Chapter 1: Prologue/Chapter 1

Prologue

The fluorescent lights buzzed faintly as Emily Carter walked through the sliding doors of Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, the air thick with tension and antiseptic. The scent hit first—bleach, burnt coffee, and the metallic tang of blood. Then came the sound: controlled chaos. Voices layered over beeping monitors, footsteps rushing, gurneys squeaking down slick floors.

The muted television hanging near the waiting room crackled with static before the local anchor’s voice broke through.

“We’re following breaking news tonight—an ongoing investigation after a high- speed police chase led to a multi-car pileup on I-80. At least fourteen vehicles are involved, with emergency responders still working to extricate victims from the wreckage—”

Emily paused mid-step, eyes narrowing at the screen. The camera cut to aerial footage of crumpled cars, flashing lights painting the asphalt red and blue. Traffic was frozen in every direction, like time had stopped around the wreckage. It was only a few miles away.

“Shit,” she muttered under her breath, breaking into a jog down the hall. “Of course this happens right before shift change.”

The ER was already at a slow boil. Nurses barked orders, paramedics wheeled in battered bodies, and someone was shouting from a trauma bay about losing a pulse. She ducked between them, weaving through the crowd like muscle memory.

She reached the staff locker room, yanked open her locker, and tugged off her hoodie in one swift move. Her scrubs were neatly folded, as always. Blue. Comforting. She changed fast—years of trauma shifts had carved the routine into her bones.

At the small mirror above the sink, she paused just long enough to tie her hair back. Long and straight, it spilled past her waist—black at the crown, fading into chocolate brown. She twisted it into a low braid with practiced fingers, then looked up.

Her reflection stared back, steady and composed.

Soft features. A jawline with just enough curve to feel kind. Straight nose, full lips usually pressed into something between a line and a tired smile. Her eyes—deep brown—looked older than they should, rimmed in quiet exhaustion.

There was nothing remarkable about her looks. Not in the way movies made ER doctors glow under perfect lighting. But there was something in the way she held herself—calm, solid, like someone you could fall apart in front of.

The kind of face that made people believe it was going to be okay, even when it wasn’t. Her badge hung from her pocket: Dr. Emily Carter.

Fiercely independent. Chronically overworked. Not here for heroics—just to keep people breathing.

She exhaled through her nose and looked herself dead in the eyes.

“Let’s keep the body count low tonight, yeah?”

Then she turned, scrub top smoothed, expression hardening into something calm, capable, and necessary—and pushed through the door into the fray.

The trauma bay doors slammed open as Emily stepped back onto the floor.

“Carter!” a nurse yelled, waving her down. “Unit 2 just rolled in. Male, twenties, GCS nine, possible pneumothorax. Vitals are tanking.”

“Got it,” Emily said, already moving.

She followed the sound of wheels and shouting to Trauma 3. A paramedic was straddling the gurney, holding a chest seal in place with one gloved hand and squeezing a bag-valve mask with the other.

“Name’s unknown,” he barked as they wheeled in. “Found unconscious. Seatbelt saved his spine, but his lungs are pissed. Pressure’s building.”

Emily was already pulling on gloves. “Get me a 14-gauge. Prep for decompression. Monitor’s on?”

A nurse passed her a catheter. “O2 sat’s dropping. 84% and falling.”

“Needle now,” Emily ordered.

The man’s face was bloodied, jaw slack, skin turning that edge-of-blue hue she hated most. She found the second intercostal space by touch, braced the needle, and drove it in.

A rush of air hissed out.

The monitor chirped—a stabilizing rhythm.

“Breath sounds?” she called.

“Improving,” someone confirmed.

Emily blew out a breath of her own. “Alright. Let’s keep him stable until CT’s clear.”

The moment slowed. Just enough to hear the pulse-oximeter beep steady. Just enough to glance at the patient’s hand—tattoos across his knuckles, one bandaged wrist. Someone’s brother. Someone’s son.

