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Tilda’s was a boisterous tavern located in the narrow wedge at the side of the mountain.

Amalthea and Demos were greeted warmly, by name, when we arrived.

The serving girl, a vampire with her hair tied back into two parts, gave me a curious look.

In fact, the entire bar was filled with vampires.

There were two levels: the main floor, and a second that ringed around the top.

No one had to tell me it was a popular location.

I hadn’t been this surrounded since the ball, maybe not even then.

My heart pounded, breaths growing shallow.

Amalthea held my hand, giving a reassuring pulse as she maneuvered us inside .

“You wanted to see the kingdom? This is the place to be.”

A band played on the raised platform across from the bar top.

A trio of players, two vampires, one human, took up the stage.

One had a small fiddle, the other an instrument unlike any I’d ever seen, with billowing folds going in and out and white keys on the side.

The human moved around the stage, crooning.

Demos secured us a table right by the stage that was surprisingly vacant, then left to get us the round of drinks Amalthea reminded him he owed us. I sat with my back to the wall, trying to focus on the music instead of my increasing nerves.

Amalthea gave me a concerned look. Guilt pricked at me. I was the one who had insisted on going out. It wasn’t fair for me to ruin the fun for others, but being surrounded by vampires—increasingly inebriated vampires—wasn’t something I could just put out of my mind.

“The Vampire Kingdom is rather musical,” I said over the din.

“It is?” she said, leaning in.

I gestured to the stage. “I mean, everywhere you go there’s someone playing. Each day, a new performer takes the stage in the castle.” Not that I’d let myself enjoy it these past few weeks.

“Oh.” A strange look came into her eyes. “That’s a new development. Raphael’s become quite the patron of the arts as of late. ”

I frowned. She’d laced meaning into the last of her words, but I couldn’t guess what she was referring to. “Why is that?”

She tilted her head towards me. “Perhaps because you mentioned you liked it at the ball. That was when he sent a missive inviting musicians from all over to perform.”

For me? Was Amalthea right, and Raphael had sourced dozens of musicians just for me to listen to, because I’d confided in him my love of music? But he’d made no mention. Hadn’t asked me if I’d noticed.

Though with the blood bond, he must have sensed it—how my mind struggled to accept the joy I felt when I listened to a violinist dip their bow or a guitarist twist their fingers over the strings.

Something warm and light swirled in my stomach, much like when a song resonated in a way that set it apart from others.

I didn’t have the time to reply before Demos returned, setting two glasses of wine on the table between us while he kept a mug of something more to his taste in his left hand.

“Where’s my ale?” she groused.

“I thought you’d like something more refined,” he said innocently.

“I’ll show you refined.” She lifted her hand and made a vulgar gesture that had me recoiling. But she lifted the glass anyway and took a long drag .

I didn’t drink from mine. The two fell into an easy banter and didn’t take offense at my silence.

My attention roamed from their latest argument to the music, and over to our surroundings.

I hadn’t spent much time in mortal bars, naturally.

But aside from the fact there was no real food served, and everyone had the same white hair, it wasn’t altogether so different from what I imagined.

Packs of men came in, slapping each other on the back as they eyed groups of women.

One table held a competitive game of dice, judging from the crowd built around it that seemed to cheer and bemoan the rolls with equal enthusiasm.

Unlike the castle, where nearly all the servants were human, here the vampires worked as well.

One serving girl polished glasses while chatting, her posture easy as a young-looking vampire leaned against the door.

And then he walked in.

Raphael wasn’t wearing the regalia I’d become accustomed to seeing him in within the castle walls, but there was no mistaking him as anything but an extremely powerful predator.

He strolled into Tilda’s without an ounce of hesitation.

The room didn’t come to a halt, not exactly, but it did quiet, the closest to him bowing as he walked past them.

Right over to us.

“You found us quickly,” Amalthea grumbled, finishing off her first glass of wine.

Raphael slid into the seat next to me, his body sprawling. His arm came around the back of my chair, not quite touching me, but close enough if I leaned back it would be. “Demos sent word before you left.”

The witch’s expression would have turned a lesser vampire to ash. Her sweet face looked so fearsome I couldn’t help but giggle.

