365 Days to Bond With the Cursed Beast King

"He’s a very expensive lawyer, Zenaida," my uncle said, not looking up as he straightened the cuffs of his white shirt. "And he assures me that every document signed after your father’s accident is legally binding."

"He’s a forgery artist with a bar license, Robert," I snapped, leaning both hands on the mahogany desk. "And you paid him with money you stole from my mother’s estate forty-eight hours before her funeral."

The study was empty now. A shell of the room where my parents used to sit by the fire. 

Faded rectangular shapes marked the dusty wallpaper where landscape paintings had been pulled down to sell off. 

The brass lamps were dusty, the rugs rolled up and gone, leaving only stripped floorboards and the stale smell of damp plaster. 

Three months of working late-night shifts at a shady downtown club had taught me how to read a room before danger read me, but standing in my childhood home felt like drowning in slow motion.

Robert finally met my eyes, his face a mask of false pity. "You’ve always had an overactive imagination. Just like your mother. You think the world owes you an explanation when things go wrong."

"I think you owe me twenty million dollars and the deed to this house," I said, slamming the folder on the desk. 

The folder contained bank statements, flagged wire transfers, audited receipts I’d spent six weeks piecing together between tray-carrying rounds at the club. 

"Sign the release form, or this goes straight to the district attorney at nine tomorrow morning."

Robert didn't flinch or reach for the folder either. 

Instead, his right hand slowly drifted down, his fingers closing over the signet ring on his pinky. It was my mother’s ring—an antiqued gold band carved with a strange crest of twisted vines and a split key. 

A ring he had taken off her dresser before her body was even cold.

I opened my mouth to demand he take it off, but the words died in my throat.

The gold metal of the ring flared. A sudden, unnatural warmth pulsed beneath Robert’s thumb, casting a strange faint aura against his pale skin. 

Robert froze. His calm demeanor cracked for a fraction of a second, his eyes darting toward the water-stained plaster ceiling a half-second before the air in the room thinned to nothing.

The atmospheric pressure plunged as an anchor dropped into an abyss. My ears popped painfully. The brass desk lamp flickered once, twice, and died.

"What did you—" I started, but my voice had no air to carry it.

The water stain directly above us split down the center. It curled outward as a crack tore through reality. The room contracted, the study shrinking to a pinprick of light behind my eyes.

Then the floor vanished.

I fell.

There was no wind, no sound, only a weightless drop through a void. 

Heat hit me in waves. Through the dark, a sudden golden glint flashed past—dozens of unseen, vertical eyes opening and closing in the shadow. 

I braced for the impact of the floor, reaching out wildly into nothing.

The void spat me out.

I slammed straight into a mountain of warm muscle, and dark fabric.

The impact knocked the breath out of my lungs. I skidded, my knees dug into something hard and cold, my hands instinctively slamming down onto a solid chest to stop my momentum. 

Papers scattered around us, fluttering down across black tile floors.

"Assassin!" a voice roared.

I scrambled backward out of survival reflex, my heels catching on the hem of a cloak. 

My eyes whipped around, taking in the scene.

We were in the middle of a wide, cavernous hall carved from dark stone, lit by sputtering iron braziers that threw long shadows against the walls. 

At the center sat a colossal, circular stone table. And around that table stood seven imposing, armed figures.

They weren't human.

Half-shifted features bristled in the torchlight—thick fur along jawlines, claws extending from gloved fingers, ears flattened back like cornered predators. 

A woman with slitted, panther-like eyes drew a curved blade from her hip; a giant of a man with the wide shoulders of a bear gripped a double-headed battleaxe. 

Steel screeched as seven weapons cleared their scabbards, all pointing straight at my heart.

My chest heaved, my hand dropping to my jacket pocket out of instinct. I had no mace. No knife. Nothing.

"Don't move," the panther woman hissed. "Give the order, My Liege, and I’ll take her head where she sits."

I looked down.

I wasn't just on the floor. I was in the lap of the man sitting on the central throne.

He was tall, powerfully built, his shoulders easily filling the carved back of the seat. 

Dark hair fell across a brow carved with deep, exhausted lines, and dark scale-like scars ran along his forearms where his sleeves were pushed up. 

My palms were pressed directly against his bare skin, right at the open V of his collarbone.