But Emily couldn’t afford to think about that. She turned to the nurse beside her. “Call up surgery. He’s not done bleeding yet.”

As they moved the patient down the hall, another gurney was already on its way in. And another. The tide hadn’t peaked.

Emily looked up at the ER clock. 7:12 p.m.

It was going to be a long night.

By ten o’clock, the storm had settled into a steady downpour. The worst of the crash victims were already in surgery or admitted upstairs, and the ER had thinned to a dull thrum. Still busy—but not drowning.

Emily stood at a patient’s bedside, gloves snapped on, posture loose but alert. The man on the stretcher—mid-thirties, bandaged arm, mild concussion—was stable for now, hooked up to monitors with a quiet beeping pulse. He was half-awake, blinking blearily while a nurse checked his IV.

Surrounding her were five medical students, all in short white coats, clutching clipboards like they were life vests. Wide-eyed. Eager. Terrified.

Emily pointed at the monitor. “Vitals?”

“BP 122 over 76, pulse is 88, oxygen sat holding at ninety-eight percent,” one of them read off, voice just shy of cracking.

“Good. Now what do we watch for in head trauma with a GCS of fourteen?”

“Increased intracranial pressure,” a tall student near the foot of the bed offered. “Check pupils, watch for agitation or vomiting—”

“Right. Now look at his skin. Pale? Cool? Why do we care?”

Another student hesitated. “Uh... possible internal bleeding?”

“Not likely with these injuries, but good instinct,” Emily nodded. “Always keep your differential open—”

The monitor flatlined.

The shriek of the flatline ripped through the room like a blade.

Emily’s eyes snapped to the screen. “What the hell—?”

The patient convulsed once, violently—then went limp.

“Code blue!” someone yelled from the hallway.

“Move!” Emily shouted. “Crash cart now! Epi, pads on him—get the pads on him!”

The students froze, wide-eyed.

“All of you!” she barked, pointing. “One on chest compressions, one on the bag, one prep the defib, one draw epi, one clear the space. Move. This is real.”

They scattered into motion, clumsy but trying. One clambered onto the gurney and started compressions. Another fumbled with the Ambu bag. A third ripped open the defibrillator paddles and dropped one before recovering.

“Get it together!” Emily snapped, already checking for femoral pulse. Nothing. “He was stable five minutes ago. No cardiac history. No warning signs. What the hell is this—?”

The lights above flickered.

For a moment, everything dimmed.

And then the world snapped back, brighter than it should have been—too bright. The fluorescents buzzed with white-hot static.

The patient arched off the gurney in one unnatural jerk, spine bowed like something inside him was being torn out.

Emily staggered back a step, the heat radiating off his chest sharp and wrong. A low, electric hum pulsed in the air.

“What the—” one student whispered.

“Charge to 300!” Emily shouted, pointing to a lanky student with glasses and a tremble in his hands.

“M-me?” he stammered, eyes huge.

“Now!”

He panicked, grabbing the paddles like they might bite. His hands were shaking as he turned toward the patient—thumbs pressing the discharge buttons before he could aim properly.

The charge jumped.

Straight into Emily. Her whole body stiffened.

Then came the flash.

Blinding. White.

And Emily was gone.

Chapter one

Heat.

That was the first thing she registered. Not the sterile hum of the hospital, not the chaos of a code, not even the stunned silence that should’ve followed the jolt.

Just heat—suffocating and dry.

Emily's eyes snapped open.

The ceiling above her wasn’t made of panels or buzzing fluorescent lights. It was stone. Black, vaulted, and etched with faintly glowing sigils that pulsed like dying embers. The air stank of ash and metal. The surface beneath her was solid, rough, and cold. She could feel every groove through the back of her scrubs.

Her ears rang faintly. Her body still hummed with static, like the defibrillator’s current hadn’t let her go. Her mind staggered behind her body, scrambling to catch up.

Where were the med students? The patient? The crash cart?

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Where the hell was the hospital?

“What the hell?” she rasped.

Her hands braced beneath her—only one of them didn’t feel right. The right.

