CURSED AS ASWANG, SAVED BY HIS LOVE

CHAPTER 8:THE KING COMES FOR HIS QUEEN

*Chapter 8: The King Comes For His Queen*

He didn't come at night.

He came at high noon, when the sun was hottest and everyone could see him.

The town fiesta was supposed to start at 12. The whole plaza was decorated, lechon roasting, kids running around. And then the wind stopped. The air turned cold in the middle of the summer heat.

Isabella felt him before she saw him.

She was helping at the flower stall, wearing a simple white sundress that made her look pure and sexy at the same time — tight at the waist, flowing over her long legs, her black hair down with a single sampaguita behind her ear. Every man at the fiesta was already staring at her, as usual.

Then all that staring felt... small.

Because a man was walking through the plaza, and every woman — married, single, young, old — turned to look at him.

He was beautiful. Inhumanly beautiful. Tall, with long black hair that touched his waist, skin like polished wood, wearing a barong that looked like it was made of bark and shadows. His eyes were gold. His smile was perfect. He was the kind of handsome that made you forget your own name.

But Isabella didn't find him handsome.

She found him repulsive.

Because he smelled like the balete tree. Like grave dirt and old blood.

He walked straight to her flower stall. He didn't look at Elias, who was standing beside her in a white polo, instantly tense, his hand going to her waist protectively.

"Isabella Reyes," the King said, his voice like roots creaking. "Finally. The first Reyes woman in 300 years beautiful enough to be worthy of me."

Elias stepped in front of her. "Who the hell are you?"

The King didn't even glance at him. His golden eyes were locked on Isabella, on her smooth shoulders, on her lips, on the perfect curve of her body in that white dress. Looking at her like she was property he had ordered and was finally delivered.

"You feel it, don't you, my Queen?" he said to her. "Your blood sings for me now that you've awakened. You were never meant to be loved by a weak human man who offers his blood like a beggar. You were meant to be worshipped. To sit beside me, to be sexy, beautiful, and feared, forever."

Isabella's hands were shaking, but not from fear. From anger. For five years she hated being looked at like a piece of meat. Like a sexy doll no one could resist. This King was doing the same — but a thousand times worse.

"I don't belong to you," she said, her sweet voice shaking.

The King laughed. He reached out — his hand was elegant, with long black nails — to touch her face.

He never got to touch her.

Elias punched him. Hard. Right in the jaw.

The whole plaza gasped. No one had ever seen the rich, calm Montenegro heir hit anyone.

The King stumbled back one step, surprised. He touched his lip — black blood. He looked at Elias, and his golden eyes turned completely black with rage.

"You dare touch the King? For this little human girl?"

"She's not a little human girl," Elias said, his white polo now ripped at the sleeve, his muscles tensing, standing in front of Isabella like a wall. His bandaged arm was bleeding again, black veins flickering back. "She's my woman. And you don't get to look at my woman like that."

Isabella stared at Elias's broad back, at the man who had seen her fully monstrous and called her beautiful, who was now ready to fight an ancient god for her in the middle of a fiesta.

Love. Real, stupid, brave, human love.

Something inside her snapped.

Not the curse snapping. The shame-chain snapping.

For the first time, she didn't try to hide her transformation. She let it happen, right there, in the middle of the plaza, in her sexy white sundress, in front of everyone.

Her eyes glowed red. Her fangs grew. Her black claws extended. Her beautiful face became even more beautiful — sharper, more seductive, more deadly. Her sundress tore slightly at the back as dark, smoky wings, like butterfly wings made of midnight, unfolded just enough for everyone to see.

The plaza screamed.

The town that had always called her hot, sexy, beautiful, irresistible — finally saw what she really was.

An Aswang Queen.

She stepped out from behind Elias, and this time, SHE stood in front of HIM.

She looked the King dead in his golden eyes, her red eyes blazing, her sexy, deadly body radiating power that made even the King take a step back.

"You want a Queen?" she said, her voice now layered, sweet and growling, sexy and terrifying. "Then kneel."

She raised her clawed hand, and the wind that had stopped suddenly came back — howling, carrying the scent of sampaguita and blood.

The King smiled, slow and cruel. "There you are. My Queen."

And then he lunged.

Not at her.

At Elias.