Chapter 1

“You smell like rotting filth.”

The heavy iron doors of the Sunken Church slammed shut behind me.

Owen’s cold voice cut through five years of silence.

The sun-torture had destroyed my night vision. I had to squint to make out his silhouette, a tall shadow leaning against a black Rolls-Royce Phantom.

Still so perfect. Still so superior. His suit was handmade, tailored to perfection. He radiated the oppressive power of the Crimson Moon Prince.

I said nothing. I just pressed my left hand hard against my right arm.

Two days ago, the cage’s mechanism failed.

Deadly sunlight had leaked into the dungeon, burning straight through my flesh.

The cursed silver shackle bit deep into the bone. Black, poisoned blood dripped from my fingertips, one drop at a time, onto the dry earth.

“Cat got your tongue? Does it hurt?” Owen leaned in.

His aggressive scent of cold pine surrounded me, mixed with something else. Something sickly sweet.

Lilith’s scent.

“For five years, you survived like a sewer rat,” Owen’s long fingers gripped my chin, forcing my head up. His voice was a cruel, taunting whisper. “And Lilith? She spent every one of those nights in my velvet bed. Her body is flawless. Her blood is the finest vintage in the world. She filled every space you left empty. And she did it better.”

He was waiting.

Five years ago, words like that would have made me insane with jealousy. I would have dissolved into black mist and torn out his throat, taking back my mate with tooth and claw.

He wanted to see me break. He needed to prove he could still control my soul.

I just stared at him. The silver poison screamed in my veins, but my heart was a dead, silent thing.

“I know,” I said.

Owen’s brow furrowed. His jaw tightened. “What did you say?”

“I said, I know.” My voice was empty. Hollow. “Can we go now? My wound is starting to rot.”

He stared at me, his disappointment a palpable thing.

He wrenched open the passenger door. “Get in.”

The drive back to the clan castle was dead silent.

I stared out the window, cradling my arm, trying not to let the bumpy road jar the wound.

When Owen finally parked, he killed the engine and shot me a venomous look. “Cain is inside. Don’t cause a scene.”

“He’s my son,” I muttered.

“He’s fifteen now,” Owen snapped. “He knows exactly what you did.”

I shoved the door open and got out.

The clan castle loomed before me.

The great Gothic spires and iron gates, decorated with gargoyles, looked exactly the same.

We walked inside.

The familiar scent of cold stone, old parchment, and a faint, sweet trace of blood hit me.

I stopped at the bottom of the grand spiral staircase. My fingers ghosted over the polished obsidian banister.

“Take off those filthy shoes,” Owen ordered from behind me. “Don’t track the stench of the prison onto the carpets.”

I didn’t hear him. The staircase had pulled me back.

The voices of ten years ago echoed in my ears, loud and sharp.

“Owen?” I had called out that night. “Lilith?”

We had been best friends since we were children. The three of us. We shared everything.

I remember pushing open the door to the master suite.

“Oh, Owen, yes,” Lilith was moaning.

Naked limbs. Tangled together on our black velvet bed.

“Get off my mate!” I screamed, my memory-self raw with rage.

Owen’s head snapped up. He grabbed for a sheet. “Mallory, calm down!”

“Calm down? She’s my sister!”

I bared my fangs, crimson battle-lust burning in my eyes. I was ready to tear them both apart.

But Owen was in front of me in an instant. A wall of pure muscle, fangs bared inches from my face. He was protecting his new toy.

Then a small voice broke the standoff.

“Let her try.”

I turned. Cain was standing in the hallway. He was only ten, clutching a small knight carved from obsidian. This was the start of that hellish night five years ago.

“Cain, go to your room!” Owen roared.

“Mother is a coward,” Cain said. His young eyes were cold. “She doesn’t have what it takes. She won’t fight you.”

Betrayal from my own bloodline shattered my sanity.

My rage vanished.

I retracted my fangs, grabbed my car keys, and fled.

“Pour me another,” I slurred to the bartender an hour later, the neon lights of the blood den searing my eyes.

“My Lady, you’ve had enough,” he replied.

“Pour it!” I screamed.

The world spun. The music warped. Then, nothing but darkness.

I woke up freezing. Cold graveyard dirt was pressed against my cheek. The thick, coppery smell of blood filled my nose.

“Mother?” I whispered, pushing myself up from the soil.

We were at the edge of the estate. My mother was lying three feet away.

Her eyes stared, empty, at the moonless sky.

My father was slumped over a fallen headstone, his throat torn open, completely drained.

I looked down at my trembling hands.

I was clutching the clan’s sacred silver dagger.

It was slick with thick, warm blood.

“Mallory!” Owen’s voice boomed through the trees. A dozen clan guards surrounded me, their flashlight beams cutting through the dark.

“I didn’t do it,” I sobbed, dropping the dagger. “I swear!”

“Take the kin-slayer to the Sunken Church,” Owen ordered.

“Are you deaf?”

Owen’s harsh voice snapped me back to the present.

I blinked.

The grand spiral staircase came back into focus.

My cold heart hammered in my chest.

“I heard you,” I said, my throat dry.

Footsteps sounded from the floor above. I looked up.

A tall, broad-shouldered teenager was coming down the stairs. Cain.

He wore a dark grey cashmere sweater and carried a heavy, ancient-looking book in one hand.

He stopped halfway down. He looked at me like I was a smear of rotted blood on the floor.

“Cain,” I said, taking a small step forward.

“Don’t step on the carpet,” Cain said, his voice cold and commanding. “Lilith just had it cleaned. And you reek of animal blood and rotting earth.”

Before I could answer, the doors to the grand hall were thrown open.

A woman stepped into the foyer. She wore a tight, expensive silk gown under my mother’s old ceremonial robe.

Her hair was perfectly styled. A smirk played on her lips.

“Oh, Mallory,” Lilith said, brushing a non-existent speck of dust from the robe. “You’re finally back. We have so much to… catch up on.”