to help my sister!" My voice cracks.
"Help?" His eyes glint with something indecipherable. "And what do you offer in return?"
"I'll do anything," I gasp, dropping to my knees, tears pooling hot in my eyes. "Please—anything to save her."
A low, amused chuckle vibrates from him as he steps closer. One long finger tilts my chin up until my eyes lock with his.
"Oh, little mortal… you'll be on your knees, yes. But not for this reason."
Heat rushes through my body at the velvet menace in his tone.
He extends a hand, pulling me back to my feet as though he's testing how easily I bend to him. His grip is strong, grounding, yet his touch burns.
"Sign in blood. Speak the vow. Then your request will be bound to me…" A wicked smile cuts across his face, sharp and promising. "As you will be mine for one year."
A sheet of parchment unfurls between us, its corners blackened, its surface whispering, hissing, alive. Scrawled with a language I couldn't comprehend.
My heart pounds as I reach for it, my hand shaking. The wound on my palm stings, fresh blood sliding down my wrist, dripping onto the page. The parchment quivers in my hand, the letters writhing like living things, straining toward the blood dripping from my palm. It drinks deep with a hiss, like it has been waiting centuries for me.
He tilts his head, watching, as if savoring every drop.
I press my bleeding hand to the bottom of the contract. The moment my blood touches it, the letters flare red like molten lava.
Adrial's smile curves cruel and victorious.
"Now the mark," he steps closer. "So all know to whom you belong."
Before I can pull back, his hand shoots up to my chin, gripping me and tilting my face up towards him. His touch burns, a heat that seeps into bone.
I can't move, can't breathe.
His other hand rises, fingertips faintly glowing with ember light. He drags one across the hollow of my collarbone, just above my heart.
My skin sears, and I bite back a cry as fire etches itself into me. The smell of burnt flesh now mingles with the scent of copper tang of the blood. When he pulls away, a sigil faintly red against my skin, glowing in beat with my own heart.
"You burn beautifully," he murmurs, voice low, dangerous. "This body was made to carry my mark."
His fingers linger too long at my collarbone, tracing the edge of the mark like he's caressing it into permanence.
His voice is a murmur, intimate, brushing against my ear. "Now you are mine, Evelyn. No god, no angel, no demon, no man can claim you. You belong to me."
He pauses, allowing the weight of his words to settle before continuing. "The forgotten realms know me as Adrial the Unyielding, a title only the damned dare to utter. And now, you are bound to my name, a whisper in the darkness."
His declaration both thrills and frightens, a reminder of the chasm of power between us.
The mark throbs, binding itself to me, and deep inside my chest, something shifts — as though my soul has been tied to his, tugged by invisible threads.
I shudder, not sure if it's terror, exhilaration, or something darker that makes my knees go weak.