Chapter 3

Elena's POV

I was not sure how I made it back to the attic.

The cuts on my knees were still seeping, and my palms burned. After years of small wounds and larger ones, even my half-blood resilience wasn't much to speak of.

My healing had been slower than any ordinary vampire's for a long time, and the silver bullet wounds in my arm had never fully sealed, aching with a low, constant dullness.

But none of that came close to the way Adrian had looked at me in that hall: cold, contemptuous, barely bothering to hide his irritation, as though every memory we'd shared was a lie.

Everything I had kept myself alive on, these past years, collapsed at once.

The attic door creaked open and the smell of damp and neglect hit me first. This was where I had lived for years: narrow, cold, half the windows nailed shut.

They hadn't been entirely wrong. My half-blood power was genuinely difficult to control when I was young; when my emotions ran high I couldn't always contain it. I would grip my own arms hard until the feeling passed, until I went blank and still. But I had never harmed anyone.

I had always believed that if I only held on until the engagement party I'd be free. Adrian would come and stand in front of me again the way he had in that garden, and tell everyone to leave me alone.

Today I finally understood: what I had waited for wasn't rescue. It was another humiliation.

I walked slowly to the bed and opened the old wooden trunk. There wasn't much inside: a few dresses faded from too many washings, my mother's old book, and the handkerchief I had kept since I was a child. I stared at it for a long time, then left it where it was.

I didn't want it anymore. He didn't want me, so why would I keep his handkerchief.

I put my mother's book into a bag and added the few dresses.

When my mother was still alive she used to tell me about the human world, about how vast it was and how different.

No old noble bloodline laws, no one telling you that you didn't belong somewhere because of what you were.

She said, “if you ever don't want to stay in the vampire territories, go to the human world. Find work, find a place to live. It would be hard, but you could survive.”

Adrian didn't want me anymore. The Valerie family had never truly needed me. I would leave.

I had just closed the bag when a soft knock came at the attic door. Sophia stood in the doorway — changed out of her celebration gown, a soft pale wrap around her shoulders, the practiced worry still on her face.

"Sister." She came in and looked at my injured knees. "How did you manage to do this to yourself?"

I didn't answer.

Sophia sighed, as if she genuinely pitied me. "I was frightened too, during the ceremony. You knew Adrian wouldn't believe you — why say it out loud, in front of everyone? All you did was give everyone more reason to dislike you."

She lifted her eyes, and malice crept into her smile.

I picked up my bag. "Are you finished? I'm leaving."

Her expression stiffened, then she smiled again. It was a gentle smile, yet the triumph in her eyes was no longer hidden.

"Leaving? Sister, how could you leave now?" I frowned. "Adrian has chosen you. What reason is there for me to stay?" Sophia laughed — softly at first, like she was trying to hold it in, then sharper and more deliberate. "I couldn't bear to see you alone and miserable, Sister."

She strolled toward me and reached out to straighten my sleeve with a careful, sisterly gesture, as though we had always been close. "You're not going anywhere. You have another engagement to attend. Father already agreed. You'll be married in my place to Lord Lucien."

My stomach dropped. "Lord Lucien?"

Sophia smiled wider. "You've heard the stories."

Of course I had. Every corner of the vampire territories knew the name. Lucien and Adrian's father were contemporaries; at one point they had even competed for the Prince's seat.

Then something happened — no one said exactly what — and Lucien withdrew from court entirely, retreating to an isolated domain in the north.

The rumors were grim: people said he had practiced forbidden blood arts, that it had cost him his looks, left him like a man in his eighties.

Others said his power had become unstable and violent, that in certain moods he tore apart anyone who came too close.

And this was the husband Sophia had apparently chosen for herself.

She watched the blood drain from my face with undisguised pleasure. "Adrian chose me, so I obviously can't marry him now. But the Valerie family already made a commitment to Lucien. He wants a daughter of the Valerie house." A pause. "I'm not going. So it has to be you."

I understood, finally, how it had all fit together. She had chosen a fiancé that everyone was terrified of, then performed helplessness and fear in front of Adrian until he felt compelled to save her, to publicly transfer the engagement.

Once she'd stolen my engagement, the terrifying fiancé she'd arranged could be quietly handed down to me.

One move, two gains: she became Adrian's promised bride and pushed me into something deep enough to drown in forever.

I stared at her, and a sudden chill ran through me.

"Sophia," I said, hearing the cold in my own voice. "You planned all of this from the beginning."

She didn't deny it. She only smiled, slow and serene, looking down at me from somewhere very high. "Don't look at me like that, Sister. Adrian only ever believed me. That's not something I can help."

She lifted her arm and ran her fingertips along the staged scar. "You're right, you know. The person who saved him that day wasn't me."

My breath stopped.

She was admitting it — here, in this attic, with no one else around, long after everyone had turned me into a laughingstock.

Sophia moved closer, her voice dropping. "But so what? Adrian believes me. Your father believes me. Every guest in that hall believes me. How much does the truth matter if no one will listen to it?"

“What does it matter how real the wounds on your arm are?”

I dug my fingers into the strap of my bag. The wound was pulled taut, and it hurt, but I didn't let go.

Sophia stepped back and smiled. "I should thank you, though. If you hadn't thrown yourself in front of Adrian, I never could have taken credit for it. And if you hadn't made that scene at the ceremony, Adrian wouldn't have felt so strongly about protecting me."

Her voice was light and warm, as though she were talking about something to celebrate. "Sister, you've finally been useful for something."

I closed my eyes. The pain in my chest was so complete I could barely breathe. But I was done fighting her, done explaining. She wanted my life — she could have it. I just wanted to go.

I picked up my bag and started around her toward the door. Sophia moved with terrifying speed and shoved me, sending me crashing to the floor, old wounds slamming against new ones.

I was drenched in cold sweat, barely able to push myself up.

"Don't rush, Sister. If you leave now, who's going to face Lucien tomorrow?"

"Move." Sophia's smile went quiet and deep. "No. You can't run from this."

She crouched close, her voice slow and deliberate. "You've always loved Adrian, haven't you? Then stay and watch. Watch him hand-deliver you to another man's door, for my sake."

My fingers began to shake. The unstable power in my blood stirred, restless, looking for an outlet.

But Sophia seemed satisfied with what she'd seen. She straightened up, reached over, and patted my shoulder.

"Don't worry, Sister. The gratitude you earned saving Adrian — I'll make sure to enjoy it for you."

She turned to leave, looked back once with a smile, and said, "From now on, I'll be Adrian's wife. In your place."

I couldn't hold it anymore. I swung.