The man beneath me remained still.

"Get off," I whispered, my chin coming up out of habit even as seven blades hovered inches from my neck.

He didn't push me away. Maybe he couldn't.

His hand rose slowly, hovering half an inch above my waist, trembling with restraint. He tilted his head back, looking directly into my eyes.

The dark, stormy brown of his irises dissolved. 

In a heartbeat, his eyes changed to a molten gold—the color of a dragon breaking through the surface.

His breath hitched, as if a decade of ice had just broken inside his chest.

"Mate," he rasped.

The word hadn't even fully faded before the king’s chest violently expanded against my palms.

Heat radiated off him in a suffocating wave, like opening the door to a blast furnace. 

Underneath my fingers, his skin hardened. Obsidian scales split through the fine fabric of his black clothes, dark and iridescent, spreading up his throat and across his jawline in a rapid march.

"Control it, Vyrn!" a sharp, commanding voice shouted from the far end of the stone table.

Vyrn didn't hear him. 

His golden eyes were blown wide, fixed entirely on me as his spine arched. 

A low, guttural roar vibrated in his throat, deep enough to make the stone floor tremble beneath my knees.

"Get her off him!" another voice barked. "Before he tears her apart!"

Panicked movement erupted around the circular chamber. Armed guards in armor surged forward, swords flashing under the sputtering braziers.

Near the high archway, a thin man in deep red robes stepped forward, his hands weaving intricate circles through the air. 

A thin thread of blue, glowing magic shot from his fingertips, spinning into a shimmering pull meant to bind and immobilize me.

The magical thread struck my left shoulder.

Instead of wrapping around my limbs or sinking into my skin, the magic flickered once and slid right off me like water on hot grease. 

It dissolved into harmless sparks against the stone floor. 

In the rising chaos of shouting lords and drawn weapons, the warder was already casting another spell at Vyrn, missing the fact that his binding magic hadn't taken hold of me at all.

I didn't have time to process it. A hand as broad as a dinner plate locked around my upper arm.

"Move, girl!" Torin roared, his bear-like shoulders surging as he pulled me backward off the king's lap.

His grip was strong, lifting me clean off my feet. I gasped, my fingers slipping from Vyrn's chest.

The moment skin-to-skin contact broke, Vyrn lost whatever fragile thread of humanity he was holding onto.

A deafening, inhuman shriek shattered the air. The glass lanterns hanging high above the council table exploded, showering the chamber in a rain of glittering shards.

Massive wings ripped through the back of Vyrn's cloak with a sickening tear of fabric. 

The span of black, scaled skin snapped outward, knocking two armed guards straight off their feet and sending them crashing into the stone pillars.

"Dragon!" someone screamed from the back of the hall. "He’s shifting! Clear the floor!"

The council chamber collapsed into bedlam. 

House lords backed away, weapons raised, as the king’s form expanded, dark scales armor-plating his chest and arms, long black talons extending from his knuckles.

Torin stumbled backward, trying to drag me behind his huge body, but Vyrn’s golden eyes tracked my movement through the chaos.

"Mine," the beast rumbled—a voice that was no longer human, but a chorus of grinding tectonic plates.

Before Torin could pull me another inch, a scale arm shot forward with terrifying speed. 

The clawed hand didn't strike or tear into my flesh.

Instead, Vyrn’s wide hand curved gently around my waist, his long black talons carefully tucking inward so the sharp edges didn't touch my skin. 

With a powerful jerk, he yanked me out of Torin's grip and pulled me flush against his hard, heating chest.

Torin raised his battleaxe, his eyes wide with shock. "Vyrn, drop her!"

Vyrn didn't drop me but he didn't attack the court either.

With a thunderous sweep, Vyrn folded his black wing straight over the two of us.

The span of scales snapped shut like an iron curtain, wrapping around us and cutting off the entire chamber. 

The shouts of the royal court, the clatter of steel, and the flickering light of the braziers vanished, replaced by darkness.

Swords bit into the outside of his wing. Sparks flew with a clang as guards hit the scaled membrane, trying to cut through to reach the king, but Vyrn didn't flinch. He didn't move an inch. He simply stood there in the dark, his body serving as a living, impenetrable shield around me.

I was trapped against him, my hands pressed back against the heat of his chest.

