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“What a waste,” he says, loud enough for everyone to hear. “Using a perfectly good human for just one royal when she could serve all of us. I bet she’d break so beautifully after a week in my?—“

Aerix pulls out his dagger and throws it.

The blade embeds itself in the man’s heart, silencing him mid-word, surprise flashing across his face before he crumples to the ground.

The chatter stops, air thick with tension and magic.

“Does anyone else wish to comment on my consort?” Aerix challenges, ice and air magic pulsing from him in visible waves, frosting the ground beneath Nyx’s paws.

Silence falls so complete I can hear my own heartbeat.

Aerix turns his gaze to a trembling woman standing next to the man’s corpse. “You,” he commands. “Bring me my dagger.”

The woman’s wings pull tight against her back, but she doesn’t hesitate. She simply bends down, her fingers shaking as she pulls the blade from the dead man’s chest.

Blood drips from the tip as she approaches us, her head bowed in submission as she holds the bloody dagger up to Aerix with both hands, like an offering.

I should be horrified. A man just died—was murdered in front of me—for nothing more than crude words.

Instead, dark satisfaction blooms in my chest.

This is what it means to be Aerix’s. This is what it means to be valued in the Night Court. What it means to be a prince’s consort.

And, God help me, I want more.

Aerix’s midnight eyes flick to me, and something shifts in them. Something calculating and dark. Something that sets my body on fire.

“Actually,” he says to the woman, his voice carrying across the now-silent square, “I believe my consort should have it.”

The woman freezes, her wings completely retracted now.

“Your Highness?” she whispers, the words barely audible.

“You heard me,” Aerix says, chillingly calm. “Give the dagger to Zoey.”

The woman’s hand trembles violently now, her complexion paling to a sickly gray.

“Now,”Aerix commands, air snapping like a whip. “Unless you want to be next?”

She turns to me, and the loathing in her eyes is absolute. But beneath it lies something I’ve never seen directed at me from any night fae—fear.

She extends the bloody dagger toward me, handle first, her eyes lowered in the ultimate act of submission.

I hesitate only for a moment before taking it.

The weight of it in my hand is balanced and deadly. And as I study it, power surges through me. Because this is Aerix’s dagger—the one he uses to deal death without hesitation or remorse. And now he’s given it to me, in front of his entire court. Which makes itmine.

My fingers tighten around the hilt, and I feel a hunger I’ve never known before—not for blood, but for the respect it commands. It’s different from what I felt while staring down at Henry’s dead body. No, this is hunger for the way the night fae are looking at me now. Not as food or entertainment, but as something to be feared.

Aerix’s arms tighten around my waist, his lips close to my ear.

“How does it feel?” he murmurs, his breath cold against my skin.

“Like I belong,” I whisper back, surprised at the truth behind the words.

“They’ll talk about this for decades—centuries, perhaps,” he says, his words meant only for me as his air magic creates a quiet bubble around us. “The night that Prince Aerix killed for his human consort, then armed her with his own blade.”

I turn the dagger, watching how the moonlightcatches on its blood-coated edge, marveling at how natural it feels in my grip.