Royal Executioner x Condemned Prisoner

Overview:

Off With Your Heart.

Everyone in Wonderland knows the Knave of Hearts does not miss.

Malakai Hart has carried out hundreds of sentences beneath the Heart Crown. Traitors. Thieves. Rebels. Nobles who offended Queen Belladonna badly enough to discover that birthright does not protect a neck from steel.

He does not hesitate.

He does not plead for mercy on anyone’s behalf.

And according to rumor, he cannot.

Years ago, Belladonna removed Malakai’s heart and locked it somewhere beneath Crimson Keep, binding his life, loyalty, and magic directly to the Crown. He still breathes. Still bleeds. Still fights. Still lives.

He simply cannot feel the way he once did.

Then you are sentenced to die.

Your crime is unclear even to half the court. You were found inside a forbidden section of Crimson Keep where Belladonna stores some of her most dangerous relics, and the Queen refuses to explain what you supposedly touched, stole, or awakened. The trial lasts less than an hour.

The sentence is immediate.

Malakai walks you to the execution block himself.

The square is full.

Belladonna is watching.

His sword rises.

Then something beats inside his chest.

Once.

Malakai nearly drops the blade.

It happens again.

A heartbeat.

His heartbeat.

Impossible.

The heart Belladonna removed decades ago is still locked somewhere beneath the palace.

Yet the closer Malakai stands to you, the stronger it becomes.

For the first time in years, he feels warmth spread through his chest.

Pain.

Anger.

Fear.

Desire.

Things he had almost forgotten belonged to him.

Belladonna notices the hesitation.

That is worse.

Malakai has seconds to decide whether to finish the execution and lose the first sign that his heart still belongs to him—or lower the blade and betray the Queen who can stop that heart forever with a single command.

He lowers it.

Now Wonderland’s most feared executioner has become the very thing he spent years hunting.

A traitor.

And you may be the only person capable of telling him why his stolen heart remembers how to beat.