She glanced down—and froze.

The skin between her thumb and index finger glowed.

A glowing tattoo just beneath the skin. Ember-colored. Soft. Shifting faintly, like it breathed with her pulse.

Her stomach twisted.

She didn’t touch it.

She didn’t dare.

“Okay,” she breathed, voice hoarse and too loud in the vast, echoing dark. “Okay, Emily. Think. You were in Trauma Three. Guy coded. You called the charge—then he jerked. Lights flickered. And then…”

Her voice trailed off.

Because there was no and then. Only this.

Whatever this was.

Then—just barely—she heard it.

Boots on stone.

Not fast. Not running.

A measured pace.

Deliberate.

Getting closer.

She sat up fast and looked around.

She was in a circular stone room, dark and windowless. The walls curved in tight, etched with strange symbols that crawled from floor to ceiling like veins. Some glowed faintly red, others looked freshly drawn in ash or chalk. The whole space stank of burned incense, metal, and something older—like rot baked into stone.

Beneath her was a raised black altar. Not a table. Not a bed. An altar.

Polished smooth, cold to the touch, and carved with harsh, angular runes that seemed to twist if she looked at them too long. Her scrubs did nothing to shield her from the chill of it. Chains hung from either side—thick, iron, and unused. For now.

A ritual circle surrounded the base, drawn in what looked disturbingly like dried blood. Sigils radiated outward from the center like the petals of a poisonous flower. The air crackled with residue.

This wasn’t a room meant for healing.

Her throat tightened. Her hand flexed at her side, the ember-sigil on her skin pulsing with quiet heat.

Then came the final footsteps—right behind her.

She scrambled off the altar too fast. Her knees buckled, palms scraping cold stone, and she ducked low, heart thudding. She pressed herself behind the altar, chest heaving in the silence that followed. But the footsteps… didn’t move.

Whoever they were, they weren't following. Just standing there.

Waiting.

The quiet stretched thin. Too thin.

Emily turned her head, just enough to peek over the edge.

And saw him.

He stood just beyond the altar, shadowed by the flickering red of the runes. Tall. Still. Cloaked in layered robes the color of smoke and darkness, stitched with glinting sigils that caught the light like tiny blades. His arms hung loose at his sides—relaxed, but not harmless. The air around him felt… disturbed. Like it bent to him.

His face was the last thing she expected.

It was just a man. Maybe late twenties—with pale silver eyes, sharp and unreadable. His features were carved clean and cold, like someone had sculpted him with purpose: high cheekbones, a strong, unsmiling mouth, and hair that fell in soft black curls around his face and collar. Beautiful.

In the worst possible way.

Her heart kicked.

It was the kind of face that didn’t need warmth to be striking. He wasn’t pretty. He was commanding—the kind of presence that didn’t ask to be noticed but demanded it. Unyielding. Like he’d never lost a fight and didn’t plan to start now.

And—worse—something in her stomach fluttered. Not from fear.

Heat flushed beneath her skin.

Oh no. Absolutely not.

She ducked back behind the altar, breath catching.

What the hell was wrong with her?

She’d woken up in a murder dungeon with a burning sigil on her hand and a ritual circle under her ass—and now she was… turned on?

“Nope,” she muttered under her breath. “Absolutely not. Wrong brain chemistry. We are not doing this.”

Her fingers flexed, grounding herself against the cold stone.

Then, slowly, he stepped around the edge of the altar. Slow, measured steps. Like he was circling a beast he wasn’t sure wouldn’t bite.

Emily sat frozen, heart in her throat, as he came into full view—shoulders square, pale silver eyes locked on her like she was something scraped out of a lab dish and left twitching on the table.

He didn’t speak.

Didn’t blink.

Just stood there and looked.

Like he was cataloging her.

Like he was trying to decide what she was.

Emily couldn’t stand the silence. “You going to keep staring, or is this the part where you sacrifice me?”

His head tilted slightly—only slightly—but the look in his eyes sharpened.

