Chapter 3

The dinner finally ended. I stood alone in the echoing hall, the taste of ashes in my mouth.

"Elena. You're accompanying us."

Vincent’s voice echoed from the top of the grand staircase.

I looked up. He was helping Lilith into a cloak lined with rare white fur, his hands careful, almost tender, a courtesy he had never extended to me.

The sight was a physical ache.

"Of course," he said, his eyes finding me, cold and flat. "You remain my chief operative. It is time you understood your new primary duty is to her security."

“Even after my marriage,” Vincent added calmly, as if granting mercy, “your position will not change.”

“You are still my most valued blood source.The person I trust the most.”

An armored limousine, windows blacked out, idled in the courtyard.

I moved toward the front passenger seat out of long habit.

"The back, Elena," Vincent said, his tone leaving no room for argument.

Lilith slipped into the middle row of the spacious vehicle, Vincent following closely.

I was left with the rear bench seat, facing them like an unwelcome spectator.

The city slid by in a blur of darkness. The silence inside the car was oppressive.

After a few minutes, Lilith sighed, a delicate sound. "The gathering with the Elders were so taxing," she murmured, leaning her head against Vincent's shoulder. "And the refreshments at dinner were… lacking in vitality. I feel quite drained."

Vincent was silent for a long moment, staring out the window.

Then, without looking at me, he spoke. “Elena. Your wrist.”

A cold dread seeped into my veins.

In ten years, he had never allowed another to taste my blood. It was intimate, it was possessive.

“Vincent,” I whispered, the protest automatic and weak.

“Do not make me repeat myself.”

Slowly, numb, I pulled back the cuff of my sleeve, exposing my inner forearm.

Lilith watched, her pale eyes now sharp with avid interest.

“Be precise,” he told her softly. “The essence is potent.”

Lilith took the lancet, her movements elegant.

With a faint, almost clinical smile, she pierced a small, precise point on my wrist.

A violent shudder racked my body. It wasn’t the sting of the cut.

It was the profound, soul-deep violation of watching him offer my life, the very substance he guarded so jealously, to her like a passing delicacy.

Lilith leaned back, a sigh of pleasure escaping her lips.

“Truly remarkable,” she breathed, her eyes fluttering. “Like captured dawn. No wonder you kept this human for so long”

Vincent said nothing, merely watching her reaction with a slight, satisfied curve of his mouth. The shared secret, the intimate transaction performed over my body, was a betrayal more complete than any physical blow.

A wave of incendiary fire and blinding white light tore through the night.

“Ambush! Purifier squad!” Marcus roared from the driver’s seat, wrenching the wheel hard.

The air filled with heat and screaming brilliance as UV floodlights ignited from the overpass above, bathing the limousine in merciless glare.

Lilith screamed, a sound of pure terror, and crumpled against Vincent’s chest.

I reacted on pure instinct, pushing my own devastation aside.

I fired magnesium rounds through the narrow gunport, the explosive flashes briefly cutting through the inferno.

Shadows moved with predatory speed in the darkness.

“Get us out!” Vincent shouted, his body curving entirely over Lilith, forming a living shield. His attention was solely on her. “I got you, my heart. You are safe.”

The limousine skidded wildly as the road ahead erupted in fire.

Then came the silver.

Hundreds of polished beads scattered across the asphalt as the incendiaries detonated, rolling beneath the car like living embers.

Silver.

The scent hit at once. Burning metal and sanctified corrosion.

The vehicle slammed sideways into a concrete support, metal shrieking as the light intensified.

Through the fractured window, I saw them.

On the overpass, figures moved behind flame shields, directing focused arcs of fire downward, herding us into the open, into the light.

Time slowed.

Vincent looked once toward the source of the blaze.

He wrapped Lilith entirely within his body, pulling her down below the reinforced seats.

Then, with a sharp, brutal motion, his leg shot out.

The damaged door blew outward.

At the same instant, a surge of white-hot light flooded the cabin, followed by a cascade of silver beads skittering inside.

They bounced across the floor, hissing as they burned through leather and metal alike.

The heat hit me first.

Then the silver.

Agony tore through my shoulder and side as fragments embedded themselves into flesh, each one searing like acid.

He lifted my entire body with one kick, and then I was flung flying through the air—every inch of my insides throbbed with pain.

I hit the asphalt hard, the breath ripped from my lungs.

Silver burned wherever it touched the ground, scorching the air itself.

“No!”

I looked up, choking, to see Vincent emerge from the opposite side of the wreck.

Lilith was cradled securely against his chest, untouched by fire or light.

He murmured something into her hair and moved with vampiric speed, carrying her away from the inferno.

He did not look at me even once.

He never looked back.

.…...

Consciousness returned as a slow, painful tide.

I was in the clan’s subterranean infirmary, the air cold and sterile.

Tubes snaked from my arms—one drawing blood, another feeding it back in vampiric purification cycle meant to accelerate healing.

For a human body, it was exquisite torture.

“You survive, Miss Rossi,” intoned Dr. Aris, the ancient clan physician, as he monitored the machines.

“Marcus grabbed you. You will bear scars from silver and fire, but you are functional.”

“Vincent?” My voice was a ragged whisper.

“The Lord is with Lady Lilith,” he replied, his face a mask of neutrality. “She was… really unsettled by the attack.”

A soundless, bitter laugh choked me.

“The monitor,” I gasped, gesturing weakly.

With a faint sigh, he activated the screen on the wall.

It displayed various secure locations within the estate. My trembling hand found the remote and switched the view to Lilith’s chambers.

She was reclining on a divan, wrapped in silks.

Vincent sat at her side, holding a crystal goblet filled with a deep, familiar crimson.

My blood, drawn fresh, glowing faintly under the soft light.

He was bringing it to her lips, sip by careful sip.

“My fearless love,” she whispered, her hand stroking his jaw. “You saved me. You faced the silver for me.”

“I would let it reduce me to ashes before it touched you,” he vowed, his voice thick with a tenderness that was a knife in my heart.

Then, he drew a small, ornate casket from his pocket. My own heart, battered and bleeding, seemed to stop entirely.

He went down on one knee before her. He opened the casket. Inside, it rested a diamond ring of staggering size and antiquity.

“Lilith,” he said, looking up at her, his entire being laid bare in that gaze—vulnerable, ardent, true.

“Bind your eternity to mine. Not for alliance or legacy. Marry me… because my endless nights were empty until you. I love you.”

Lilith’s hands flew to her mouth.

“Yes,” she breathed, the word a promise. “For all eternity, yes.”

He slid the ring onto her finger, sealing the vow with a kiss.

I stared at the screen until the image dissolved into static.

So, he was capable of this.

He was capable of sacred vows, of tender care, of self-sacrifice.

He simply reserved all of it for her. And he had used my body as a shield, my blood as a courting gift.

He just don’t think I’m worth of it.