All Chapters of The Vampires innocent Prey : Chapter 31

The fire crackled softly in the hearth, casting long, flickering shadows across the stone walls. He sat still, his eyes fixed on the flames but seeing something far more distant. Thoughts twisted around each other like smoke, dense and suffocating. Marriage. Charlotte. His jaw clenched. Charlotte would make the perfect wife—on paper. Her bloodline was pure, her demeanor graceful, and her blood… potent. Rare. Curing. He could already feel the instinctive pull in his veins, the hunger that flared whenever she was near. She was the solution to everything: the council’s pressure, his thirst, the ever-growing whispers about his instability. All of it could end with her. And yet… He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees, staring deeper into the fire as though it could burn the truth out of him. She didn’t move him. She didn’t make his pulse quicken or his mind spiral into obsession. Being near her was like being submerged in ice: still, numbing, suffocating in it