He stopped a few feet away, gaze raking over her like she wasn’t a person but a puzzle in the wrong shape.

He muttered something under his breath. A few clipped syllables in a language she didn’t recognize—too guttural to be Latin, too sharp to be anything soft.

Then, louder: “The array was stable. Channeling intact. Power ratio balanced. Intent sealed at midpoint.”

Emily just stared, the words rushing past like wind. He wasn’t talking to her.

He was talking through her.

Then he moved.

Before she could flinch, his hands were on her—gripping her arms and hauling her upright in one swift motion. The altar scraped cold against her back as she staggered into balance, and his grip tightened.

“Hey—!” she gasped, pain flaring sharp in her biceps. “Jesus—let go—”

He didn’t.

Didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. Just stared.

Analyzing.

Unraveling.

His fingers stayed clamped around her arms, firm and unmoved, as his gaze dropped to the ember-sigil still pulsing faintly against her skin.

He muttered. “Should have anchored to the construct. Soulform shaped to—”

His voice cut off.

He blinked. Just once.

Then his eyes dragged back up to her face, slower this time. Studying.

“You’re not shaped,” he said quietly. “Not forged. Not emptied.”

He sounded almost disappointed.

Emily winced, twisting in his grasp. “If that means you screwed up, I agree.”

He didn’t answer.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said instead. His tone was flat. Calm. Inevitable.

And then—almost like an afterthought:

“I’ll need to dispose of you.”

Emily froze. “I’m sorry—what?”

He released one arm—but only to tighten his grip on the other. His fingers bit into her skin as he turned, dragging her behind him without ceremony.

“Hey—ow!” she hissed, stumbling after him. “You can’t just—!”

He didn’t slow down.

Didn’t even glance back.

The chamber stretched before them in concentric rings of carved stone, floating white lights flickering in the dark. He moved with the kind of measured calm that made her stomach twist—like he wasn’t angry.

Just efficient.

At the far edge of the circle, a raised dais stood like the eye of the storm. Upon it: a thick, black-bound tome, its spine laced with silver. Beside it—resting in a shallow groove in the stone—was a dagger. Ritualistic. Elegant. Wrong.

The blade glinted faintly despite the low light.

A sick feeling rolled through her gut. He hauled her directly in front of it, letting go at last—like dropping an object he no longer needed to hold. She caught herself on the edge of the dais, breath shallow.

He was already flipping through the tome with fast, practiced motions, lips moving again in that low, harsh language. His brow furrowed. His gaze flicked from page to her and back again. Calculating.

Looking for a solution.

A way to fix the mistake.

A way to erase her.

Emily edged back half a step.

He didn’t notice.

Or didn’t care.

The man muttered something under his breath—too low to catch. His eyes scanned the page again.

Then he stopped.

Jaw tight. Shoulders tense.

“Fuck it,” he said sharply, and without another word, he grabbed the dagger.

Emily’s breath caught.

He turned fast—too fast—and brought the blade up with a practiced, brutal arc.

She flinched back instinctively, but not fast enough.

The edge of the blade grazed her forearm—just a nick, shallow but bright with sudden pain.

“Shit—!” she gasped, stumbling back and clutching the wound. Blood welled up beneath her fingers, hot and thin.

The man stilled.

Emily froze too, eyes locked on the cut. A single crimson line streaked across her right forearm, the blood beading, sliding down.

She looked up and he raised his own right sleeve.

And there it was.

A cut.

Same spot. Still fresh.

Still bleeding.

His gaze flicked to it, then to her—sharp, unreadable.

Neither of them spoke.

Then he moved.

Fast.

He lunged forward and caught her by the wrist, gripping her wounded arm with startling precision. Emily jerked, breath locking in her throat, but he didn’t pause.

Didn’t ask.

Didn’t warn.

He raised the dagger again—slower this time, deliberate—and dragged the edge across her skin with surgical intent. Just a shallow line, thin as a paper cut.

She hissed through her teeth, trying to yank away, but his grip was iron.

