Chapter 1

Elena's POV

The smile didn't leave Adrian's lips.

His arm around me didn't even loosen right away.

That composed, gentle ease was something I'd watched for ten years.

I used to tell myself he was simply cold by nature, just bad at showing affection.

It was only now that I finally admitted the truth.

No matter how good, how accommodating I was, I could never make a man with no heart love me.

“Don't be like this.”

Adrian's voice was low, a trace of weariness in it.

“I'll spend some real time with you these next few days.”

His smile turned perfunctory, as if those words alone were enough.

In the past, they always had been.

All it took was one more night of his company, one more time he held my hand at a dinner, one more moment he called me his wife in front of those other women, and a little flicker of hope I had no business feeling would come back to life.

I used to be far too easy to win over.

So he never felt he needed to take me seriously.

I looked down at the hand clasped at my waist.

It was long and beautiful, the fingers cold as ice.

Once, a long time ago, I had loved that hand.

At our wedding, it was this same hand that slid the ring onto my finger and promised me forever.

Everyone had been watching us then.

Vampire nobles, human nobles, the Council of Elders, the reigning Prince and Princess.

There was envy in the way they looked at me, and scrutiny too.

Standing beside Adrian, my heart pounded so hard I could barely hear the officiant's vows.

But I was happy anyway.

Because that day, I married the man I'd fallen for at first sight.

After the ceremony, I waited a long time for him.

I waited until the last guest was gone, until the blisters my heels had rubbed raw began to sting.

Only then did Adrian push open the door.

I sat on the edge of the bed, too nervous to lift my head.

He simply handed his coat to his assistant, stopped a few steps away from me, and said, politely:

“Elena, I want you to understand. This marriage is only what our families needed.”

“I'll respect you, and in front of others I'll give you all the dignity owed to the wife of the Prince's heir.”

“But I'd ask you not to hold out any false hopes where I'm concerned.”

That was our wedding night.

It was the first time I caught the cold distance beneath his gentleman's smile.

And yet I was quick to make excuses for him.

He was a vampire. Of course his feelings wouldn't run as hot as a human's.

He was willing to marry me, willing to respect me, which surely meant I still had a chance.

Only later did I understand that it had never been a chance.

It was a waiver he'd drawn up in advance to absolve himself.

Over the next ten years, every time he left, every time he strayed, every time he abandoned me in an empty bedroom, he could always fall back on those words.

He'd warned me, after all.

I was the one who'd insisted on hoping.

Sensing that I'd gone quiet, Adrian finally let go of me.

He looked down at me, a faint impatience surfacing in his blood-red eyes.

“What did that woman say to you?”

I thought of the young vampire woman, though only a blurred face was left in my mind.

When a vampire fell in love, the devotion lasted forever.

Unfortunately, Adrian had never fallen for me, and over the years he'd cycled through one lover after another.

I'd lost count of how many of these affairs I'd cleaned up, how many discarded women I'd watched come and go.

At first most of them would sneer at me, saying that after all these years of marriage I still hadn't been turned, proof that the rumors of our devoted union were nothing but lies.

In all our years together, I had never given him a child.

My body was frail, and I'd miscarried more than once. For the sake of bearing a strong half-blood heir, the Turning had been put off again and again.

Listening to those women, I couldn't help but agree with them.

It was true. Because I had no child, and because Adrian simply didn't love me, his heart had never been mine, married or not.

Not long ago, this still cut at me, and I couldn't keep the grief at bay.

But now, all that was left was numbness.

I shook my head, my voice still calm. “Nothing.”

“Then why bring up divorce out of nowhere?”

He lowered his voice, certain I was about to make a scene. But today my reaction was nothing like before.

In the past, I would have had so many questions.

I'd have asked whether he was soothing me tonight only to go see another woman tomorrow.

Asked why, knowing it would hurt me, he still made me clean up his messes.

Asked whether he'd ever, even for a single moment, wanted me and me alone.

By the end of it, I'd have been mortified at myself.

And he would always listen in silence.

Then, once I'd cried myself out, he'd hand me a handkerchief.

“Elena,” he'd say, “dry your eyes. As my wife, you shouldn't lose your composure like this.”

Even his reproaches came out impeccably dignified.

Now I had no wish to ask.

The answer had been there all along.

I'd simply refused, until now, to admit defeat.

“I know you don't love me.”

I lifted my head to look at him.

“And I know you've resented me clinging to you all these years.”

For just an instant, Adrian's expression stiffened.

Maybe he hadn't expected me to say it so calmly.

He was probably more used to me with red-rimmed eyes and a trembling voice, throwing away the last of my pride to ask him:

“Did you really never love me, not even once?”

I wouldn't ask again.

I was out of time.

In the bottom drawer of my vanity, the diagnosis still lay buried.

Seeing that no family had come with me, the doctor had been gentle at first; it took me pressing him again and again to get the real answer.

Six months at most.

With aggressive treatment, I might hold on a little longer.

But that time would be filled with drugs, pain, and endless rounds of tests.

I sat in that exam room, listening to the doctor explain it line by line, and all I could think about was Adrian.

If I told him, what would he do?

Perhaps, worried about appearances, he'd arrange the best doctors and a full course of treatment.

He was about to succeed as the new Prince, and at so crucial a moment he couldn't afford the reputation of a man who'd abandoned his gravely ill wife.

Still, I knew perfectly well that he likely didn't care whether I lived or died.

For years now, his tenderness had kept me hanging on far too long.

My health had been failing for a long time.

More than once, the doctors had warned me I should be turned as soon as possible.

But Adrian always said there was no rush.

He said the Turning was too important a thing to be done carelessly.

Once I'd borne him a stronger half-blood child, he said, it would be a more fitting time to speak of immortality.

I believed him.

I read every delay as nothing more than caution on his part.

Until, little by little, I came to understand.

He simply didn't want a woman he didn't love at his side for eternity.

For a vampire, turning his wife was the only true vow.

And after ten years as his wife, I was still nothing but a human who would age, and sicken, and die.

Now, after ten years trapped in a loveless marriage, I was finally leaving him, and at last I would be free.