No one in the Beast Realm had ever seen the Cursed King protect anyone mid-shift. The stories whispered in the streets swore that when the dragon took over, Vyrn became a mindless, violent monster that slaughtered anything in its path.

Yet here he was, taking sword strikes against his own skin just to keep me from getting cut by flying swords.

"Why..." I choked out, my throat raw from the ozone-heavy air trapped inside the wing. "Why are you doing this?"

Vyrn didn't answer with words. 

A deep, steadying rumble echoed in his ribs—a sound almost like a feline purr, vibrating straight into my bones.

The heat inside the wing was intense, sapping the strength from my legs. My head throbbed with a vicious, dull ache from the drop through the portal and the sheer, violent pressure of the magic saturating the room.

My knees gave out.

Vyrn’s clawed hand shifted instantly, supporting my lower back, keeping me upright against him. His chest heaved in rhythmic cycles, the sound of two distinct heartbeats echoing in his chest—one fast and wild, the other slow, ancient, and heavy as a mountain.

"Stay," he rasped into the dark above my head. His voice was ragged, torn between man and monster. "Just... stay."

"I don't... know you," I managed to whisper, my vision swimming with dark, creeping spots. My fingers clutched at the torn collar of his tunic just to keep my balance.

The world was spinning. 

The noise outside his wings sounded distant now, like waves crashing against a far-off cliff. The heat, the exhaustion of the past three months, and the shock of falling through a split in reality finally caught up to me. 

My eyelids grew heavy as lead.

I slumped against his chest, my chin dropping against his collarbone.

As my consciousness drifted away into blackness, a sound echoed deep behind my ears. It wasn't a voice spoken aloud. It wasn't a sound that traveled through the air.

It was a low, dark vibration purring directly inside the cavern of my mind, smooth and possessive:

Ours.

I squeezed my eyes shut as the dark swallowed me whole, silently blaming the word on a very bad concussion.

I woke up on silk, which was my very first clue that everything had gone off the rails.

The mattress beneath me was impossibly deep, soft enough to swallow a person whole. 

Above me rose a vaulted ceiling of dark wood carved with stylized dragons whose trailing tails formed intricate knotwork along the beams. 

Floating in silver sconces along the stone walls were wickless, pale green candles that burned with a soft, heatless flame, casting long, calm shadows across emerald artworks depicting strange, monstrous creatures with wings and claws.

I didn't move my head. I didn't even let my eyes blink.

Three years of working security and late-night bar rounds at The Black Glass had taught me one rule above all others: when you wake up in an unfamiliar room, you pretend to be dead and let your eyes search for the exits before anyone knows you’re conscious.

I did a quick mental inventory. 

My body was intact, though every muscle in my back burned with a dull, thumping ache from the violent drop through reality. My clothes were still on; my worn leather jacket crumpled around my shoulders, and my boots resting against the foot of the bed.

For exits.

To the west, a narrow, arched stained-glass window sat high up the wall. At least thirty feet off the floor. No ledge, no drape long enough to reach it, making it useless.

To the east, a set of massive double doors carved from dark oak, reinforced with thick iron bands. Outside those doors, heavy footsteps echoed against stone at precisely twelve-second intervals. Two guards, heavy boots, and synchronized patrol. 

They weren't pacing out of nervousness; they were holding a perimeter.

It was a cage. An exquisitely furnished, gold-leafed cage designed to keep a prisoner comfortable while ensuring they couldn't leave.

"You're awake," a soft, calculated voice said from near the hearth.

I sat up in a swift motion, swinging my legs over the edge of the high mattress. My boots hit a plush rug that muffled the sound instantly.

A young woman stood near a carved wooden sideboard. She was small, dressed in a simple grey dress with white cuffs and an apron, her light brown hair pinned back neatly at the nape of her neck. 

She held a silver pitcher styled in the shape of a coiled serpent and a tall glass filled with crystal-clear water.

"I poured this for you," she said, stepping forward with a small smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "You have been unconscious for nearly six hours, Lady Zenaida."

"Keep it," I said, my voice dry as dust, my hand resting flat against my thigh, ready to push off if she made a sudden move. 

Rule number one of surviving downtown: never accept a glass you didn't watch someone pour. 

"And don't call me Lady. Where am I?" I asked sternly.