“Enjoying yourself?” he asked softly, while Amalthea and Demos got into another argument over nothing.

Because of the bond, I was sure he could feel the maelstrom of emotions swirling inside me. But something in me had relaxed, just slightly, the moment he’d walked in. As if instinctively, I accepted I was completely safe. “Yes.”

Suddenly, a cry went up in the room. “A round of drinks on the house, to honor King Raphael keeping the kingdom safe from the scourge yet again!”

The scourge . I twisted away from Raphael to study the speaker.

The bartender, a stout woman with large biceps, hefted four mugs in each hand, liquid sloshing inside them.

A cheer went up and the free alcohol was quickly distributed.

Around us, mugs clinked together. A serving girl brought our table a fresh round, including two towering mugs of non-blood ale for Amalthea and me.

“Water,” he told the serving girl, who nodded with vampiric speed.

Demos regaled Raphael with the story of how we’d wound up here, and the look Raphael gave me when he heard how I swept Amalthea’s leg…

some long-forgotten embers of pride glowed in my chest. Before long, it was the general and witch volleying back and forth while Raphael an d I listened.

The waitress brought back a glass of icy water for me, and I took a large gulp, relishing the cool liquid.

The bar wasn’t uncomfortably stuffy, but I’d grown much warmer since Raphael had filled the seat next to me.

“I have a question for you,” Raphael said, while the two were immersed in a debate over some recent political debacle.

“A question for a question.”

“Deal. Why do you not partake in drink?”

The untouched ale and wine were still in front of me.

I ran my fingers over the rim of one, trying to gather my thoughts.

“Shipments would come to Greymere each month. When they included liquors, fights would break out over them. Nelson—the one who found us when we escaped—he was nasty. Cruel. Petty. Since he was also in charge, he always got at least one bottle. He’d drink the whole thing down.

It was understandable. No one wanted to be in Greymere, exactly, but not all the servants were sentenced like I was.

Sometimes it was a good way to dispose of an unwanted noble son, like in Nelson’s case.

” He’d been arrogant. Thought himself better than the rest of us and never let us forget it.

“He’d drink a whole bottle in a night, and it would change him.

Instead of being so ornery and nasty, he was…

nice .” I dripped the syllable in every ounce of derision I could.

I remembered the first time I’d been around, as a child.

I’d learned to hide better when he got like that.

“I associate it with him. That drunken, out-of-control bumbling. I never want to be anything like him.”

Raphael was silent for a moment. I kept my gaze trained on the glass in front of me, not meeting his gaze.

“You could never be anything like him.”

“You didn’t know him,” I countered.

“I know his type. And all the liquor in the world couldn’t malform you like that.” A pause. “I’m not saying you have to drink. But if you wanted to indulge, I would watch over you.”

I twisted my lips. “It doesn’t exactly seem pleasant.”

Raphael shrugged. “At its most extreme, it’s not. But many enjoy it in moderation. Even if you wind up knowing you don’t like it, it’s a shame to let one bastard—who was a bastard sober, from the sound of it—take away part of life.”

That was Raphael, always able to cut to the heart of the matter so quickly.

Was I being unfair to myself by refusing to submit to any pleasure out of fear?

I wrapped my fingers around the stem of the glass, tipping it towards me.

The pale-yellow liquid caught the lights of the tavern, a vaguely citric smell wafting over.

Finally, I looked at the vampire king. “You’ll watch over me if I drink?”

“I’ll always watch over you.”

I took a sip.

The world didn’t end. My mouth tingled slightly at the sensation, adjusting. “I don’t feel any different. ”

“A child wouldn’t even feel that little,” he teased.

So I took another sip. More confident this time.

Then a third as I realized I did like the taste.

I didn’t rush to drain the glass, but soon enough it was finished.

I joined in to break up the latest fight between Amalthea and Demos—apparently, the two even had opposite opinions on appropriate bathing temperatures.

“Does it matter as long as you can take a bath?” I interjected. “I went twelve years without being able to.”

“You certainly smelled like it,” Raphael added, nostrils flaring in memory.

“Just as well, so you wouldn’t want to bite me. Vampires are so sensitive.”

Demos snorted. “I’m not the one who called bathing in anything less than scalding water ‘unspeakably cruel.’”