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I flushed. Worse than that, it was the opposite. “Raphael never said anything about this when he decided to claim me as his Chosen.” He’d told me he wouldn’t drink from me. But now he’d put me in a position where he had to. “If those are the terms, he should just un claim me.”

Amalthea rolled her eye. “Samara, I promise you wouldn’t find that status preferable in the slightest.”

I frowned. “Why not? You aren’t his Chosen or anything and no one bites you. ”

The oracle barked a laugh and tried to tug me forward.

“Oh, there are a couple reasons for that, but that’s a conversation for another time.

Suffice it to say, you will remain Raphael’s Chosen.

He’s not wrong that it’s the best way to keep you safe.

There’s little to be done to sway the king from any course of action that he believes is done for your protection. ”

“I don’t want him to drink from me. I won’t let him.”

“You will.”

I flinched at the certainty in her tone. “I won’t.”

Amalthea faced me, but her gaze went foggy as if she wasn’t really aware of her surroundings.

“Samara, I see his fangs at your bare throat in the gown that was pinned today. The sky is lit above from starlight where you’ve bent your neck for him.

He will take from you.” She blinked and gave me an apologetic smile.

“I don’t like to do that, but sometimes there’s comfort in knowing what’s coming to pass. ”

I swallowed, my throat tight. So I was to accept it was a forgone conclusion?

“What about another donor? Couldn’t he take from them?” I was desperate.

She shook her head and gave me a final, insistent pull. I no longer had the energy to force us to stay. “I told you what I saw, and I’m never wrong. That’s one reason my kind is so hated.”

“I don’t hate you,” I said quickly. The opposite. Thea hadn’t just looked after my safety, but she’d worked hard to be my friend even though I was only here temporarily.

Even though I was going to betray all of them when I took the grimoire to the necromancer.

Thea gave me a sad smile, her remaining eye softening with sympathy. “If he took from another, it would be a grave insult, hurt your standing here permanently—Raphael doesn’t drink from living donors anyway, so it’s you or no one.”

Was it really such a forgone conclusion? Raphael hadn’t said a word. Did he expect to break his vows so easily?

“If I wasn’t here, then he would have to drink from another,” I protested.

“Sam.” I hadn’t heard Amalthea’s voice so soft. “Raphael does not tolerate the bonds he forms with those he drinks from. The only time he drinks from a human is at the eclipse.”

“So he can just not bond with them like in the past,” I insisted.

She shook her head. “No, Sam. If he drinks another human, he makes sure there’s no bond. He drains them completely.”

The implication of her words hit me like a blow.

Part of me wanted to lower my mental shields and push my displeasure towards him.

Instead, I turned it inward, walking with Amalthea without really being there.

Maybe Titus was right. I’d lived my entire life knowing vampires couldn’t be trusted.

Any so-called status I had here hinged on letting Raphael do anything he wanted to me, apparently.

I didn’t belong here.

“He didn’t tell me any of this.” It hurt, like a twisted knife.

Amalthea increased our pace. “Perhaps he would have if you were not avoiding him.” There was the barest note of something in her voice. Censure?

“I’m not avoiding him,” I lied, even as I admitted to myself she might have had a point. Ever since he found me in the donor den that night, I’d taken care to avoid encountering Raphael. I took meals in my room, and insisted on having Amalthea walk me back to my rooms.

My cheeks heated at the memory of the night, part blush and part fury. I refused to meet the sidelong glance she cast my way. I wasn’t fooling either of us, but unless her oracle vision had shown her what happened between the vampire king and me, I wasn’t saying a word.

Amalthea seemed inclined to say more, but something caught her attention. She startled and tried to usher me down an alleyway.

“This is a better path,” she said urgently.

I frowned. “But we’re nearly back—”

My words broke off as I saw what Amalthea had tried to spare me. A small cluster of Damerel’s denizens lingered around a corner, a few pinching noses. Two legs were splayed out on the ground, visible .

I was already moving, Amalthea’s urging to not look barely registered as I walked closer.

There, on the sidewalk, half in an alley, half out, was the mangled body of a girl. Her throat had been torn wide open, her head barely hanging on by the slightest tendon. Her entire front was painted red with blood, the scraps of fabric that had once been a sheer dress ripped to shreds.

I’d seen this girl. The one who’d been weak in bed at the donor den.

She was dead. A vampire had done this.

I’d seen this before.

Blood and blood and blood. A woman’s flesh, torn apart.

An arm flung to one edge of the arena, the arterial blood cascading through the air.

The cries for mercy cut off as her corpse is shredded by the vampire’s ruthless fangs.

He’s not biting her, he’s mauling her. The once fine brocade of her gown is soaked through.

When he drains her neck, he moves to other arteries, trying to pull more from her body.

He rips apart her limbs like he’s trying to crack open her body for any spare drop of blood.

When he’s done, my world has ended. There is no more of the woman who birthed me, who raised me.

Just pieces of skin scattered in all corners of the arena.

The others are cheering. All I can do is stare.

I keep staring. The two scenes overlapped in my mind. She’s dead because of me . The accusation echoed through me. I wasn’t even sure which woman I mean. Both? If I had told Raphael what I had seen more precisely, would he have been able to make sure she was safe ?

Or was this every human’s fate at the hands of vampires?

Dead. Not just dead, but destroyed. Devoured.

For what? For some animal’s snack?

Her sightless eyes met mine, accusing.

I have to get the necromancer the grimoire .