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“I’m going to marry Lilias,”King Charles had announced one evening. Cerberus had not turned his attention from the window. There was no love between the King and Lilias. On the contrary, she despised him and often moaned over how grotesque she found his feeble appearance and cold touch.

“She would make a fine queen, don’t you agree, Cer?”

“Will you force her to wed?”

“I’m the King. Women would betray their god to have my name.”

Women, yes, but Lilias was an immortal female. Marriage was a mortal practice that paled in contrast to the bonds mated immortals shared.

Charles was set on seducing his future queen. He gifted Lilias with flowers, jewels, the finest silks, and the most luxurious furs until she resigned herself to marry the King.

The wedding was a grand affair celebrated throughout the realm—until a plague struck. Corpses mounted with little explanation as mortals splashed holy water and burned the dead.

Bodies were drained of blood before they hit the ground, and victims typically suffered twin puncture wounds, which were said to be the mark of death. But this was not like the telltale rash that preceded the deadly fever or the lumps incurred by prior plagues.

It was an infestation.

Immortals learned of the illustrious Queen and took her presence in the kingdom as an open invitation. Households were bled dry and left for dead. Villagers grew weak with anemia. Bloodletting became afashionable practice as the palace became overrun with vampires.

Lilias waited for her mate, but Cerberus ensured no immortal males breached the kingdom walls and, over time, the light in her eyes dulled.

A songbird imprisoned in a gilded cage, will eventually lose the desire to sing, but Lilias never lost faith that her mate would come. She waited by her window every night for his rescue.

The King’s fanatical need to please the Queen became an obscene obsession. If she wanted music, Charles sent the finest harpsichords, flutes, and fiddles with musicians ordered to play until their fingers bled. If she craved goose, he’d have the fattest one sent to her table and carved.

Lilias no longer resembled the peasant girl who had captured Cerberus’s heart. Her gowns were no longer plain, and her hair no longer hung loose beneath her jeweled crown. Maids doted on her as much as they doted on the King, and when Charles wanted to feed, Lilias went to him without objection.

She was so convincing, so enchanting, but Cerberus could scent her deceit. Something was brewing beyond the castle walls, and he wanted to know what secrets she hid.

“Do not act like a wounded bird with me,” he snarled one afternoon, walking her back to her chambers after an especially petulant display at court.

“Mind your tone, walker. Charles is my king. Only he has the right to speak to me as he pleases. You do not.”

“You haven’t been a victim since the day youarrived, and he has never beenyour king,” Cerberus growled mockingly.

“You overestimate your position. I could have you replaced with any guard of my choosing. I only need to say the word?—”

She gasped as he caught her arm and hauled her into a dark alcove, caging her in with his body. “And I would break your neck long before such a request would reach your lips.”

Fire flashed in her emerald stare as she bared her teeth. “Take your hands off me.”

Rather than release her, he crowded her more. “You don’t love him.”

“Of course, I don’t,” she practically spat. “And he doesn’t love me. I’m merely a possession he covets.”

“Then why visit his bed when you and I both know it will bear no fruit.”

“If you don’t like my position, blame yourself. I’m here because of you. Do not fault me for having the wherewithal to improve my situation. Eventually, the feeble King will die and I will inherit all of this, and you and the rest of us will be better for it.”

He saw it then, the greed for power in her eyes. She didn’t want rubies and furs. She wanted far more. While Charles wasted away, coveting a female whose heart he would never possess, she plotted to unburden the King of all his power using nothing more than her female wiles.

If Cerberus could remove his jealousy from the equation, it seemed a small and wise sacrifice for her to make. “You don’t plan to be wed for long.”

A cold chuckle passed her dark lips. “It wouldn’ttake much. I could easily taint my blood with poison. The healers would simply assume he passed of natural causes.”

“They would never let an immortal rule.”

With no royal blood or noble lineage, the bishops wouldn’t allow her to sit on the throne for long. And after Charles’ passing, Cerberus would likely be the one ordered to take her head, an act that would kill him as well.