2

"My bloodline is unstable?"

Crowley avoided my searching look.

"What, should I tell every vampire out there that we changed the ceremony because Elsa is resting in your bedchamber? Come on, Catherine. Elsa just broke off her bond with Duke Arthur Blackwood. She's already hurting. Do you have to rub salt in the wound? Besides, it's just what we'll tell them. No one is going to care about the details."

To protect Elsa's feelings, he blamed every delay on me without a second thought, even though I was the bride.

Thirteen minutes to the bonding ceremony.

Marta suddenly cried out, "Your Grace, look! Lady Elsa isn't asleep at all!"

I looked up.

Through the glass doors to the balcony, I could see Elsa's silhouette, a wineglass raised in her hand.

"Crowley, anything else you want to say?"

"Maybe she only woke for a moment."

"She can drink, she can admire the moon, but she can't open a door for me?"

Cornered, he lashed out instead. "Today was supposed to be Elsa's bonding day too. She probably saw the decorations last night and fell apart, and she just wanted somewhere quiet. She has already lost one blood bond, and you are about to marry me. Can't you be a little more generous?"

Something in me went cold, inch by inch.

"So because she's in a bad mood, our blood bond gets ruined?"

"Who's ruining your bond?"

Crowley tugged at his tie, irritated.

"The ceremony is still happening. So the decorations are simpler, we drop a few nonessential rites, and we start a few minutes late. Do you really have to make such a big deal out of this, Catherine?"

With one offhand sentence, he reduced the ceremony I had spent a hundred years preparing to almost nothing.

As long as the bond was sealed in the end, he did not care what was stripped away along the way.

Behind us, Crowley's parents arrived in a hurry.

His mother, Seraphine Ashbourne, seized my hand, and this was the first thing out of her mouth. "Catherine, I've heard all about it, but Elsa has just had her heart broken. Wait a little longer."

Only yesterday Seraphine had doted on me as her son's bride, and hearing her say that now turned my stomach.

"My blood bond? Wait for her?"

"Catherine, Elsa was supposed to seal a bond today too, and you are about to seal yours with Crowley. Why be so hard on a heartbroken girl?"

Vivienne was shaking with fury at that twisted logic.

"My daughter is the one being petty? If Catherine were petty, she wouldn't still be standing here without even a gown on!"

Crowley's father's face darkened.

"What are you saying? That you intend to drag this scene into the great hall? Every noble in the Thirteen Territories is in that hall. If this comes out, you'll humiliate both our houses!"

Lucien put my mother behind him and said coldly, "Humiliation? On my daughter's bonding day, you force her to give way to the whims of one adopted girl. That is the disgrace here!"

He had barely finished when two attendants came along pushing a trolley.

On the tray were warmed blood wine, soft blood cakes, and a small dish of honeyed berries.

Crowley reached out at once and tested the temperature of the blood wine.

"Too hot. Let it stand two minutes before you take it in. Elsa has a delicate stomach."

I had been busy since dawn without so much as a sip.

My fiance had not asked after me once.

Now he was fussing over every detail of another woman's diet.

With ten minutes left before the bonding ceremony, the clan Elder came in person.

"Your Grace, the blood circle in the great hall activates at eleven sharp. If you don't dress now, there won't be time to finish the ceremony."

Crowley took a pen and began striking lines through the order of service.

"Holy water rite, canceled. Blood-mingling rite, cut. No vows either. Go straight to the rings and the blood seal."