LOGINI was a human sacrifice, yet an ancient blood pact bound me to Lucian Voss, the most feared vampire prince of the Night Realm. Any pain inflicted upon me would befall him tenfold. When consecrated silver cut my palm, the flesh burned from his hand. When a vampire lord forced poison down my throat, Lucian woke screaming, tore him apart, and burned his estate to the ground. After that, no vampire dared touch me. Until Lucian entered his once-a-century blood sleep. Duchess Seraphina, the pureblood vampire who had desired Lucian for five hundred years, broke into my chamber and pressed a red-hot silver brand against my chest. “A lowborn human sacrifice will never be worthy of our prince.” I watched her bring the brand toward my chest. “If this hurts me once, how many times do you think Lucian will feel it?” Her smile twisted. Then she drove the burning silver into my skin. I couldn’t fight back. I was too weak to even move. Because deep beneath the castle, Lucian was suffering ten times the pain. And when that pain dragged him from his sleep, every vampire in this room would regret ever laying a hand on me.
View MoreThe steward rushed forward, wrapped the blue cheese in three layers of cloth, and carried it from the dining chamber. Another servant threw open the doors to the moonlit terrace.Only after the cold night air cleared the smell did Lucian return to his chair.Before I could escape, he caught me around the waist and pulled me onto his lap.“You grow bolder every day,” he murmured, pinching the tip of my nose. “First garlic. Now this. One might think you were trying to assassinate me.”I settled against his chest and toyed with the silver-free clasp at his collar.“Never. I was merely curious how many weaknesses the great Prince Lucian Voss possesses.”His expression softened.“Only one.”He leaned closer, his cool lips brushing the shell of my ear.“You.”Before I could answer, alarm bells rang from the eastern tower.Lucian’s arms tightened around me.The terrace doors burst open, and a bloodied sentry stumbled into the chamber. He dropped to one knee.“Your Highness, the eastern gate i
Lucian dipped two fingers into a jar of healing salve and spread it carefully over the burn beneath my collarbone.The coolness eased the lingering sting.“Because the bond was the only thing that made you stop trying to hurt yourself and chose to stay alive.”I stared at him.Lucian’s hand stilled against my skin.“When your family brought you to Blackthorn Castle, you looked at me as though I were a monster waiting to devour you,” he said. “You refused food. You tried to escape through a window three hundred feet above the ground. When my guards stopped you, you threatened to use a broken shard of glass on yourself.”His voice remained controlled, but something darker moved beneath it.“I could command every vampire in the Night Realm, Elara. I could not command you to value your own life.”He lifted his crimson gaze to mine.“Then the blood rite bound us. The moment you discovered your pain would become mine, you began eating again. You stopped fighting the guards. You handled every
“Your Highness has always had a taste for cruel jokes,” Seraphina said. “Mortals are prey. Nothing more.”She struggled to preserve what remained of her dignity, though her voice shook with every word.Still on her knees, she crawled toward Lucian and reached for the torn hem of his shirt.His eyes flashed crimson.An invisible force struck her squarely in the chest and hurled her across the hall.“Prey?” Lucian repeated.His gaze followed her with cold contempt.“You have spent five hundred years boasting of your pure blood, Seraphina. Pity it never carried any intelligence.”She flinched.Lucian looked toward the two Royal Guards standing beside the execution post.“Bind her.”The guards moved instantly.Seraphina screamed as they dragged her toward the post.“Your Highness, no! Please!”The same consecrated silver restraints she had used on me closed around her wrists. Smoke hissed from her skin as the metal began to burn through immortal flesh.Her composure finally shattered.“I d
Lucian stood amid the wreckage of the iron doors.The face I remembered as cold and flawless was covered in black cracks, the poison of the Dawnfire pulsing beneath his skin. Blood ran from thin wounds along his cheek and jaw—the same places Seraphina had traced with her silver needle.The flesh beneath his collarbone was burned and raw. Both wrists were torn open.And above his heart, blood poured through the plain black shirt he had worn into his blood sleep.Every wound matched mine.Only his were ten times worse.He had torn himself from a ten-year sleep after barely a month and climbed out of the crypt while the blood bond ripped his body apart.The entire Hall of Judgment fell silent.Only Lucian’s ragged breathing echoed between the stone walls.His crimson eyes remained fixed on Seraphina’s hands, still gripping the Saint’s Thorn lodged in my chest.“Did you think I would never wake,” he rasped, “or have you simply grown tired of living?” No one answered.The nobles stared fr












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