Chapter 1

Elena's POV

I had been looking forward to this engagement party for years.

After my mother died, my stepmother used the instability of my half-blood lineage as an excuse to confine me to the house. Ten full years without a single public appearance, without a single glimpse of Adrian. I told myself today would finally be different. Today I would leave that cold, suffocating attic and stand before my fiancé again.

But the moment I stepped into the banquet hall, I understood: tonight's celebration was not about me.

Adrian stood at the center of the room, his black evening coat sharpening the severe lines of his face. His crimson eyes, the natural mark of vampire nobility, carried a pressure that was almost physical. Sophia stood at his side with her hand tucked into the crook of his arm. Her pale gold gown glowing glimmered, and she looked like a princess blessed by the spotlights. They spoke softly together, and Adrian occasionally glanced down at her with a patience he rarely showed anyone.

Anyone could see they looked like the real couple.

But I was supposed to be the real couple. I was Adrian's betrothed, the girl whose engagement had been arranged since childhood.

Our first meeting had been when we were both very young, before my mother died. As a child born of vampire and human blood, I was powerful, yet could never fully control that power. My mother never once called me a monster. She would hold me and say gently, "Elena, you just haven't learned to master your gift yet."

My father still loved me then, too. They would bring me with them to the vampire Prince's estate for gatherings, and that was where I first met Adrian. He was still a child himself, yet he had already been quietly designated as the Prince's heir, his abilities too formidable to overlook.

At one of those parties, several children mocked me openly: a half-blood, unstable, with no business attending a noble gathering. I stood in the garden with red-rimmed eyes, fingers white-knuckled around my skirt.

Adrian walked over and looked at those children with an unyielding expression.

"Say another word and I'll have every one of you removed from my father's estate."

They went quiet immediately, heads bowed. Then Adrian looked down at me and held out a handkerchief.

"Don't cry. One day you'll be my wife. No one will dare touch you."

I remembered him from that moment on. I remembered the shape of his back as he stood between me and them, and I kept that handkerchief tucked away like something sacred. He had promised that when we were grown, he would marry me. I genuinely believed, back then, that I would always be that happy.

Then my mother died during the Turning Ceremony, and everything changed.

My father remarried quickly. Sophia was brought into the house — softer than me, more charming, more effortlessly likable. I, the unstable half-blood, became a problem to them. My stepmother said I needed to be kept at home, that my power was too dangerous, that one slip in front of outsiders would disgrace the entire family. My father hesitated at first, then gradually believed her words and let her shut me away completely.

So I was locked in the attic. Heavy curtains over every window, someone posted at the door at all times, and no way to see Adrian or reach him.

All I had, through those years, was the memory of him. I would lie awake at night and hear his voice in my mind, reminding myself that we were still engaged, that if I could only hold on until the betrothal ceremony, he would see me again and do what he'd done when we were children: step in front of me and take me away from this suffocating house.

Besides — just the night before the ceremony, I had saved his life. He had been badly wounded by hunters and collapsed in broad daylight. No ordinary vampire could have survived that sunlight, but I was a half-blood, and daylight didn't harm me. So I ran and put myself between him and the hunters, and when their black rifles swung toward me I didn't move, because it was Adrian. The person I had waited years for. The person I had loved just as long.

Even if he no longer wanted to claim our engagement, even if he wanted nothing to do with a monster like me, surely that one act of saving his life would be enough to make him leave me some shred of the dignity I had almost none of left.

But now he stood beside Sophia and looked at me the way you'd look at something you meant to throw away.

The murmurs around me grew louder.

"Isn't that Sophia beside Lord Adrian? They look wonderful together."

"But isn't tonight Lord Adrian and Miss Elena's engagement party?"

"Who knows? Miss Elena hasn't been seen in years."

"Apparently her bloodline is unstable. Difficult temperament. I heard she even accidentally killed several servants."

I stood still and felt the cold creeping into my hands, my feet. While I had been locked away, the world had written a different story for me.

In their eyes, I was a volatile, spoiled creature, a dangerous girl who needed to be kept out of sight. But I hadn't done anything.

I had waited so long. I had finally made it here. And I found him looking somewhere else entirely.

My father crossed the room toward Adrian with a practiced smile on his face.

"Lord Adrian, I believe it's nearly time. Shall we make the announcement?"

A hush fell over the hall, and every eye turned to Adrian. I looked up, too. There was still a ridiculous glimmer of hope in my chest. Perhaps he'd just grown unfamiliar with me after so long, and once we were formally betrothed, everything would find its way back to what it should have been.

Then Adrian reached out and took Sophia's hand.

Sophia startled, softly calling his name.

“Adrian...”

He murmured something low and reassuring

“Don’t be scared.”

Then looked at my father, his voice calm and clear.

"I'm changing my betrothed."

Silence crashed through the hall. My father's smile froze. "Changing your betrothed?"

Adrian finally looked at me. It was the first time all evening he had truly looked at me, and those crimson eyes held none of the warmth I had imagined: none of the tenderness of two people reuniting after years apart, no grief, only cold indifference.

"The woman I love is Sophia. She is the only one I will marry."

Sophia's eyes immediately filled with tears, as though the words had moved her beyond words. "Adrian, please don't do this. Elena will be hurt." She spoke of being hurt but never withdrew her hand.

My father was silent for a moment, then looked between Sophia and Adrian. After all these years, I knew: he wasn't the father who had loved and doted on me as a child.

"Since Lord Adrian has made his decision—"

My head snapped up. "Father." My voice wasn't loud, but it made his expression darken. My stepmother immediately moved to Sophia's side, her face tender for the audience, though her eyes aimed at me were always full of threat.

"Elena. This is not the time for a scene."

A scene. My fiancé was publicly discarding me at our own engagement party, and simply opening my mouth was called a scene.

I looked at Adrian. "You say the woman you love is Sophia."

His voice was cold. "Yes."

My eyes were beginning to burn. "Then what am I? I waited years for this night. I thought at least you'd ask me why you never saw me, where I'd been."

Adrian's brow tightened. "Sophia told me. You never wanted to see me. You hated the vampire world and had no intention of honoring our engagement."

I went still, then looked slowly at Sophia. She bowed her head and tears fell at precisely the right moment.

"I only told him what you said yourself, Sister. You can't blame me for that."

A cold, bitter laugh escaped me. I gripped the hem of my gown, the red dress that had been my mother's, the only formal wear I owned after years in that attic, and clutched it like a lifeline.

I had been locked up there and wasn't even allowed to write to Adrian.

Yet Sophia had walked freely in and out of the Prince's estate, seen him whenever she wished, stood beside him and spoken all sorts of words in my name that I had never voiced.

Adrian's voice came back, colder still. "Enough. Stop making this difficult for Sophia."

In that moment something in my chest was punctured clean through. I forced myself forward one step.

"Do you remember that night? Not long before this party, you were badly wounded by hunters. You fell in the sunlight and no one could get to you. I put myself in front of you and protected you. Are you going to pretend that never happened?"

The hall went utterly silent. Sophia's face finally changed. But Adrian's brow creased, and though something flickered in his eyes — a brief, raw confusion — Sophia's crying pulled his attention back, and by the time he looked at me, there was nothing left in his expression but cold judgment.

"The one who saved me was Sophia."

I went rigid.

He looked at me without flinching. "Elena. Even now, you're still trying to take credit from her?"

I stared at him, and suddenly breathing hurt. "It wasn't her." My voice shook, but I held his gaze. "Adrian. The person who saved your life was me."