No Longer Human, No Longer Prey

The battlefield lay in ruins.

Blood soaked the cracked earth, the metallic scent heavy in the cold night air. The abyss pulsed at Lyria's feet, a swirling void of darkness that seemed to breathe in tandem with her. The last remnants of the High Command's hunting squad were nothing more than bodies, their deaths swift, effortless.

She had thought she would feel something—guilt, hesitation, anything resembling the girl she had once been.

But all she felt was power.

And him.

She could always feel him.

A presence at her back, silent and overwhelming, his hunger a steady pulse in the air between them. He did not need to touch her for her to know he was watching, his gaze searing into her as if branding her his.

Lyria exhaled slowly, her breath visible in the freezing air.

A low chuckle rumbled from behind her. "You're finally beginning to understand, aren't you?"

His voice curled through her like velvet and smoke, deep and edged with something darker—something possessive.

She turned, meeting the abyssal gold of his gaze. The form he had chosen to wear tonight was the one he knew would unsettle her most—the almost human one.

Almost.

Dark hair fell in loose waves over sharp cheekbones. His skin, pale as death, bore the faintest shimmer of abyssal energy, as if shadows bled beneath its surface. His lips curled in that familiar, knowing smirk.

He was beautiful in the way monsters were—terrifying, inescapable, eternal.

And he was hers.

Just as she was his.

Lyria stepped toward him, unbothered by the bodies at their feet. "And what exactly am I beginning to understand?"

His smirk widened, but his eyes darkened. "That this was always your fate."

She scoffed, tilting her head. "Was it?"

His fingers brushed over her blood-streaked cheek, slow, deliberate. "I told you before, didn't I?" His voice was almost reverent, but the hunger in it was unmistakable. "You were never meant to be theirs."

Lyria held his gaze, unflinching. "And now?"

His thumb grazed the corner of her mouth. "Now you are mine."

The words should have unsettled her. The girl she had once been might have fought against them, against him.

But that girl was gone.

And she had no intention of bringing her back.

A sharp inhale. The air around them shifted.

Lyria tore her gaze from him, her instincts sharpening as the abyss stirred beneath them.

Something was watching.

Something waiting.

She turned her focus to the ruins beyond the battlefield, the last remnants of a world crumbling beneath its arrogance. There had once been cities here, towering and proud. Now they were nothing more than graveyards, swallowed by the abyss inch by inch.

But this wasn't just the abyss.

This was something else.

Something that had been waiting for her to embrace what she was becoming.

Her monster—her husband—stepped closer, his hand curling around her wrist, his grip firm.

"You feel it too, don't you?" he murmured.

Lyria didn't answer immediately.

Because she did.

It was not just the abyss whispering now.

It was something deeper, older.

A presence that had slumbered beneath the world, waiting for the right moment to rise.

And it had finally sensed her.

Her monster's grip tightened, his voice a growl. "They're watching, Lyria."

A slow smile spread across her lips. "Let them."

The Abyss Stirs

The first tremor rolled through the ground.

The battlefield, already fractured, cracked even further. From the deepest abyssal pits, black mist curled into the sky, coiling like tendrils, reaching—searching.

Lyria closed her eyes for a moment, breathing it in.

This power… it was different.

Stronger.

It wanted her.

She opened her eyes, and for the first time, she saw them.

Shadowed figures stood at the edges of the abyss, their forms shifting, flickering between the tangible and the impossible. Not quite monsters. Not quite men.

But something between.

Lyria exhaled. "Who are they?"

Her monster—her husband—watched them with a sharp gaze, his amusement fading into something graver. "The Forgotten."

Lyria frowned. "Forgotten?"

He turned to her, his expression unreadable. "Creatures who fell into the abyss long before humanity existed. Beings who embraced it. Who let it consume them entirely."

His gaze flickered toward them, sharp and assessing. "They've been waiting for a queen."

Lyria's breath hitched, but she quickly stilled it.

She had chosen this path.

There was no turning back.

One of the figures moved.

Not walked. Not stepped.

Moved.

Like a ripple through reality, it closed the distance between them in an instant, stopping just a few feet from Lyria.

The air turned deathly still.

Then, in a voice that sounded like it had been ripped from the echoes of time itself, it spoke.

"Bride of the Abyss."

Lyria did not flinch.

The creature tilted its head, its face a blur of shifting darkness. Testing her.

She lifted her chin. "Is that supposed to frighten me?"

A pause. Then, a slow, deliberate whisper:

"No. It is a warning."

Lyria's pulse thrummed, her power curling at her fingertips.

A warning?

She smiled, dark and knowing.

"I don't take warnings."

The air around them cracked, abyssal energy lashing out.

And then—they attacked.

The Queen's Wrath

The Forgotten moved all at once—shadows lurching toward her, claws and mist, hunger and rage.

Lyria did not retreat.

She rose.

The abyss surged at her command, tendrils of black energy lashing out like whips. The first Forgotten barely had time to react before she ripped it apart, its form dissolving into nothingness.

Another lunged. She caught it mid-air, her fingers sinking into its flickering chest.

It shrieked.

She crushed it.

The dark mist swallowed the battlefield, but Lyria did not falter.

This was her birthright.

Her power.

And she would not be prey.

She moved through them, faster than thought, her power ripping through their ancient forms with ease. Each time she struck, more of them vanished, swallowed by the abyss that had birthed them.

Until there was nothing left.

The battlefield fell silent once more.

Lyria exhaled, her chest rising and falling in measured breaths.

She turned to her monster, blood staining her hands. "Is that all?"

His laughter was deep, full of pride.

"No, my queen," he murmured, stepping toward her, his hands sliding around her waist. "That was only the beginning."

He pulled her closer, his breath hot against her skin.

"The abyss does not just want a bride, Lyria." His lips brushed against her throat.

"It wants a queen."

Lyria tilted her head, allowing his touch, allowing the darkness to settle into her bones.

She had not just embraced the abyss.

She had conquered it.

And now, as the world crumbled, she would rebuild it in her image.

The last remnants of her humanity burned away.

She was no longer human.

She was no longer prey.

She was his queen of ruin.

And the abyss belonged to her.