Chapter 2 – Welcome to the Kingdom of Eternal Night

I came back to consciousness slowly, the way you surface from a dream you’re terrified to leave.

The first thing I felt was silk, cool, impossibly soft, sliding across my bare arms and legs.

The second thing was the scent: night-blooming jasmine, old stone, and something metallic-sweet that made my pulse race for reasons I couldn’t name.

My eyelids fluttered open.

Above me stretched a vaulted ceiling painted with constellations that moved. Real constellations. I watched Orion chase the Pleiades across a sky made of living starlight.

The bed was enormous, round, draped in midnight velvet and silver thread. Black candles floated in mid-air, flames burning blue and steady, casting no shadows.

I sat up too fast. The room spun.

A woman stood at the foot of the bed, hands folded, head bowed.

She was tall and willowy, skin like fresh snow, hair the color of moonlight on water.

Her gown was liquid silver, and when she lifted her face I saw eyes the exact shade of fresh blood.

“Good evening, Your Highness,” she said, voice soft as velvet. “His Majesty has been waiting.”

I clutched the sheets to my chest. “Where am I? Where’s my brother? If you’ve hurt Jamie”

The woman Livia, I would later learn dropped to one knee instantly.

“Peace, my lady. Your brother is safe in the human world, under the protection of the royal guard. He wakes every morning to private tutors, the finest doctors, and a garden full of sunflowers because he once told a guard he missed them. He wants for nothing. You have my oath on that.”

Her sincerity hit me like warm water. I sagged against the pillows.

“Then… where am I?”

Livia rose gracefully. “You are in Nocturne Palace, the heart of Vampyria—the kingdom that exists beneath the human veil. The eternal night is our sky, and the stars you see above you are real. They simply chose to shine for us alone.”

She crossed to an ebony wardrobe taller than my old apartment and opened it.

Gowns spilled out like liquid night: sapphire, amethyst, emerald so dark it looked black until the light caught it.

She selected one the color of a midnight sky just before dawn and laid it across the bed.

“His Majesty requests your presence in the throne hall within the hour. May I assist you?”

I stared at the dress. It was sleeveless, backless, with silver constellations embroidered so finely they seemed to twinkle when I breathed.

“I’m pregnant,” I said stupidly.

Livia’s smile was gentle. “Four months along, according to the royal physician. The gown is designed to honor the life you carry.”

She helped me out of the bed my legs wobbled like a newborn foal and led me to a mirrored alcove.

The reflection stole my breath.

My skin had taken on a faint luminous quality, as though moonlight lived under it. My dark brown hair fell in waves to my waist, glossy and healthy in a way it had never been. And there, just visible beneath the thin silk robe, was the gentle curve of my stomach.

Livia brushed my hair with a silver comb that sang softly with every stroke.

“Tell me about him,” I whispered, afraid and unable to stop myself.

Livia’s hands never paused. “Prince Valerian Nocturne is five hundred and twelve years old. The only son of King Lucius the Unbroken. He has ruled as Crown Prince for four centuries. Warriors fear his blade. Scholars fear his mind. Women—” She paused, lips curving. “Women have thrown themselves at his feet for centuries. He never looked twice.”

“Until the auction,” I finished.

“Until you,” she corrected softly. “He smelled you across the room and bid ten million without seeing your face. The court still speaks of it in hushed tones.”

She slipped the midnight gown over my head. It fell like water, clinging and flowing in all the right places, the silver stars glittering across my breasts and the small swell of my belly.

A circlet of black diamonds and moonstones was placed on my brow.

Livia stepped back, eyes shining with something that looked suspiciously like awe.

“You look like the prophecy come to life, my lady.”

Before I could ask what that meant, the double doors at the end of the chamber swung open on silent hinges.

Two guards in black armor etched with silver bats bowed so low their foreheads touched the floor.

“It is time.”

The walk to the throne hall took forever and no time at all.

We passed corridors of black marble veined with silver, windows that showed starfields and nebulae, fountains that sang in minor keys. Vampires beautiful, terrible, ancient stopped and stared as we passed. Some bowed. Some looked ready to kneel. A few hissed, eyes glowing with hatred.

Livia never left my side.

Finally we reached two doors carved from a single piece of obsidian, taller than a city bus.

They opened inward.

The throne hall was a cathedral of night.

The floor was polished onyx that reflected the ceiling’s moving galaxy.

Columns of black crystal rose into darkness.

Hundreds no, thousands of vampires lined the walls in perfect silence, dressed in velvet and lace and armor that belonged in museums.

At the far end, on a dais of thirteen steps, stood the throne.

It was made of swords thousands of them fused together into a seat of sharp, lethal beauty.

And on it sat him.

Valerian Nocturne.

He wore black leather and silk tonight, the royal coat open to reveal a chest carved from centuries of war.

The crown of black diamonds rested heavy on his silver hair.

His eyes—God, those eyes—locked on me the second I appeared.

The entire hall dropped to their knees as one.

I walked the endless aisle alone. My bare feet made no sound on the cold stone.

Every step echoed in my heartbeat.

When I reached the foot of the dais, Valerian rose.

He was taller than I remembered. Broader. More terrifying and more beautiful.

He descended the thirteen steps slowly, deliberately, until he stood one breath away.

Then, in front of his entire kingdom, the Crown Prince of Vampyria, the most feared warrior in a thousand years, dropped to his knees before me.

He pressed his forehead to the curve of my stomach.

The hall was so quiet I heard my own heartbeat.

“Hello, little star,” he whispered, voice rough with emotion. “I felt you the moment you were conceived. I have waited every single day to meet you.”

A tear—actual silver—slid down his cheek and soaked into the silk over my belly.

Then he looked up at me, crimson eyes blazing.

“And you, Harper Quinn. my stubborn, brave, impossible little sun. you are home.”

He rose in one fluid motion and cupped my face with both hands.

“I have spent five centuries searching for the one person who could make me feel alive again. I found her selling her light for ten million dollars in a human club.”

A ripple went through the court—shock, outrage, fascination.

Valerian ignored them all.

“I claim you,” he said, loud enough for every vampire in the kingdom to hear. “As my mate. As my queen. As the mother of my heir. And if any creature in this realm or above it dares to harm you or our child”

His fangs lengthened, deadly and beautiful.

“I will burn the stars from the sky to keep you safe.”

He kissed me.

Not the careful, reverent kiss of a prince.

The desperate, claiming kiss of a male who had waited half a millennium for his soul to return.

The court erupted—some cheering, some screaming in fury.

Valerian broke the kiss only to lift me into his arms like I weighed nothing.

He turned to face the hall, me cradled against his chest.

“Behold,” he roared, voice shaking the very foundations of the palace, “your future queen and the mother of the Sun-Child!”

A thousand voices answered—some in worship, some in hatred.

And high above, in the private royal balcony, a pair of golden eyes opened for the first time in five hundred years.

Eyes that belonged to someone who had once worn Valerian’s crown.

Eyes that looked at me with recognition… and terrible, terrible hunger.

The ancient king was awake.

And he was coming for what he believed was his.