The Monster’s Bride, The Abyss’s Queen
The world burned.
And as the sky wept fire, Lyria Vance tasted oblivion on her lips.
His kiss was not soft. It was not sweet. It was ruinous, all-consuming, a claim as much as it was a promise. His hands branded her, fingers digging into her waist, pressing her against him as if he could fuse her into his very existence.
The abyss had found its queen.
And he would not let her go.
A deep growl rumbled from his chest as he broke the kiss, but he did not move away. His lips hovered just above hers, his breath mingling with hers, golden eyes molten with triumph.
"Say it again," he demanded, his voice thick with possessive hunger.
Lyria's lips curved, her fingers trailing up the side of his face, feeling the sharp edge of his jaw, the heat of his skin beneath her touch.
"I am the abyss's queen," she whispered.
His pupils dilated, a dark, primal satisfaction gleaming in his gaze. A predator who had finally cornered his prey—and found it willing.
A shudder ran through the battlefield, a final gasp of destruction echoing through the air. The last strongholds of humanity crumbled, walls collapsing, the screams of the dying swallowed by the abyss.
She turned away from him, surveying the carnage she had wrought. The abyss had devoured everything in its path. The soldiers who had once fought to destroy her were no more than echoes now, their bodies claimed by the darkness, their souls drifting in the void.
And yet, it did not feel like a loss.
It felt like justice.
Like fate.
"You were never meant to be one of them," he murmured beside her, his voice a dark caress against her senses. "You were never meant to be weak, to be shackled by their fragile morality, their fleeting existence."
His fingers slid down her arm, stopping at her wrist, where her pulse beat steadily—stronger now, darker now. No longer entirely human.
"You belong here," he continued, tilting her chin up so that she had no choice but to meet his gaze. "With me."
A truth she had fought against for so long, denied until the very end, settled deep into her bones.
She had spent so much of her life trying to prove herself to a world that had already decided she was disposable. A family that had thrown her to the monsters without hesitation. A people who had called her a traitor the moment she had survived what should have killed her.
But he had never abandoned her.
Not when she had been broken and bleeding.
Not when she had feared herself.
Not even when she had denied him.
And now—now, she was done pretending.
Her lips parted, but before she could speak, a sudden sound pierced the air.
A heartbeat.
Faint but steady, pulsing somewhere beneath the ruin.
Lyria stiffened, her abyss-darkened eyes flicking toward the sound.
A survivor.
For a moment, something unfamiliar twisted in her chest, something old and lingering—the last remnants of the girl she had once been. The girl who had fought for humanity, who had bled for them.
But then his fingers tightened around her wrist, grounding her, reminding her of what she had become.
"You hesitate," he murmured, though there was no anger in his voice. Only knowing. Only patience.
Lyria's lips pressed together, and she forced herself to meet his gaze.
She did hesitate.
Not because she doubted what she was.
But because this was the final test. The last piece of her humanity, dangling before her like a dying ember in the dark. If she let it go, there would be no turning back.
She took a slow breath, reaching for the abyss, feeling it pulse in response, waiting for her command.
She was not afraid.
She had already made her choice.
The abyss swelled, shadows twisting, curling toward the faint heartbeat, creeping closer and closer—
And then, something unexpected happened.
A voice.
Soft. Shaking.
"Lyria…?"
She froze.
Her breath caught, the abyss pausing at her fingertips, hesitating, confused.
Because she knew that voice.
A memory surged forth, unbidden.
The scent of home, of warm bread and candlelight. Laughter. A childhood shared.
A girl who looked just like her.
Her twin.
She turned slowly, the abyss parting at her will, revealing the trembling figure beneath the rubble.
Elyria.
Her sister.
Her betrayal.
For a moment, everything was silent.
And then—
"Lyria, please," Elyra choked, struggling to push herself up, her arms shaking, blood dripping from a gash on her temple. "You're still you. You're still my sister."
Lyria exhaled softly, tilting her head.
Her sister.
The same sister who had let her go in her place. Who had let their parents throw her into the abyss without protest?
She should have died.
And yet, she had survived.
Not because of Elyra.
Not because of their family.
But because of him.
She felt his presence beside her, silent, waiting, his golden gaze unreadable. He would not interfere. This was her decision to make.
And in that moment, as she looked at the girl who shared her face, Lyria realized that she felt nothing.
No love.
No hatred.
Only the weight of inevitability.
"You were never my sister," Lyria murmured.
Elyra's breath hitched. "No—"
Darkness surged.
The abyss devoured.
And the last ember of Lyria's humanity was extinguished.
A slow exhale left her lips, the battlefield once again silent.
