Rejection
Alissa Wayne didn't cry anymore — not because it didn't hurt, but because she'd run out of tears. The email glared back at her like all the others:
"Thank you for your interest, but we have decided to move forward with other candidates."
Twenty-two years old. Top of her class. And yet… invisible.
Her hand trembled as she closed the laptop. The silence in her apartment was deafening. Her phone buzzed — rent due. The second buzz — student loan payment overdue. Third buzz — her mother's missed call.
She shut it off. Everything.
And then she opened a blank document.
Fingers shaking, eyes burning, she began to type. Not for them. For herself.
"In a world of shadow and blood, only one man stood between light and ruin: Jayden James Watson."
The words poured out of her like a scream she'd swallowed for months. Jayden was everything she couldn't be — brave, commanding, brilliant. A prince forged in fire, haunted by betrayal, wielding a sword bound to his soul. She wrote him into war. She wrote him into heartbreak. She wrote him into life.
And somehow, the world listened.
The Crimson Prince exploded in popularity. Alissa went from nobody to someone — anonymous, but heard. She was finally winning.
Until the storm.
The wind howled that night like the world was tearing apart. Her lights flickered. Rain lashed the windows. But Alissa kept writing.
"Jayden stepped into the breach, knowing it might be his last breath."
Lightning cracked the sky. Her screen glitched — static. Lines of her story warped.
And then, a flash so bright it blinded her.
A sound — like glass shattering in her ears.
When her vision returned, her breath caught in her throat.
A man stood in her living room — soaked, bleeding, his eyes wild and storm-gray. A sword clattered to the floor beside him.
He looked at her like he knew her. Like he'd been waiting.
And then he collapsed.
Alissa rushed forward, heart slamming against her ribs. Blood — real blood — stained her hands as she touched him.
He looked up at her with desperation in his voice.
"Alissa," he whispered. "You brought me here."
Her world shattered.
Because the man lying at her feet wasn't a stranger.
He was Jayden James Watson.
And she was the one who wrote his fate.
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To. Be. Continued