The Devil's Debt: A Kiss That Binds the Damned

CHAPTER ONE: The Price of a Crown

Kael Varyn was crowned at midnight, and by the first stroke of the seventh bell he understood that his father had sold him to the Devil.

Not as a figure of speech. In blood, on paper, under a seal that burned like a brand, and the creditor had just risen through the throne room floor to collect.

It began with the blood.

It seeped from the mouth of his father's marble statue and dripped down the throne steps. Then every candle in the coronation hall died at once, leaving three hundred nobles frozen beneath a ceiling painted with the victories of kings who had conquered everything except death.

Then the bells began, not the golden bells of the cathedral but seven bells from beneath the earth.

Kael stood before the throne, a crown of black gold in his hands. At twenty-nine, he had prepared for assassins and betrayal. He had not prepared for the floor to start screaming.

A crack split the marble beneath his boots. Black smoke curled through it, smelling of burning roses and something ancient buried alive. Nobles stumbled back.

Kael did not move. His hand closed around the flat gray river stone in his pocket, the way it had since he was nine.

His father, King Aldric Varyn, had died three nights ago in a locked chamber. The servants whispered that the king had spent his last hours clawing at the walls, begging someone named Seraphine to forgive him.

Kael had dismissed the whispers. Now he wished he had listened.

A hand reached out of the crack, too long to be a man's, the nails like polished obsidian. A creature unfolded from the shadows like a nightmare remembering how to walk. Curved horns. Eyes burning dull red. A smile with far too many teeth.

The guards rushed forward. The creature lifted one finger, and every sword in the hall melted.

"Finally," it rasped. "The little prince has grown into his father's chair."

"Name yourself."

The creature laughed. "You stand on the bones of forgotten gods and ask me for a name? Your father asked once, too. Look how well that served him."

It held out a scroll bound in red leather, its ink glowing like fresh blood.

"King Aldric Varyn borrowed power from the Seven Infernal Houses. He pledged his firstborn son as collateral. The debt has matured. The creditor has arrived."

His firstborn son. Him.

"My father made no such bargain."

Kael could not read the crawling letters, yet he understood the final line.

THE DEBT SHALL BE PAID IN BLOOD, SOUL, OR THE ETERNAL SERVICE OF THE HEIR.

Beneath it, his father's signature and a seal of seven black crowns.

"What happens if I refuse?"

"Your people burn. Your kingdom falls. Every soul in these walls becomes property of the Houses. And you, my young king, will live long enough to watch."

Men who had toasted his coronation were edging toward the doors. Only Captain Rowan had not backed away. He stood at the foot of the dais with the melted ruin of his sword in his fist, steady and silent, and Kael would remember that calm later.

The debt belonged to the crown. And tonight, the crown was his.

He raised his chin. "Then tell your masters they will have to negotiate."

The creature went still, then bowed deeply. "As you wish, Your Majesty."

It drove the scroll into the marble, and the hall exploded with darkness, wind tearing down the banners, the windows bursting inward.

"Enough," said a woman's voice.

The shadows stopped moving.

She stood beneath the broken archway. Kael had not seen her enter. Her black gown shimmered like liquid midnight, a slit climbing one thigh with each unhurried step, a chain of black diamonds at her throat. She was beautiful in the way that made a man reconsider every sensible decision he had ever made. Her eyes were the color of winter lightning.

"Lady Seraphine," the creature said, kneeling.

She barely glanced at it. "You were told to announce the debt, not frighten the court into an early grave."

She stopped in front of Kael, smelling of dark roses and smoke and something sweet, like wine left too long in a silver cup. Her gaze lingered, briefly, on his mouth.

"King Kael Varyn. At last."

"You know me."

"I know your father. I know the bargain he made. And I know what he feared most at the end. That you would become exactly like him."

"If you came to insult the dead, you may leave."

A faint smile touched her lips. "There he is. The king your father spent twenty-nine years trying to prevent."

She was not afraid of him, and it irritated him more than it should have.

"What do you want?"

Seraphine lifted her hand. A mark appeared on his wrist, a crown of seven interlocking thorns, burning for an instant before it sank beneath his skin.

He seized her wrist. "Remove it."

"Let go of me, Your Majesty."

"Remove it."

"Or what?"

The question was dangerously soft. He realized he was gripping a woman who had commanded a demon without raising her voice and marked him like a purchase. He let go.

"It is a binding seal," she said. "It prevents you from fleeing the debt."

"I do not intend to flee. I intend to destroy it."

Her smile vanished. Something flashed in her eyes, and it was not anger. It was recognition. "Be careful what you promise. The last man who swore to destroy that seal was your father."

"You knew him. What exactly were you to my father?"

Her face became unreadable. "His greatest mistake."

Before he could press her, the scroll on the floor ignited in seven flames, each a different color, the last black enough to swallow the light.

"THE HEIR HAS BEEN CLAIMED," thundered a voice.

Pain tore up Kael's arm. The crown fell and rang against the marble, and he dropped to one knee as the dark rushed in.

A throne of bones. A city drowning in fire. Seven crowned figures around a table. And a woman standing before a vast iron gate, her back to him. She turned. Seraphine. But she wore a wedding dress, and her hands were covered in blood.

The vision shattered. Seraphine was staring at him, and for the first time she looked afraid.

"What did you see?" she whispered.

"You tell me."

"That should not have happened."

The floor shook. Far beneath the palace, something enormous struck a door. Once. Twice. On the third blow, a deep, inhuman voice rose from the earth.

"OPEN THE GATES, LITTLE KING. YOUR WEDDING GUESTS HAVE ARRIVED."

Seraphine went white.

"What wedding?" Kael demanded.

She stepped close enough that only he could hear. "If you want to survive the next seven nights, Your Majesty, you will do exactly as I say."

"And if I refuse?"

She leaned to his ear. "Then Hell will take your soul before I can save it."

He should have called his guards, or run. Instead, he wondered why a woman who had just threatened his existence made him feel as though he had finally met someone worth fighting.

Seraphine drew back. "Welcome to your reign, King Kael. And do try not to fall in love with me."

The doors slammed shut behind her.

Kael stood alone among the shattered glass. As the last flame crawled across the scroll, he saw the one line the fire had not yet taken, beneath his father's signature, in his father's hand, in ink that looked fresh.

Surrendered as the Bride of the Gate, in surety of this debt: Seraphine Vale.

She was not only the debt collector. She was a clause.