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I push myself upright, and the velvet slips from my shoulders. The cold of the room hits my skin, and my temples throb. I need water and food. But what I want, what curlssomewhere low and lingering, is to go back to the heat. To the throne. To the place where I wasn't thinking, justfeeling.

A knock at the door breaks through my thoughts.

“Come in,” I croak, voice dry as bone.

The door opens softly, and Graves steps inside, precise and unbothered as ever, carrying a silver tray. Food. Water. Juice. A few capsules in a small dish: supplements. Recovery. The morning-after ritual of someone in power. It’s like I summoned him with my mind.

He places the tray on the side table with the same ease he always has, then turns to me.

“Good morning, Arianette.”

I sit up slowly, clutching the cloak to my chest.

“Morning.” My voice is raspy. “Do you know how I got back here?”

Graves doesn't pause. Doesn’t blink. “The Shadows always look after the Baroness,” he says simply. “You were carried back. I believe you slept through most of it.”

“And the boys?” I ask before I can stop myself. “Damon?”

“Still sleeping, I believe.” He hands me the glass of water. “As is Hunter.”

Of course they are.

Men sleep well after conquest.

Tipping back the glass, I drink until my throat no longer feels like sandpaper.

Graves watches me. I’ve started to suspect that everything I do or say, he takes back to the King. “Make sure you eat. You need the nourishment after last night.” He gestures to the pills. “Those too. Everything is organic, picked out by the King to ensure you’re at your best for the appointment today.”

I blink at him over the rim of the glass. “Appointment?”

“To begin planning your wedding.” His eyebrow arches. “Unless you’re not up to it.”

No matter how Ifeltlast night–wild, claimed, unbound–this is the story I was born into. The role written for me long before Damon and Hunter entered my orbit. My true destiny is to marry the Baron King, to support him. It’s finally happening.

“I’ll be ready,” I tell him, throwing my legs over the bed as I grab a piece of toast.

His eyes dart down my body. To the shredded shorts and the cum dried on my legs. “Perhaps a shower first.”

“Right.” Heat rises in my cheeks. “Of course.”

“Arianette.” The gravity in his voice gains all of my attention. “You did good last night. You all did. Made the King proud.”

“Really?” After so many fumbles and mistakes and humiliating moments, the words mean more than he can imagine.

He smiles, it’s small but genuine. “Yes, really.”

Something isn’t right.

Everything is pink and gold. Delicate with tiny flowers and little blue birds. I frown at the vase of blush-colored roses, perky and bright. A complete contrast to the black lace dress, the top tied up in the back like a corset, and the black Mary Janes on my feet.

“Are we in the right place?” I whisper to Graves. With every second that passes I feel more and more like an intruder.

“Yes.”

I’d closed my eyes once he drove away from the House of Night, my head throbbing and stomach rolling with the threat of nausea–lingering effects of the excess I’d taken part in the night before. I sat in the backseat praying that what happened in thecrypt, stayed in the crypt, because if anyone outside Beta Rho found out–someone like my uncle? I’d melt into the floor.

It wasn’t until we were across town at this little bungalow nestled in East End territory that I opened my eyes again. He’d dutifully wiped his feet on the doormat and placed a silver revolver with a mother of pearl handle into a basket just inside the door.