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Did they know too? All this time…Had I been the only one who didn’t know?

I had to ball my hands to stop them from shaking.

“His heir,” I repeated. “His, not yours.”

Prince Icas looked up at me with a spiteful smile. “That’s right, so I suggest you work on opening your legs for me, or else he’ll fill the space for me.”

It was too much. The red was seeping in, and the only thing I could think of was letting out the murderous monster that had been festering behind the locked cage I kept in the back of my mind.

I wanted to slit his throat open. Bathe in his blood and paint the walls with it to send the message thatno onecould ever say such a horrific thing again.

“Remember who you’re fucking talking to,” I threatened, backing away from him. My body was shaking with rage. My eyes turned fully red, and a low growl rumbled in my chest. “You think I’ll just sit around and let this happen?”

“You have no choice,” he replied, leaning back and looking over at me with a disgusting look in his eyes. “Face it, babe. Your days are numbered.”

Fuck that. Fuck him. And fuck Father.

I never expected much out of the man who sired me. He was cruel and always lived up to his name.Did I really think he would treat his favorite daughter differently?

Fuck him.

I turned away from the prince and rushed out the door. I would make them pay.

I would makeallof them pay. Even if it meant going up againsthim.

Vesper

Finally.

After all the mind games, the night had finally come where I would fulfill the duty set upon me by my father.

I had to stand there and watch as the princess goaded me. Like she knewjusthow close I had been and was reminding me of my failed job.

The image of her completely naked and waiting in her bed had been a memory that haunted my every waking moment.

I didn’t want to think of her that way. I didn’t want to remember what she tasted like on my lips. I didn’t want to remember what she sounded like when I made her feel better than that prick of a vampire prince did.

When the guests came the other day, I had already had enough of him. He looked at me like I was some competition. Like he could already clearly see a relationship between us that didn’t exist.

Or, well…that I didn’t want to exist.

I couldn’t deny that, even after the vampire venom was gone, I still had a need for her. Instead of the violent one the vampire venom incited, it was more like an ache that made itself known at the most uncomfortable times.

Like when I was sneaking out to finally fulfill what I had come here for.

I had planned it perfectly.

After the night in the fountain, the princess hadn’t called on me. She gave me a few glances here and there when I was working, but never again were we alone.

Almost like she was avoiding me.

The guests stayed for three days, and after that, the house was quiet. Everyone recovering from a negotiation well done. Or at least that’s what the whispers in the guard quarters were about.

So I took my chance. When it was quietest and when there was the least chance of me getting caught.

It was late at night, all the human guards were dead asleep in the rickety beds provided to us by the family. There were a few out patrolling, but most had fallen into the false sense of security the mundane life at the palace provided.

It wasn’t hard to sneak out of the room after Cedar was asleep. One would think that a witch of her caliber would be wide awake at the slightest sound, but her beastly snores drowned out any possible sound I could make, even the bed that creaked with every move.