Chapter 2

Back at the Enforcer's Hall, the atmosphere was heavy.

Marcus displayed his findings before the assembled enforcers. "The victim endured extended torture before death. Multiple broken bones, systematic blade wounds. The methods were deliberate — whoever did this took their time."

The faces around the room darkened.

The cellar wasn't the original crime scene. The body had been moved there, which meant the real location was still out there, along with whatever evidence it held.

"Search every patrol log from the past week," Damien ordered. "Check the boundary wards for anomalies. Someone carried a human body into our territory — the wards should have flagged it."

He turned to Marcus. "Run the Blood Tracing Rite. I want to know who she is."

Then he swept out with his team.

My husband poured more effort into identifying a stranger's corpse than he had ever spent on me while I was alive.

I thought of last month, when I gave him my mother's talisman.

It was the only thing I had left of my family. A small bronze disc engraved with protective symbols, worn smooth by decades of use.

"My mother said it kept her safe her whole life," I told him, pressing it into his palm. "Now I want it to keep you safe."

For a moment, something shifted in his expression. His fingers closed around it gently. I thought — maybe, finally — I had reached something real inside him.

Vivienne came by the next evening.

She spotted the talisman on the table and picked it up, holding it like something diseased. "What is this? Some human superstition charm?" She laughed. "Damien, wearing something like this is an insult to your bloodline."

She dropped it on the floor and ground it under her heel.

I slapped her. Hard. The crack echoed through the room.

Damien's reaction was instant. He seized my wrist, his grip so tight I felt the bones shift. A vampire's full strength against a human arm.

"You dare strike Vivienne?" His face was twisted with rage. "A human, raising her hand against a pureblood? You should be grateful she even acknowledges your existence."

He dragged me to the underground chamber and threw me inside.

Two days. No food. No water. Just darkness, and the sound of Vivienne's laughter drifting down from above.

Now, as Damien's hands moved gently over my ruined body, he murmured, "Tortured like this... her mate must be devastated."

I almost laughed. My mate would probably feel relieved. One less inconvenience.

His fingers traced the long scar running down my back.

I got that scar a year ago. A rogue hunter had ambushed Damien with a Holylight dagger — one of the few weapons that could truly kill a vampire. I saw the blade arc toward his back before he did.

I didn't think. I threw myself between them and took the strike.

A human body against a weapon designed to kill immortals. The blade carved a wound from my shoulder to my hip. The healers said I was lucky to survive.

But afterward, Damien couldn't stand to look at the scar. "Cover it up," he would snap. "I don't want to see that thing."

The scar that proved I would die for him disgusted him.

Could he recognize me through it now?

I held my breath, watching his face.

"Old wound," he said flatly. "Unrelated to the case."

He moved on.

Marcus spoke up. "There's something lodged in her throat." He reached in carefully and extracted a crumpled piece of paper, forced deep enough to choke on.

Damien frowned. "Too damaged to read. Send it to the analysts."

Just then, Vivienne reached out through their blood bond — the telepathic link between bonded vampires. Damien's entire demeanor shifted instantly. The hard lines of his face softened. His voice dropped to something tender.

"Vivienne? What is it?"

"Tomorrow's treatment ritual — will you be there?" Her voice carried that signature sweetness, fragile and brave. "And please, don't pressure Lena about the blood donation. I understand if she doesn't want to help me."

"Nothing is more important than your treatment," Damien answered. "And as for Lena — I will make her come. A human doesn't get to decide whether you live or die."

"I heard she's claiming to be pregnant with your child?" Vivienne sighed softly. "She must be so frightened of the blood draw to make up something like that."

"She's not pregnant," Damien said. "She's lying to avoid saving you. I won't let her get away with it."

Vivienne's voice turned gentle with concern. "Be careful, though. Someone killed a human in our territory. That's unsettling."

"You focus on getting better. Lena can go wherever she wants — as long as she doesn't disappear before I get your blood from her."

They said all of this just steps away from my body.

They planned my future — my blood, my compliance, my usefulness — not knowing that everything Vivienne wanted from me had already gone cold on that stone floor.

My death was Vivienne's design. Every step of it — the fake illness, the impossible demand, the hired killer — all her.

But Damien's blindness made it possible.

Even if he found out the truth right now, would he grieve? Or would he simply rage that Vivienne had lost her only compatible donor?