Chapter 2

The silver poison had crippled my healing. I sat frozen on the cold stone floor, a pool of my own blood spreading around me.

Alone. Utterly abandoned.

I closed my eyes, and the memories came flooding back, unbidden.

Three years ago. Veridian City, the dangerous neutral zone on the edge of the Eternal Night.

I'd lost my pack and was working as a lone healer, desperately gathering rare herbs to join the Healer's Guild. It was my only way out.

That night, I found him in a back alley.

Dorian was lying in a pool of his own blood, three silver bullets in his chest. The poison was eating him alive. The work of the Silver Fangs, a clan that hated vampires more than anyone.

As a werewolf, I should have left him there to die.

But in the moonlight, his deep blue eyes were filled with the same desperation I once knew.

It took me all night to purge the silver from his body.

He was as weak as a human then, clinging to my hand.

"Thank you," he'd rasped. "I'm Dorian Valkyrie."

My heart stopped.

I knew that name. The Prince of the Valkyrie coven.

I should have run.

But there was no darkness in his eyes, only a startling purity. I couldn't leave him.

For the next three months, his pursuit was relentless.

He bought out every rare herb from every merchant in Veridian City, just for a chance to talk to me.

"You need these, right?" he'd say, his eyes full of hope. "Can we talk for a minute?"

He was a creature of the night, yet he paid a fortune for a sun-warding amulet, risking his life to help me gather herbs in the daylight forests.

The sun scorched his skin, but he never complained.

"I just want to watch you work," he'd say with a smile.

The craziest time was when another vampire, jealous of me, set a trap of silver wires on my path.

Dorian threw himself in front of me without a second thought. The wires sliced across his back, leaving scars that would never fully heal.

"Are you crazy?" I cried, tending to his wounds.

"For you, going a little mad is worth it," he murmured, stroking my face.

After we got together, his devotion bordered on obsession.

I cut my finger on a crystal vial while mixing a potion, and he summoned his family's best blood-healer that same night.

"Her hands are more precious than my own life," he’d told the healer.

I once sprained my ankle picking moonpetal on a cliff—a minor injury that would heal in minutes—and his eyes would flash crimson with worry.

"I don't want you to feel an ounce of pain," he'd insist, using his own blood to heal me.

Back then, he only had eyes for me.

But now...

Now I was poisoned with silver, my clothes soaked in blood, and he had walked away without a backward glance.

Tears blurred my vision as I struggled to my feet.

The underground clinic was in the mountains behind the castle. I knew the way.

The healers there didn't ask too many questions.

I dragged myself out of the castle, every step on the silver-laced path a fresh agony.

Two hours later, I left the clinic, my back wrapped in thick gauze.

As I stepped out of the alley, a dark shape materialized in front of me.

It was Dorian.

His face was dark, his eyes burning with fury.

"What are you doing here?" he snarled, his voice pure ice. "You followed me. You terrified Liliana—she's a wreck because of you!"

I stared at him, stunned. "I wasn't following you—"

"Enough!" he snapped. "You think I don't know? She told me someone was lurking outside. She's scared!"

I looked at his furious face, and my heart sank into a frozen pit.

"So that's what you think of me."

"You—" He started to argue, then stopped.

The thick scent of blood hit him.

Then his gaze dropped to the gauze on my back. It was already soaked through with fresh blood. The anger on his face instantly vanished, replaced by pale shock and regret.

"Is that..." His hand reached out, then hesitated, his voice trembling. "Freya, I..."

I took a step back, avoiding his touch. "I was just getting my wound treated. It has nothing to do with you."

He was silent for a long time, his eyes swirling with a pain I couldn't decipher.

Then, he suddenly pulled me into his arms, holding me so tight I thought he'd crush my bones.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, burying his face in my neck. "I'm at my breaking point, Freya," he whispered, his voice rough. "Liliana is carrying my heir. The Elders are watching my every move. I have to protect her... It's not that I don't trust you, I'm just... scared. Once the baby is born, I'll take you away from here. We'll go to the human world. I won't break my promise to you."

More promises. More waiting. I stood stiffly in his arms, feeling no warmth at all.

He called for his thrall. "Alfred. Escort her back. See that she's safe."

He pressed a light kiss to my forehead. "I'll go get you some moonshadow flowers. Your favorite."

Then he turned and walked toward the hospital's exclusive wing.

Toward Liliana.

I watched him disappear down the hall toward her, and a broken, hollow laugh escaped my lips.

Tears fell onto my chest.

"Dorian," I whispered to my shattered heart, "I will never trust another one of your promises."