She didn't flinch or force the glass on me. She set it down on a nightstand. Her posture was relaxed, a warmth that felt like invisibility; the kind of posture worn by people who survived in high-stress places by making themselves unremarkable.

"You are in the East Wing of the Royal Citadel," she replied softly, folding her hands over her apron. "I am Mirelle. I have been assigned to see to your comfort while the King manages the council."

"Manages the council?" I repeated, rubbing my sore temples where a dull concussion throbbed behind my eyes. "You mean the room full of half-human predators who drew weapons on me the second I landed?"

"The High Lords of the Seven Houses are protective of the realm," Mirelle said gently. "It is not every day a human falls through the veil directly onto the throne. Especially not a human girl with hair as white as snow."

She tilted her head slightly, her brown eyes tracking the way my white hair hung loose around my shoulders. The look was calm, but the focus behind it was oddly sharp for a simple palace servant.

"Does your hair run in your family?" she asked casually. "Your mother... did she carry the same silver-white locks?"

I narrowed my eyes at her. "My mother died three years ago. What does her hair have to do with anything?"

"Nothing at all, forgive my intrusion," Mirelle murmured, dipping her head in a bow. "It is only that rare features often carry history in the Beast Realm. Did she ever speak of the ancient paths to you? Of doors that open without keys?"

"She spoke of paying mortgages and keeping my uncle out of the wine cabinet," I snapped, setting my feet firmly on the floor. "Did she wear strange jewelry, too? Is that the next question on your little survey?"

"Jewelry?" Mirelle paused, her eyes flickering with a faint, imperceptible pulse of interest.

"A signet ring. My uncle stole it off her dresser before her body was even cold," I said, watching her face closely. "The damn thing flared with heat right before the plaster split open and dropped me into this nightmare."

Mirelle’s fingers twitched against the linen of her skirt, but her expression remained placid, a mask of domestic concern. "An heirloom, no doubt. The human world is full of forgotten trinkets that hold faint traces of old magic."

"I don't care about trinkets," I said, pushing myself up to stand. My knees wobbled for a second, the room tilting dangerously before settling back into place. "I care about getting back to my life. I have a district attorney to meet at nine in the morning with a file full of fraud charges, and a thief of an uncle to send to prison."

"I am afraid nine in the morning has long passed in your world, Zenaida," Mirelle said quietly. "And returning home is not a simple matter of walking through a door."

"Why not?"

"Because you are in the Beast Realm now," Mirelle said, stepping closer, her voice dropping into a somber, conspiratorial tone. "A world bound by ancient blood and separated from yours by collapsing borders. And the man whose lap you landed on is King Vyrn... the Black Dragon, supreme ruler of the shifter court."

The memory of those terrifying gold eyes flashing in the dark council chamber came rushing back. The heat of his chest. The wing folded over me like a shield against the swords.

"He shifted into a monster," I whispered.

"He is a dragon," Mirelle corrected gently. "Or he was, before the curse took root."

My hand paused over the edge of the mattress. "Curse?"

Mirelle cast a quick, nervous glance toward the doors before leaning in slightly. "Ten years ago, a dark, decaying magic was bound to the King. It eats away at his humanity, day by day, year by year. His dragon is wilder now, and harder to control. Every shift brings him closer to losing his mind."

"And what does that have to do with me?" I demanded, my pulse beginning to hammer against my ribs. "I don't belong here. I don't know your king, and I don't know anything about magic curses."

"You touched him," Mirelle said, her eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that chilled the room. "Skin to skin. In front of the Crown Council, his dragon claimed you as his mate. A human girl, falling from nowhere, instantly calming a king whose mind has been broken for a decade."

She lowered her voice further, her words cutting through the quiet of the silk-draped room.

"The Crown Council does not see you as a miracle, Zenaida. They see you as an anomaly. A poison sent by whoever cursed him ten years ago. Right now, behind those doors, the Regent is calling for a vote."

My throat went dry. "A vote for what?"

"To purge you," Mirelle whispered. "Before the mate bond takes full hold and binds the King's life to a human who cannot protect him."

A cold shockwave washed over my skin. "Purge? You mean execute me?"

Mirelle opened her mouth to answer, but before a single word could cross her lips…

The doors were thrown open with a deafening bang.