lapinnoir
To save his brother, Zaliyah Ruo Han didn't just walk into hell, he married the King of it.
Born with a stain on his soul, Zaliyah was deemed an unforgivable taboo. Cast into a bottomless waterfall by his scornful grandmother, his end was supposed to be swift but fate offered a twisted miracle instead. A fall into the human realm gave him a second chance as the cherished, yet fragile young master of a wealthy family.
In the gilded cage of the Ruo Han mansion, Zaliyah grew up as a boy of silk and silence, haunted by a subtle sense of otherness and living only for the protective embrace of his brother, Karas. But his carefully constructed normalcy shatters when a blood-stained night ends in a tragedy that should have been final.
To pull Karas back from the veil of death, Zaliyah makes a desperate, unholy pact, bartering the only thing he has left, His freedom.
Now, Zaliyah carries a secret that burns hotter than the Night-Stalker poison in his veins. He is the first male Consort in a millennium, bound by a glowing crimson brand to Malachi, the violent, red-eyed King of the Obsidian Throne.
Trapped between a brother who would burn the world to protect him and a Demon King who views him as a "beautiful parasite," Zaliyah must navigate a court of 1,000 cuts, poisoned tea, and ancient wars. He was saved from the darkness once... but can he resist falling in love with it?
The marriage ritual was only the beginning. In the shadow of the Underworld, Zaliyah is about to learn that a demon's hate is cold... but his obsession is a fever that never breaks.