She was forbidden.

I touched her anyway.

For nineteen years, I protected Nikoletta Romanoff.

Watched her. Guarded her. Kept my vow.

Until one night.

One crypt.

And one line I could never uncross.

Then she ran.

Now she's back, standing in my world like she didn't leave me fractured.

Like I didn't become something unrecognizable in her absence.

She thinks I'm the monster.

The beast lurking in shadows, punishing her for the line we crossed.

She's wrong.

The monster is what's left when a man loses the only thing he exists to protect.

When devotion bleeds into obsession.

Her father wants to trade her like currency.

Her brother wants to break her.

And me?

I want her to feel every second I spent becoming this.

But buried beneath the rage, beneath the ruin—

There's still the warrior who would burn empires to keep her safe.

Monsters don't just take.

We keep what ruins us.

And she's about to learn—

I'll let her destroy me a thousand times before I let her go.