The Only Ruin He Craved

They call me a monster. They call me a king. They call my methods cruel. All true. I am Kiros, and I rule my empire with a fist forged in vengeance. My enemies deserve only death, their families annihilation. Their faces are interchangeable; their fate is sealed.

Then there was Hannah Copley.

She walked into my view, a ghost dressed in the enemy's colors, yet moving to a rhythm none of her people understood. They fought with fire; she fought with silence. They plotted with poison; she spoke with a defiance that tasted like a fatal addiction. I hated her group, their rules, and their pathetic leader. That hatred was supposed to extend to her.

It didn't.

She was the exception that fractured my perfect control, the one weakness I wasn't allowed to possess. But every king needs a queen-or a captive-and Hannah Copley is the only prize I crave. She is the ruin I will inflict, and the ruin I will happily succumb to. I will break her, claim her, and own every piece of the enemy I was sworn to destroy.