All Chapters of Pureblood Traitor, Five Years Burned Never Broken: Chapter 1 - Chapter 9

“Take off the robe, Lilith,” I said.Lilith stroked the velvet, her smirk widening. “But I was just preparing dinner for Owen. He loves it when I serve him straight from the vein.”“It was my mother’s,” I replied. My voice was flat.Owen strode past me, tossing his keys on the entryway table. “Don’t start, Mallory. It’s just a robe.”“She’s the one who killed them,” I stated.Cain snorted from the stairs. “Still telling that lie?”I tilted my head, studying my fifteen-year-old son. His jaw was set. He believed what he was saying.“I guess I am,” I murmured.The smell of human blood mixed with vanilla liqueur drifted from the great hall, mingling with Lilith’s heavy tuberose perfume.It turned my stomach.It threw me back to the cold, damp stone floor of the clan’s tribunal hall, five years ago.I was sitting in a dark holding cell, just beneath this very floor.Ready to turn to dust.My parents, respected clan elders, were dead.I thought my bonded mate, Owen, had locked me away for my

Cain’s boot ground into the floor.The chain was broken. The blood-amber was a dozen jagged shards.I stared at the ruined relic. The only thing I had left of my mother.“Cain,” I whispered.He stepped back, his chest heaving. “Don’t say my name.”My right arm was screaming.When he had stormed in and snatched the pendant from Lilith, his shoulder had slammed directly into the fresh, silver-burned wound.Hot, black blood was soaking through my tattered prison tunic.A single drop slid down my elbow and splattered on the hardwood, right next to a broken piece of amber.“You’re bleeding on the floor,” Lilith pointed out, her voice dripping with disgust. She tightened the sash of her lace robe.I ignored her.My eyes were fixed on my son.I looked at the hand that had just destroyed my mother’s pendant.I remembered that same hand as a child’s, clutching my finger.But there was no warmth in the tall teenager standing before me now.“That was your grandmother’s,” I said, my voice barely a

Inside the Pale Moon castle, the fire in the hearth burned away five years of cold.The heavy oak doors were shut. Alistair had dismissed every servant who tried to help.He placed me gently on a massive bed covered in soft, black velvet.I flinched, instinctively trying to hide the deep, silver-burned wound on my right arm.“Don’t hide from me, Mallory,” Alistair’s voice was low and commanding.He took off his suit jacket and knelt by the bed. His large frame filled my vision.He didn’t care about the stench of rot or the dried mud on my skin.He brought a basin of warm water infused with healing herbs, and began to clean my wounds himself.His touch was impossibly gentle, wiping away the black, poisoned blood as if he were polishing a priceless work of art.For five years, I had known only the sting of the lash, Owen’s cruel taunts, the bite of cold chains.This was the first touch I had felt that held no malice.The silver poison flared deep in the wound. I gasped, my body wracked w

Mallory’s POV“Should she die, or should she wish she were dead?” Alistair stood by the massive window, his long fingers toying with a lock of my hair.The storm outside had been raging for three days and three nights.The wind howled. And just outside the Pale Moon castle gates, the once-proud Prince of the Crimson Moon knelt in the mud.I swirled the pureblood vintage in my glass.The deep red liquid slid down the crystal, looking just like the blood I had lost in that dungeon.“Are they still out there?” I asked, my voice casual.“Three days and three nights,” Alistair said, wrapping his arms around my waist from behind.His low voice held a note of cruel amusement. “Shall I turn them to ash for you?”“No.” I set down my glass. A cold smile touched my lips. “Open the gates.”Outside the gates.Owen was soaked to the bone.His expensive, handmade suit, once immaculate, was caked in mud.His knees were ground into the sharp flagstones.In his hands, he clutched a thick, heavy iron cha