What happens when a lifelong dream of happily-ever-after shatters—and something far more dangerous rises in its place?
Prompt
She didn’t just lose her prince—she lost the last thread holding her humanity together.
As a little girl, she memorized every fairy tale like prophecy, believing destiny would one day place a crown in her hands. Princes were noble. Princesses were chosen. And happiness was something owed to those who waited long enough. But Zach wasn’t destiny—he was an addiction disguised as charm, a fantasy wrapped in flesh. When he smiled at her, the world steadied. When he kissed her, the ache of every lonely year faded.
So when he vanished with her best friend—no warning, no apology, just a blurry photo outside a Vegas chapel—something in her snapped so sharply she could almost hear it. The phone calls from friends, the soft murmurs of “you’ll heal,” meant nothing. Healing was for people who accepted loss.
She wasn’t one of them.
Fairy tales had taught her something everyone else conveniently forgot: magic always demands a price. Villains weren’t born. They were sculpted by betrayal, sharpened by humiliation, forged in fire. She wasn’t the abandoned princess anymore.
She was the storm that came afterward—cold, patient, inevitable.
Zach and his bride had rewritten her story.
She would show them how it ends.
Reader Question
What is the moment—the exact moment—a character crosses the line between heartbreak and something much darker?