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“What is it?” Raphael asked.

I have nowhere to go. “I’m… not sure what my next steps are.” For years, I’d worked towards my goal of starting a new life at the Monastery. Now I was lost. Each step seemed to edge me closer and closer to the precipice of a cliff. I fingered the flap of the saddlebag, even now wanting to soothe myself by holding the grimoire.

“There’s more to Eurobis than the Witch Kingdom,” Raphael said, voice soft.

I glanced at him, then realized: “You mean the lands beyond the Vampire Kingdom?”

Raphael’s expression said that wasn’t quite what he meant, but now that the idea hit me, new air filled my lungs. I’d never considered moving beyond the Witch Kingdom, because the vampires had us locked in. There was no way out except through their domain, and no one would choose that.

But I had a vampire. “Could you get me safe passage through the Vampire Kingdom and out to the west?” No soldier in the king’s army would ever be able to hunt me down there.

“I… could.” Raphael seemed to hesitate, unlike his usual, assured speech.

I was too relieved to care. I drew myself up onto the horse and tried not to tense when Raphael sat behind me once more, his hand coming across my middle to hold me steady as we began to move.

“You’re uneasy,” he said. “Why?”

Was my body so obvious? “I’m fine.”

He snorted and stalled Alphonse. “That’s a lie.”

I was uneasy because the vampire was holding me again, and unlike before, I couldn’t ask him to just let me down. Nor did his steadying touch feel like it had when we’d first been forced to ride together, like something I had to endure for survival.

It felt like something I might want.

The way he’d looked at me after feeding…

“Won’t you have trouble being this close to my neck?” I blurted.

“I’ll restrain myself,” he replied.

That didn’t make me feel better.

“Relax, Samara. I won’t bite you again.”

Finally, the tension in my shoulders eased. There was quiet determination in his words, and I found myself trusting them. At least, until he added—

“Not without permission, anyway.”

He clicked his heels, and Alphonse began to move again before I could finish stammering my vows that that would never, ever, ever happen again. Even as his reassurance made me recall exactly how my body had heated when he’d bitten me, the pleasure his fangs had wrought that had me imagining a repeat.

Never.

Raphael’s assurances weren’t exactly convincing. I managed to keep quiet until we hit the edge of the marshes, when I finally dared ask: “Now what?”

“Now,” Raphael said, “you come home to Damerel with me.”

To the Vampire Kingdom.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Snowfall stalled our trip.

We completed two days’s journey before the snow began. This late in spring? A bad omen. A sign something was amiss.

Like a human willingly going to the Vampire Kingdom.

Temporarily, at least. Raphael insisted it would be safe to rest there for at least a few days. I wasn’t fond of the plan by any means, but I needed supplies. I’d used almost all the cards available and had only a few coins left. Going to the Vampire Kingdom was terrifying, but the promise of a new life where no one knew me—or wanted me dead—was enticing enough to make me look past it. And while I had reservations about being in the home ofother vampires, a part of me trusted Raphael would be true to his word and keep me safe.