BRIDE OF THE CURSED KING

"What are you doing!?" She asks, her eyes fixed on me as I watch her react to my presence like she's contracting a disease. Her skin grows paler. Her breathing becomes heavier. Her lips quiver. Her body trembles, breaking out in goosebumps. Her eyes portray the terror she feels as tears pool, almost rolling down.
"So now you're scared," I say, taking in all the signs, though not fully understanding why.
"Please don't come any closer," she says with a pleading tone and a breathy voice, and if I'm reading the signs right, she looks as though she's about to pass out.
"Why? Do you think I'll hurt you?" I ask curiously, studying her reaction, but still moving closer to her as she backs away.
Such intense reactions when I've done nothing out of the ordinary. I'm positive she didn't see me materialize a moment ago, yet she's staring at me as though I'm some vile, abnormal creature.
"Please don't - " she begs desperately, stopping mid-sentence when her back touches the gate and she realizes she's backed into a corner. At my mercy. Then the tears fall.
***
A cursed immortal King and a lowly peasant, bound by prophecy and tethered by pain.
Lily Field is a naïve scarred woman who was brutally assaulted at eighteen and developed a phobia of being touched by men.
Ashton Vale is the King of Alveron who was cursed by a vengeful witch at twenty-eight and has been tortured for being touched by women.
Fate shouldn't have brought these two together, but it did. Damaged, broken and hopelessly paired for love but destined for damnation.
He is punished by her touch.
She is terrified of his.
There is only one logical outcome of this union - catastrophe; but logic is irrelevant, especially when the King of Alveron is one year from transforming into a rabid beast.