Chapter 4

Vivienne moved into the Blood Chamber the next day. Her people went in and out all morning. Boxes lined up down the hallway.

After that, she stopped pretending. The staff started saying “Ma’am” to her before they said it to me. The day’s menus went through her first. She kept Alaric glued to her side every minute and made sure he was never alone with me.

The only time I saw him was the daily check-in with Elaine. And every time, Vivienne hijacked the conversation — how many kicks today, what the physician said, how a pureblood pregnancy was different from a normal one — and soaked up every second of attention from Alaric and Elaine both.

I stood at the edge of the room like a piece of furniture nobody had bothered to move.

Two months went by like that. My packed boxes sat under my bed in the staff room, untouched. The encrypted channel carried one exchange a week.

The date was set. My birthday.

That afternoon, Alaric found me in the garden. I was trimming roses — a grounds crew job I’d claimed for myself, because the garden was the only place on the estate that got any sun.

He stopped at the edge of the shade and wouldn’t come any closer. Sunlight isn’t fatal to a vampire, just miserable — like breathing through thick smoke.

“Maren.” The guilt on his face was neat and practiced. “I know I haven’t been around much. It’s your birthday. Let me do something right for once.”

“I booked a boat on the Crystal River. A night cruise — the Blood Moon Ball. Every House on the river will be there.”

I looked at him over the shears. A night cruise. Of course. Married to a vampire, even your own birthday happens in the dark.

I started to answer —

“Alaric!”

Vivienne came across the lawn with her attendant, one hand on her belly, beaming. She picked a path that avoided every scrap of sunlight.

“I have a surprise for you.”

She grabbed his hand and pressed it flat against her stomach. “Feel.”

Silence.

Then something shifted under his palm.

His eyes went wide. He pulled his hand back, pressed it down again, like he couldn’t trust what he was feeling. “The baby — he moved? He just kicked?”

“He’s been kicking all day.” She leaned into him, her voice tuned to exactly the right sweetness. “You should come feel him more often. The physician says pureblood babies can sense their fathers. Talk to him every day and he’ll know your voice the second he’s born.”

“Really?” He was already walking her back toward the house, one arm around her waist, the other hand still on her belly. “Then I’ll talk to him every night. I want him to know me.”

Five steps. Ten. The shade swallowed them both.

I stood there holding the shears and three cut roses.

“Alaric.”

He turned.

I watched it happen in sequence — blankness, then the sting of remembering, then guilt, and finally the place he always landed: helplessness. The grown-up kind. The “be reasonable” kind.

“Maren, take Rose and your people on the boat. I’ll — I’ll make it up to you. Another time.”

Behind him, the corner of Vivienne’s mouth curled up. Just for a second. Then it folded back into concern, fast, like nothing had happened.

But I saw it. And she knew I saw it.

That one second was a show. Audience of one.

Something in my chest dropped. And when it hit bottom, it went still.

“All right,” I said.

There wasn’t going to be another time. This was the last one, and he’d just walked it out the door himself.

At dusk, an Ashford car took us to the Crystal River pier.

Just me, Rose, and my attendant. Three people, three small bags. The steward on duty watched us board and wrote it down in the register: the Lady, two servants, night cruise.

Good. Let it all be on the record.

The boat pulled away. The pier lights slid back. The river curved, and the estate’s roofline sank behind the trees and disappeared.

I sat at the stern, opened my bag, and reached for the oilcloth packet at the very bottom. Hard. Heavy.

Rose sat down next to me, her voice low enough for just the two of us.

“Maren. Is everything set?”

I watched the river darken. No moon tonight. Wide, black water. Perfect.

“Yeah,” I said. “Enjoy the ride. Last one.”

The dining room was bright with candlelight.

Vivienne sat beside Elaine, one hand on her belly, laughing at something an attendant had said. Elaine was pouring blood wine. The table was full, the conversation easy — like nothing in the world was missing.

Alaric wasn’t laughing. He kept looking at the door.

In three years of marriage, Maren had never stayed out late. She had no family in the city. Nowhere to go. That used to let him relax. Now it was making his skin crawl.

She was mad — that’s all this was. The birthday. The boat. Sending her off alone. She was proving a point. Fine. Let her have the night. Tomorrow he’d fix it. He always fixed it.

The door slammed open.

A staff member stumbled in, face white, barely getting the words out. “Lord — the boat was hit. Something rammed it mid-river — an explosion below the waterline — everyone on board went into the water. No survivors.”