She turned to him, meeting his gaze.
Something dark and proud flickered in his golden eyes.
"You hesitated," he said, not as a rebuke, but as an observation.
Lyria considered that for a moment before shaking her head. "No. I was simply saying goodbye."
His smirk returned, slow and knowing. "And now?"
Lyria lifted her chin.
"Now," she said, stepping closer, the abyss swirling at her feet, "there is nothing left to hold me back."
A growl rumbled in his chest, his golden gaze darkening.
"You have no idea," he murmured, his fingers curling around her waist, "how long I've waited to hear you say that."
His lips descended upon hers again, and this time, she did not resist.
She kissed him with the force of destruction, with the weight of her rebirth.
The war was over.
The world belonged to the abyss.
And Lyria Vance had finally come home.
The world is ending.
And the abyss has finally found its queen.
The Abyss's Reign
The night stretched long over the ruined world, the sky above fractured like old glass, the cracks bleeding twilight in endless ribbons of silver and black. The wind howled through the abandoned streets below, stirring dust and ash like restless ghosts. The scent of old fire and forgotten wars clung to the air, but there was no one left to mourn. No one left to remember.
Only the abyss remained.
And its queen.
Lyria stood at the edge of the stronghold, the steel balcony beneath her feet groaning from the weight of what had just transpired. Behind her, the last human commanders remained motionless, their heads bowed in silence, as if the breath had been stolen from their lungs. The shadows that clung to the walls did not belong to the weak glow of the emergency lights. They slithered, pulsed, waited—as though straining against some invisible leash, yearning for the command to devour what little remained of humanity's last stronghold.
But Lyria did not speak the words of their execution.
Not yet.
Her golden gaze swept the horizon, past the shattered remnants of cities long since abandoned, past the skeletons of war machines rusting beneath the weight of time. Beyond the jagged remains of the world, beyond the boundary where man had once ruled, her army waited.
Kneeling.
Silent.
Hers.
Not mindless creatures of destruction. Not the remnants of some forgotten apocalypse. No, this was something far greater, something far more terrifying. Organized. Patient. A force that had no need for crude human weapons, no need for tactics born of desperation. They were the abyss given form. And they would not move without her word.
Lyria exhaled slowly, closing her eyes for just a moment. She could feel it—the heartbeat of the abyss thrumming beneath her skin, a steady pulse intertwined with her own. She no longer feared it. No longer fought it. It had ceased being a foreign presence inside her long ago. It was her own now. It had always been hers.
A slow shift of movement beside her.
She did not need to look to know he was there.
The golden-eyed monster—her monster—remained at her side, a silent pillar of heat and shadow. He had never strayed far, not since the moment she had returned from the abyss, not since she had proven herself worthy of him.
His gaze was not on the kneeling army. Not on the trembling remnants of human command still cowering behind her.
His gaze was only on her.
"Lyria."
The way he spoke her name was a thing of reverence, of possession. As though it had never belonged to anyone else. As though it had never been anything but his to claim.
She did not turn to him. "What is it?"
A pause. Then, a quiet, dark chuckle. "You're hesitating."
Her fingers twitched at her sides, but she did not answer.
Another step, the shift of his presence so close now that she could feel the warmth of him against her back, the ghost of his breath against her temple. "Are you still waiting for them to beg?" His voice curled around her like velvet, like smoke. "Or are you waiting for permission?"
Lyria's lips curled slightly, though there was no humor in it. "You already know the answer."
His hand brushed against the bare skin of her wrist, a whisper of a touch that sent something dark and thrilling coiling through her veins. "Then say it."
She tilted her chin up, golden eyes locking onto the kneeling army below.
They were waiting.
The humans behind her were waiting.
He was waiting.
For the word that would end the old world once and for all.
For the command that would carve the future from the bones of the past.
Lyria took a slow breath, her pulse steady, the abyss humming through every fiber of her being.
And then—
A Final Dawn
"The war is over."
Her voice carried across the stronghold, neither loud nor soft, but absolute. It was not a declaration of peace. It was not an offer of mercy.
It was finality.
It was inevitability.
The abyss roared in response.
The army below did not rise. They did not need to.
Because there was nothing left to fight.
The last of humanity's forces had already fallen—not in battle, not in bloodshed, but in surrender.
And as the first slivers of dawn bled through the fractured sky, washing the ruined world in pale gold, Lyria felt the weight of the abyss settle fully into her chest.
She was no longer the girl who had been cast into the darkness.
She was no longer the soldier who had once fought to protect the remnants of a broken world.
She was no longer just a bride of the abyss.
She was its queen.
And the world that had once been humanity's?
It belonged to her now.