Bride of the Black Devil

The city's pulse thrummed beneath a sky bruised with storm clouds, its neon veins casting a sickly glow over cobblestone streets. Elara Dumont stood at the edge of her father's crumbling empire, her breath fogging in the chill, her heart a caged bird battering its ribs. Twenty-four years old, dressed in a borrowed coat, she was a pawn in a game she hadn't chosen. Her father's debts whispered in backrooms, sealed in blood had led her here, to the steps of a cathedral that loomed like a predator's jaw. Inside waited Damon Black, the Black Devil, a name that clung to the city's underbelly like smoke.

She'd heard the stories: a man carved from shadows, his hands stained with the lives he'd taken, his eyes gray as a storm and twice as merciless. He was power, danger, desire incarnate a mafia king who'd claimed her as payment, her hand in marriage for her father's life. Elara's fingers tightened around the wilted roses in her hand, their thorns biting her skin. She wasn't a bride by choice, but she'd walk into this cage with her chin high, her fear buried deep.

The cathedral doors groaned open, and the air inside was thick with wax and secrets. Damon stood at the altar, his silhouette sharp against the stained glass, his gaze pinning her like a blade. No smile, no softness only hunger, raw and unyielding. Her pulse quickened, not just from fear but from something darker, something that stirred as his eyes traced her curves. This was no fairy tale. This was a contract, a surrender, a dance with a devil who might consume her.

As she stepped forward, the roses fell, their petals scattering like blood on the stone. Nina, her maid, watched from the shadows, her eyes wide with loyalty and dread. Elara's future was a labyrinth, and Damon Black was its minotaur. Whatever lay ahead passion, pain, or betrayal she'd face it, not as a victim, but as a woman ready to claim her own power.