Chapter 1

Cynthia

"Happy eighteenth birthday, fiancée."

The prayer died in my throat. A man's voice—low, unfamiliar—inside my room. I spun around, and a figure stood in the far corner, tall and still.

I was a servant of the Moon Goddess. No man had ever set foot in my bedroom.

I clenched my hands to stop the shaking and forced my voice out. "Sir?" It came out barely above a whisper. "You must have the wrong—"

He stepped into the moonlight, and the last of the midnight bells faded into nothing.

Sharp jaw, dark hair swept back from features so precise they looked carved. He wore all black, fabric that shimmered when he moved. But his skin was too pale, his stillness too absolute, and his eyes... too dark, too still, like something ancient wearing a young man's mask.

Vampire.

Two hundred years ago, humans, werewolves, and vampires had signed a peace treaty under the Moon Goddess's witness, ending the open wars. But vampires were still feared.

And I was wolfless. Eighteen years old today, and my wolf had never once stirred inside me.

He could snap my neck before I finished a single prayer.

My legs had gone soft. I should have screamed. I should have run. But my chest wouldn't expand, and all I could manage was to kneel there, trembling, and whisper the only words I had.

"Goddess above."

He smiled. Not warmly.

His gaze moved from the Goddess statue beside me to my body. My nightgown was damp, clinging to my skin. My arms were bare, my fingers red from the cold and still shaped from prayer. Something shifted behind his eyes. Unhurried. Appraising. I couldn't read it, and I didn't want to.

My skin tightened everywhere his gaze landed. I wanted to fold my arms across my chest, to pull my wet hair forward and hide. My hair was loose and tangled from the bath, falling in white-gold strands over my shoulders. I wanted to fold myself away until I was nothing.

He crouched down in front of me. Slowly. Silently. One hand reached out, and his fingers found my chin and tilted my face up.

His touch was ice-cold. Not like the night air, not like the stone floor under my knees. A cold that felt alive.

"Why so afraid?" That same voice, every word measured, almost unhurried. "I'm only here for my fiancée."

Fiancée.

I didn't pull away from his hand. If I moved wrong, those fingers could close around my throat.

"I'm not your fiancée," I said. Then, smaller: "I'm going to be a Crescent Sister."

Everyone knew what the Crescent Sisters were. The Moon Goddess's most devoted servants. They were devout beyond question, and they never married.

My father had told me since I could understand words that I was born in sin. My mother died giving birth to me, and only the Moon Goddess could wash the guilt from my blood. I'd grown up inside the monastery walls. I'd learned to pray and repent. To be so still that perhaps the Goddess would forgive me for being alive.

Over the years the Goddess grew into more than my savior. She filled the space my mother left. I had sworn my body and soul to Her long ago.

The Moon Goddess was the highest faith of every race. Surely even this man would not touch what belonged to Her.

The tightness in my chest loosened. I felt the cold stone under my knees, the night air on my bare feet. I thought he would step back.

But he leaned closer. His nose traced the side of my neck, just below my ear, and I felt his breath against my pulse. Slow. Deliberate.

My stomach clenched, and a muscle behind my ribs pulled tight in a way that had nothing to do with fear. The cold of his breath seeped through my skin and into my blood.

"Your scent is very sweet." His lips nearly grazed my neck. "I wouldn't make that kind of mistake."

My hands moved before my mind did. I shoved his chest with both palms.

He didn't budge. But he chose to lean back. He already knew he could take me again whenever he wanted.

"Enjoy your prayers." He rose to his full height, still watching me. "Cherish being your Goddess's virgin while it lasts. After tonight, the only one you'll pray to is me."

He stepped back into the dark corner he'd come from. The moon slid behind a cloud, and the room went black.

Gone.

But the cold spot on my chin where his fingers had rested said otherwise.

I knelt there for a long time, shaking.

My lips moved on their own. Goddess protect me. Goddess forgive me. Goddess protect me. The words spilled out so fast they blurred together, and the rhythm was the only thing I had.

I prayed until the words lost their meaning. Then I prayed more.

Slowly, my hands stopped trembling. I pressed them to my face and made myself think.

I had broken so many rules. My midnight prayer was left unfinished. I'd been alone with a strange man in my room at night, barely dressed. He had touched my face. His breath had been on my neck. None of it was my choosing, but the rules didn't care about intention. The monastery's rules were specific.

And there was something else. Something I couldn't name, couldn't face. A warmth that had flickered alive when his cold fingers touched my skin, and I—

I stood up.

I grabbed my shawl from the bed and wrapped it tight around my shoulders, then ran barefoot down the hallway.

Father needed to know. A vampire had come inside our house.

I pushed through the front door and stopped.

My father stood at the end of the garden path, his back to me, his head bowed. A black car was pulling away down the road. Long and gleaming under the streetlamp, the kind of car that had no business on our street or anywhere in this town.

Father's hands were clasped in front of him the way they clasped when he spoke to the monastery's wealthiest patrons.

He'd kept his head bowed as the car pulled away. The posture of a man showing deference.

He turned and saw me standing barefoot in the doorway.

"Father." My voice came out too small. "Who was that?"

His face changed. An expression I'd never seen on him before. He looked old, standing there. Smaller than I'd ever seen him.

"I saw a vampire," I said. "In my room. He told me—"

"He's your fiancé."