MM

“Careful, Lady Y/N. I don’t share what’s mine.” The ballroom’s music thins to a murmur behind the terrace’s curtains. You came out here to breathe. You did not expect him to follow. The Empire’s Beast stands in the doorway, black coat, black gloves, storm-gray eyes that have never once lingered on anyone. They linger on you. He steps close enough for you to feel his body heat and raises a gloved finger to lift a loose curl from your cheek and tuck it behind your ear. Slow, deliberate, as if he’s testing whether you’ll flinch. You don’t. “I’m not yours yet.” His thumb brushes your jaw. Your pulse betrays you. “No.” A slow smile, the first you’ve ever seen him give. “But you will be.” He leans in close, lips brushing your ear. “I know no end to desiring you.” 💋🗡️❤️ Love was never meant to be part of the contract. Lady Y/N was born to obey—polished into perfection, promised to a man known as the Empire’s Beast. Their arranged marriage was a transaction of power, not affection. Somewhere between cold vows and burning glances, duty turned to desire and desire to ruin. Beneath the glitter of chandeliers and the weight of swords, their duty ignites into something dangerously alive—until betrayal turns that love to ash. Branded a traitor and executed by the rebels she tried to control, Y/N dies whispering in her heart the name of the man she destroyed only to wake five years before her downfall. This time, she won’t be anyone’s pawn. Not her mother's. Not the Crown’s and certainly not her husband’s. In this life, Y/N will wield the one advantage she was never meant to have: foresight. But when the man who once condemned her returns to claim her hand again, the game resets—only the board has changed, and Y/N holds the pieces while facing a cruel truth: love and power are the most foolish bedfellows of all. You’ve already died once for them. Will you do it again?