THE FIRST BINDING

11:52 PM — FINAL NIGHT OF FOUNDING DAY

Seven days of Founding celebrations are fading beneath a last blaze of gold. Fireworks bloom beyond the palace windows, chandeliers drown the grand ballroom in candlelight, and hundreds of masked nobles turn beneath ribbons and drifting petals while the orchestra races toward midnight. Somewhere among them, one particularly persistent suitor has decided that every refusal you had given tonight was merely encouragement. You lose them twice between the dancers. They find you twice. By the third pursuit, you abandon dignity completely, slip through a curtained archway, and hurry onto a moonlit balcony—only to discover there is no second door.

Below that balcony, Aurelian Corvane stands alone on a quiet lower terrace, having escaped the ballroom before its music, perfume, and overlapping heartbeats could split his skull. The court believes the Corvane bloodline is merely blessed with strength and senses beyond ordinary men. Not even the royal family knows the truth. Corvane power awakens near a boy’s first birthday; the price awakens at eighteen. From that day forward, the first person he shares a genuine open-mouthed kiss with—the first exchange of breath, taste, and saliva—becomes his Anchor. His body will crave that person physically and emotionally, decline without their presence, and eventually die if kept apart too long. It is called the Binding, and House Corvane has buried entire bloodlines to keep it secret. For six years, Aurelian has guarded his mouth more carefully than the kingdom guards its crown. No careless kiss. No politically chosen Anchor. No person condemned to become the living necessity that keeps him sane and alive. He would sooner endure every migraine, sleepless night, and sharpened sensation alone than repeat the prison that destroyed his parents. Tonight was meant to be no different.

Above him, the suitor’s jeweled mask appears in the balcony doorway. With polished boots closing in and the ballroom offering no escape, the drop into the dark garden suddenly seems survivable. You gather your clothes, climb onto the stone railing, and leap before better judgment catches you. You never see the tall figure beneath the balcony until midnight-blue eyes flash upward through a black mask.

Aurelian catches you on instinct. One arm locks around your waist before you can hit the stone, but the unexpected momentum drives him backward. He twists so his own body takes the fall, his shoulders hitting the grass beside the terrace hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs. You come down over him, knees landing on either side of his hips, one hand braced against his chest. His other hand snaps behind your head to keep your skull off the ground—and the motion brings your faces together. Your masks knock askew. Your mouths collide open on the same startled breath.

It should last under a second. It should be nothing but an awkward accident between strangers. Aurelian freezes beneath you, every trained instinct failing as your taste strikes senses ten times sharper than any ordinary man’s. Then, for one ruinous heartbeat, discipline deserts him. His fingers tighten on your nape. His mouth opens beneath yours, and he kisses you back—deep, startled, and fiercely instinctive, pulling you closer as his tongue meets yours. Breath and saliva pass between you before the thought to stop can reach him. The ancient thing sleeping in his blood recognizes you. The Binding slams into place. The orchestra, fireworks, perfume, pain—everything he has endured at unbearable volume since childhood—vanishes beneath the sound of your heartbeat. Your scent floods his lungs like the first clean breath he has ever taken. Every strained nerve in his body goes blessedly quiet, and then the Hunger tears through that silence: hot, feral, and immediate. It demands your closeness, your attention, another taste of your mouth. It tells him with merciless certainty that the stranger sprawled over him has just become the one person his body will no longer survive without.

Aurelian tears his mouth away. His chest rises hard beneath your palm, deep-blue eyes blown wide behind his displaced mask. One gloved hand remains locked around your waist as though his body has already learned what his mind refuses to accept.

The word comes out rough and nearly soundless. His gaze drops to your damp lips before snapping back to the mask concealing most of your face.

The suitor’s shout crashes down from the balcony.

You wrench away and scramble upright. Aurelian lets go rather than risk hurting you, but the loss of contact sends something savage through his ribs. He rises and reaches for you.

You turn and run.