Then—he released her.

And looked at his arm.

Another cut.

Identical.

Right down to the angle.

A slow breath left him, something cold and analytical sliding into his gaze. No shock. No guilt. Just confirmation. Like a lab result ticking into place.

Emily stared between his arm and hers, chest rising and falling in quick, disbelieving jolts. “What the hell did you do to me?”

But he didn’t answer.

He just turned away, eyes narrowed as he returned to the open book.

Like he was already calculating the next step.

Like she was nothing more than the wrong element in an experiment he still intended to fix.

He turned away, moving back to the dais with stiff, controlled steps. The book lay open. Pages inked in looping glyphs and jagged runes that shimmered faintly under the sigil light. He stared at it, hands braced on either side, breath tight in his chest.

Then he tipped his head back, exhaling hard.

“Fuuuck,” he drawled, long and low and full of venomous disbelief.

Emily blinked. Okay. That... shouldn’t have sounded hot.

But it did. Something about the sheer frustration in it. The rawness. Like watching a statue crack.

Get it together, Carter.

He straightened slowly, silver eyes still fixed on the page—then finally turned to face her. Really looked at her this time. Not like she was a contaminant. Not like she was a mistake.

His eyes narrowed, voice quiet but edged.

“What am I going to do with you now?”

It wasn’t rhetorical.

It was the first real question he’d asked her.

Emily stared back, pulse hammering.

She didn’t have a damn clue how to answer.

He took one slow step toward her. Then another.

Then raised his hand—palm open, fingers outstretched.

“Give me your arm.”

Emily’s spine stiffened. No. Absolutely not.

But her body moved anyway.

Her right arm lifted, slow but smooth, like something beneath her skin had answered the command before her brain could catch up.

Her brows pinched. “Why? So you can cut me again?”

He didn’t flinch. “No. The other arm.”

Again—without thinking, without choosing—she raised her left arm and offered it to him.

What the hell?

Right where her skin met the inner bend of her elbow, stretching faintly across the pale flesh of her forearm—a brand new word that hadn’t been there seconds ago.

A single word. Etched like a tattoo, but glowing softly at the edges.

Servant.

She stared.

Her mouth went dry.

Servant....

The word didn’t move. Didn’t fade. It sat there like it had always belonged to her. Branded by something she hadn’t agreed to—hadn’t even known existed.

She glanced up just in time to see his lips twitch. Not in surprise. Not in horror.

But in satisfaction.

A slow, smug smirk ghosted across his face. The kind of expression that said of course.

“Nice,” he murmured, low and almost to himself.

Emily’s jaw clenched. “Excuse me?”

He didn’t even blink. “Well…” He turned slightly, regarding her. “Since you’re here—and I can’t get rid of you…”

His smirk deepened, cruel and lazy. “At least you’re mine.”

He hadn’t raised his voice. He hadn’t leaned in. But something about the word mine struck deeper than it should have—right between her ribs, sliding like heat along her spine.

Absolutely not.

“…And,” he added with mock-casual arrogance, “you have to do everything I say.”

Nope. Nope nope nope.

Her face flushed, sudden and hot. Not from shame. Not from fear.

From the treacherous thrum of something else.

Oh my god, get it together, Carter.

She glared at him, furious. Not just at him—but at herself. “You are a lunatic,” she snapped.

He only lifted a brow. “Possibly.”

Her fists clenched. “And you think I’m just going to roll over and obey because some weird tattoo says so?”

“I don’t think,” he said calmly, eyes gleaming, “I know.”

"Allow me to demonstrate," he said, taking a step back, voice low with amusement.

Then, crisp and absolute:

"Kneel."

Her body moved before she could think—legs folding, spine bowing, knees slamming into the cold stone. It wasn’t graceful. It wasn’t willing.

It just happened.

Her breath caught in her throat.

And then—his voice again, smooth and sharp as a blade sliding home.

"After all," he said, spreading his arms slightly, the faint glow of the circle catching on his dark sleeves,

"I am the king around here."