Chapter 2

“Take off the robe, Lilith,” I said.

Lilith stroked the velvet, her smirk widening. “But I was just preparing dinner for Owen. He loves it when I serve him straight from the vein.”

“It was my mother’s,” I replied. My voice was flat.

Owen strode past me, tossing his keys on the entryway table. “Don’t start, Mallory. It’s just a robe.”

“She’s the one who killed them,” I stated.

Cain snorted from the stairs. “Still telling that lie?”

I tilted my head, studying my fifteen-year-old son. His jaw was set. He believed what he was saying.

“I guess I am,” I murmured.

The smell of human blood mixed with vanilla liqueur drifted from the great hall, mingling with Lilith’s heavy tuberose perfume.

It turned my stomach.

It threw me back to the cold, damp stone floor of the clan’s tribunal hall, five years ago.

I was sitting in a dark holding cell, just beneath this very floor.

Ready to turn to dust.

My parents, respected clan elders, were dead.

I thought my bonded mate, Owen, had locked me away for my own good.

I thought I had drained them in a drunken frenzy.

Then, the heavy iron grate above me opened a crack. Voices drifted down the air vent.

“Are we really doing this?” Owen asked, his footsteps pacing the floor above my head. “Lying to Mallory? Her parents were loyal.”

I crawled toward the vent, pressing my ear to the cold metal.

“Owen, I’m fragile,” Lilith whimpered. “I didn’t mean to lead the lesser bloods to ambush them. I was scared. Are you really going to hand me over to the Council?”

“They were her family, Lilith.”

“And I am your future,” she pleaded. “Mallory’s line is weak. The silver poison in the Sunken Church will wither her. She’ll be safe.”

My hands started to shake. The truth hit me like a physical blow. I wasn’t a kin-slayer. She was.

“Open the door!” I screamed, slamming my fists against the cell’s iron bars.

The voices upstairs stopped. Hurried footsteps descended the stone steps. Owen appeared, a ring of keys in his hand. Lilith hid behind his broad shoulders.

“Let me out!” I roared.

“Mallory, calm down,” Owen commanded.

“You killed them!” I shoved my arm through the bars, trying to grab Lilith’s dress. “You murdered my parents!”

Owen unlocked the door, only to shove me backwards. “You’re having a breakdown.”

My fangs pierced my lips.

My power surged through my veins.

I didn’t care about the silver chains clamped to my ankles.

I bared my teeth at the woman who had ruined my life.

“I’m going to tear you to pieces!” I snarled.

I lunged.

“Restrain her!” Owen yelled.

Four guards swarmed the cell, pinning my arms.

I thrashed wildly, snapping my jaws toward Lilith’s throat.

She whimpered, clinging to Owen.

“Mother?”

The small voice froze the blood in my veins.

I stopped fighting the guards. I turned my head.

Cain was standing at the bottom of the stairs. He was only ten years old, standing there in his pajamas.

“Cain,” I choked out, retracting my fangs. “Tell them. Tell them it wasn’t me.”

The boy looked at me. His eyes were dry. No tears. No fear.

“I saw her do it,” Cain said, his voice crystal clear. “I saw Mother drain their blood.”

The cell fell silent.

“What?” I whispered.

Cain raised a small finger and pointed it straight at my chest. “She’s my mother. I wouldn’t lie.”

“Cain, who told you to say that?” I begged, dropping to my knees.

The silver chains seared my skin.

“Please!”

“Take her to the Sunken Church,” Owen ordered, turning his back on me.

“Mallory?” Lilith’s voice snapped me back.

I blinked. The grand foyer of the clan castle came back into focus.

Lilith stood before me, waving a perfectly manicured hand in my face. “Did you hear me? I asked if you wanted to bathe before dinner.”

I looked at her hand.

Then I looked at Cain, still standing on the stairs with his heavy book.

I laughed.

It started as a low chuckle in my chest, then grew into a full-throated laugh that echoed under the gothic arches.

Owen grabbed my uninjured arm. “What’s wrong with you?”

I pulled my arm away. I didn’t scream. I didn’t bare my fangs.

“Nothing,” I smiled, looking Lilith dead in the eyes. “I’m perfectly fine. Your blood wine smells wonderful.”

Lilith took a step back, her triumphant expression faltering.

She shot a nervous glance at Owen.

“Go to your room, Cain,” Owen ordered.

“I need to feed,” the boy protested.

“Now,” Owen snarled.

Cain rolled his eyes, turned, and stomped up the stairs.

A moment later, his bedroom door slammed shut.

“You’re acting insane,” Owen muttered, running a hand through his hair. “Go upstairs. The room at the top of the North Tower is yours.”

“The tower?” I asked.

“Lilith and I have the master suite,” he answered, chin raised. “Obviously.”

“Obviously,” I repeated.

“I’ll have some animal blood sent up,” Lilith offered, her sweet tone returning. “You must be thirsty. Not much to drink from the rats in the church, was there?”

“They left plenty of bones,” I said.

I walked past her, my bare feet silent on the cold marble.

I ascended the grand spiral staircase, my hand trailing on the polished banister.

The wound in my arm throbbed, sending burning jolts down to my fingertips.

I reached the second-floor landing and walked to the end of the hall. The door to the tower room was ajar.

I pushed it open.

The room was empty.

No mattress on the stone bed.

No blackout curtains on the window.

A thick layer of dust covered the vanity.

“Make yourself at home,” Owen called up from the bottom of the stairs.

I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. The lock clicked shut.

I leaned against the wood, sliding down to the floor. I buried my face in my hands.

They thought I was broken.

They thought five years in the cage had turned me into a mindless, obedient shell.

A sharp knock sounded on the door.

“Mother,” Cain’s voice came through the wood.

I dropped my hands. I didn’t answer.

“I know you’re sitting there,” he said.

“What do you want, Cain?” I asked, keeping my voice level.

“Leave,” he demanded. “Pack up your filth and get out of this house.”

“I am your mother.”

“Lilith is my mother,” Cain shot back. “She’s the one who raised me as a scion of this house. You just ruin everything.”

A strange calm washed over me. The maternal instinct that once would have sacrificed eternity for him had suddenly turned to ice.

“Did she teach you to say that?” I asked.

“I don’t need anyone to teach me anything,” he spat. “You’re a kin-slayer.”

“You know what you saw that night, Cain,” I said softly.

A long silence filled the hallway.

“I saw a monster,” he finally whispered.

Footsteps retreated down the hall. A door slammed.

I pushed myself up from the floor and walked to the bare window.

The moon hung low over the clan estate, casting long shadows across the lawn.

My parents were buried out there somewhere. In unmarked graves.

I touched my arm, where the black blood was weeping.

The poison from the silver shackle two days ago still coursed through my veins, hot and sharp.

I closed my eyes, feeling my pureblood instincts stir beneath my skin.

A floorboard creaked just outside my bedroom door.

Someone was in the hall.

I opened my eyes and stared at the doorknob.

Slowly, it began to turn.