Todos los capítulos de The Vampire Lord's Permission Came Too Late: Capítulo 1 - Capítulo 10

The bell at St. Raven's struck four before I made it through the moonlit archway.Black medical cloth bound the wound across my belly. With every step, I instinctively put a hand there, then remembered there was nothing left to protect.Dr. Hurst walked me to the steps and placed an amber shard in my hand, sealed around the last trace of my baby's life."She didn't suffer long."I gripped it until an edge bit into my palm. The pain helped me stay on my feet.Blackthorn's council hall blazed with light. Elders talked beneath the painted dome while servants poured warm blood wine.Lucien sat at the far end, stamping a warrant Celeste had placed before him.She stood at his right hand, holding the household seals on a silver tray. When he finished with one, she handed him the next without being asked.When I told him I wanted to dissolve our blood bond, he did not put down his seal."Because I missed the winter garden last night?" He looked up. "Evelyn, you don't dissolve a three-year bon

Lucien returned before dawn, dark red traces from the ward authorization staining his knuckles.His gaze paused on the tool case beside the door before he came toward me."You turned off the contact rune.""I wanted quiet."He reached for my chin. I turned my face away."You know I need to be able to reach you."When I didn't answer, he drew the slipping wrap over my shoulder and tucked it around me. He had done the same on the forest road the night we first met."This is about the comment, isn't it?"He took my silence for agreement."Celeste manages the blood bank, the territorial agreements, and the castle wards. What were the elders supposed to think when my own partner publicly undermined her?"He glanced at the tool case again."Even after what you wrote, she was trying to explain that you're exhausted and not acting like yourself. She's looking out for you.""What happens when you need something from the household?" I asked.He frowned. "What?""Does Celeste make you wait for ap

After leaving Blackthorn, I followed Blackwater's old canal to Raven Street and knocked on the door of my father's blood-seal restoration shop.He came downstairs carrying a covered lamp. His gaze went first to my belly, then to the tool case in my hand.He didn't ask where Lucien was.That nearly undid me.Gideon Vale was human, like me, but he knew vampire contracts and blood seals as well as any elder. He followed blood accounts for a living, uncovering forged donor signatures and contracts the nobility thought they had buried. He had warned me that the Ashbournes would eventually treat a human lover as family property.For Lucien's sake, I hadn't entered this shop in three years.There was more white in my father's hair, but his engraving knives still lined the window exactly as I remembered them.I placed my child's amber shard in his hand.He stared at it, then closed his other hand around mine. A long time passed before he brought me a chair."Do you want me to call him every na

The frame of the mirror creaked in Lucien's hand. "When?""Thursday, seventeen minutes after midnight. The paternal heartblood reached us at one-oh-nine. By then, Evelyn's veins were collapsing. All we could do was save her."I'd heard those times in the recovery room, signed my name beneath them in the medical register, and repeated them to myself whenever I closed my eyes. Lucien hadn't known a single one.He looked at me, barely able to get the words out. "I told you to tell me when you came back.""I did."He opened his mouth, then noticed the black crust of blood on my sleeve. When I'd come home that night, the dressing had soaked through. I'd sat beside him with a hand pressed against the wound. He'd thought the doctors had frightened me and told me to go change my clothes."She was already…""Already gone."His gaze dropped to my belly, finally registering the bandages beneath my work clothes. He turned to Celeste. "You told me the mother and baby were safe."She lowered the cra

The Night Court replaced its winter blood banquet with a public hearing. My invitation was addressed to Evelyn Vale. There was no mention of the vampire lord's lover.My father altered my mother's ceremonial gown to fit me, leaving her old stitches at the cuffs. Before going to the opera house, I wore it to Nora's grave. "People are going to talk about you tonight. I won't let them call you a misunderstanding."Lucien waited at the other end of the path with a memorial lamp. Only when I stood did he ask if he could leave it beside her stone. I nodded. As he crouched to set it down, his shoulders shook. "The first time I felt her answer us was in the winter garden. You put my hand on your belly and laughed because I looked so serious.""I know you wanted her. But she was still there when I begged you."He looked up and, at last, accepted it. "I know. That was my fault."Black silk hung beneath the old opera house dome. Blue lamps lit the nobles' seats. This time, I sat in the witness se