Chapter 1

I pushed open the door.

The room went dead silent. Everyone turned toward me.

Cassian was the first to recover. As heir to the Blood Throne, he was the highest-ranking vampire in the entire territory.

Even now, his voice carried the same calm, effortless authority I had known all my life.

“Since you’ve already heard it, I’m not going to lie to you.”

He glanced at Mira.

“Mira grew up without a vampire family. She’s barely adjusted to our world. Ravenwood would destroy her.”

Then his eyes returned to me, without a trace of guilt in them.

“You’ve always been independent, Avery. You know how to survive on your own.”

Mira Ashford, the recently returned daughter of a royal vampire family, tugged at his sleeve, her eyes already red.

I didn't bother wondering when the two of them had gotten so close.

I looked straight at Cassian.

“Who made the fake Ravenwood application forms?”

“I did,” Cassian said.

Not even a hesitation.

“And whose idea was it?”

Mira’s gaze flickered.

Dante Voss, heir to the war house, immediately stepped between us.

“We all agreed to it. Don’t turn this into an excuse to go after Mira.”

Then I asked the question that mattered most.

“And the blood vow you promised? Was that part of the lie?”

Cassian’s jaw tightened.

“You always wanted my blood vow. You wanted to be my future Queen.”

He paused.

“If I hadn’t promised you that, you wouldn’t have signed.”

He said it like it was obvious.

Like lying to me had simply been the most practical solution.

The worst part was, he knew exactly how I felt about him.

And he had used those feelings to get me to sign the application that would send me away.

“This is my fault. I’ll redo my application.” Mira suddenly reached for the phone in Julian’s hand.

“I’ll go to Ravenwood,” she insisted. “Avery can to to Nocturne with you.”

Julian Graves, heir to the Council House, pulled the phone away.

In fact, all four of them moved at once, as if they had to protect Mira from a decision that couldn't even be undone.

Adrian Blackwell caught her wrist. He was the heir to the Shadow House. As the Crown’s strategist, he knew better than anyone how to weigh the costs and benefits.

“Mira, the admissions are final. Applying to Ravenwood now won’t change anything. You’d just be giving up Nocturne for nothing.”

“But what about Avery?”

Her voice cracked.

“She’ll be alone in the human world. Ravenwood is thousands of miles away. She’ll have to live around humans every day, that’s miserable.”

Funny. She hadn’t seemed too worried about any of that when they faked the applications and set me up.

Cassian took a handkerchief and wiped the tears from beneath her eyes.

“Avery can handle it.”

His voice was gentle.

“You’ve barely back in the vampire world. Don’t throw away your future because Avery was upset.”

I stood a few feet away and watched all four of them comfort her.

So that was the answer.

They couldn’t bear to send Mira somewhere she would have to hide her fangs, suppress her strength, survive on rationed stored blood, and follow human rules every hour of every day.

But they could send me.

Julian adjusted his glasses.

“What we did wasn’t exactly honorable,” he said evenly. “But the outcome makes sense. You got Ravenwood. We stay at Nocturne with Mira. Everyone ends up where they belong.”

A born politician, he explained it all with perfect calm, as if betraying me had somehow been for everyone’s own good.

I laughed softly.

“Right. Everyone gets what they want except me. Funny how that never crossed your mind when you were planning all this.”

Dante’s expression darkened.

“How can you say that? You wanted Ravenwood anyway. Their faculty reached out to you twice. You were just too scared to actually go.”

Julian nodded.

“We knew the idea of moving thousands of miles away and living in the human world made you hesitate. That’s why you turned them down.”

He smiled at me as if he’d done me a favor.

“So we just helped you make the decision.”

How ridiculous.

Yes, I had always wanted to go to Ravenwood.

It had the best blood research program, and I’d dreamed of studying there since I was a kid.

But I had never been afraid of the distance. And I definitely wasn’t afraid of the human world. If anything, I was excited to see it.

I had turned Ravenwood down twice for one reason.

I couldn’t imagine leaving the four boys I had grown up with.

I had even been stupid enough to consider giving up Ravenwood for good just to follow Cassian to Nocturne.

I shook my head.

“Let me get this straight. You lied to get my signature. That’s not helping me make a decision. That’s taking away my choice so Mira could have hers.”

I was done listening to their hypocritical excuses.

I picked up the acceptance packet from the table.

Cassian stepped in front of me.

“Where are you going?”

“Home.”

His brows pulled together.

“And us?”

I looked at him.

“What us?”

His face stiffened.

“Avery, don’t be dramatic.”

“I said yes because I needed you to sign. But that doesn’t mean I don’t care about you. ” He paused. “I’ll stay with you until you leave. And when I have time, I can visit.”

Then, quieter, almost impatiently—

“You wanted a chance with me. I gave you one. What more do you want?”

I stared at him.

So in his mind, a few weeks of dating the future Vampire King was generous compensation for tricking me into leaving.

Mira spoke softly behind him.

“Avery, Cassian really does care about you.”

“When you got weak from hunger, he offered you his blood. Cassian never lets anyone feed from him.”

I almost laughed.

So what? He gave me his blood, then tricked me into signing away my choice.

What a bargain.

Mira spoke again, her voice soft.

“And you don’t have to worry about them. Once you’re gone, I’ll take good care of them.”

I looked at her.

“Since you care so much about them, I hope the five of you stay together forever.”

I reached beneath my collar and unclasped the pendant I had worn since I was twelve.

Five tiny bloodstone shards were set into the black metal.

One for me.

Four for the boys I had grown up with.

We had cut our palms on my thirteenth birthday and stained each stone with a drop of blood, swearing that no matter where we went, the five of us would always find our way back to one another.

I placed it in front of Mira.

“You can have this now.”

She didn’t reach for it.

Cassian’s frown deepened.

“What is wrong with you today? You’re the one who always said the five of us would never split up.”

“That was before.”

I walked out.

My phone vibrated before I reached the front steps.

RAVENWOOD ACADEMY — CLASSIFIED PROGRAM OFFICE

Transport will arrive in forty-eight hours.

Candidate Avery Vale, please confirm induction into the Five-Year Classified Blood Research Program.

I pressed CONFIRM.

This program accepted only the highest-ranked young vampires in the country. Once inducted, participants disappeared into secured human territories for five years.

No vampire visitors, no private communication, no personal devices.

My phone would be sealed and my location classified.

For five years, none of them would be able to reach me.

They assumed I could come home on weekends, and that Cassian could visit whenever he felt like it.

None of them knew the truth.

They had been so busy making sure I signed the application that not one of them had bothered to read what I was actually signing.

I locked my phone and kept walking.

I could feel their eyes on my back, but no one came after me.

Because in their minds, this was what I always did. I’d get angry. I’d cry. And eventually, I’d come back.

They took my love for granted because they never believed they could lose it.

But this time, they were really going to lose me.