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And he is just taking it.

I averted my gaze as his fangs pierced my skin. I had long since stopped believing in Krae’s powers, but the sight of her image in the glass on the other side of the room caused a stray thought to rush across my mind.

And you will allow this insult to just go unpunished?

She didn’t answer, of course.

Pain traveled up my arm and to my shoulder. He hadn’t left his fangs in long enough for the venom. Just a deep enough prick before pulling some blood and licking it from the wound.

All pain and no pleasure.

The venom for vampires was nothing compared to what it did to humans, but his meaning was clear.

He was in control of the pain and pleasure that I would be receiving from him. If he wanted it to hurt, it would, and if I wanted pleasure, I would somehow have to earn it.

I hadn’t meant to look toward her, but again, our eyes met.The little mouse.

She was watching with hardly concealed disdain as he took my blood.

When he was done, I gave my attention back to him and his bloodstained lips.

“Princess Aurelia will show you to your room for your stay here. The guards will be taken by Henry, and he will explain the rules and get them accommodated,” Father announced, his hand coming to squeeze my shoulder. Another warning.Behave.

Icas gave him a beaming smile and linked his arm with mine.Disgusting.

“The silver-haired one,” I told Melia as I ran the brush through my hair. “I want her assigned to my personal guards.”

I flipped my hair over my shoulder, the smooth column of my neck reflecting back at me in the mirror. There was not a single thing out of place. The skin on my neck was still as unblemished as it had been just a few hours ago, but the phantom pain from his bite was still there.

I narrowly got away without forging a blood bond with him, but that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t drink from me whenever he wanted. As soon as he was seen to his room I was called upon.

If I was any stronger I wouldn’t have allowed him to sink his fangs into me a second time.

Vampire blood wasn’t even as good as human blood. It was bland, sometimes even dirty-tasting, in comparison. If he was thirsty, he had hundreds of humans to choose from, including the ones he brought himself.

But that wasn’t his intention. It was control.

He was still below my family in status, so the only way that he could feel comfortable entering an agreement like this with my family was to make sure I knew he was above me in every way.

I would allow it, even if the price was my dignity. Because there was nothing more powerful than letting a cocky vampire believehe had control when, in reality, I was the one holding it.

I’ll kill him one day. I swear it.Slowly, painfully, and without remorse. If not to get back at him for sinking his fangs into me, then for the humiliation of what he did in front of my own people.

I jumped as Melia’s cold fingers brushed against the spot his fangs pierced. For some reason, the act caused my eyes to sting. I blinked away the feeling before the blood could pool in them.

“Shall I go get her now?” she asked. “You must be thirsty.”

I hadn’t even noticed the dull ache in my throat until she mentioned it.

God, why is she being so nice?It’s not like we were actually friends, and we both knew she was just here to report on what I was doing tothat bitch.

The samebitchwho was probably crying laughing knowing that she had one-upped me.

I swallowed thickly, fire coating the insides of my throat.When did it get this bad?

It was nowhere near the risk of the craze, but it was enough to pull my attention fully away from what the prince had done to me.

It was tempting to get her to call on the silver-haired one. Especially after I saw the look in her eyes when Icas’s fangs pierced my skin.