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Deidre clasped at the chain around her neck, the rising star representing her gods in polished brass. “You ungrateful—”

“Citizens of Corraidin,” a female voice rang out across the square. Each word was clear and resonant, effortlessly silencing the crowd.

I smirked. Maybe I did have a pinch of luck. My stepmother frowned, but she swallowed her comments. Talking while Lady Delphine or Lord Raul addressed the crowd was another great way to find yourself in a wagon to the Azarasian Impire.

The magistrates stood at the top of the steps leading to the town hall. Lady Delphine’s toned skin peeked out between flowing layers of silk, her gown the maroon of the Court of Dawn. Her dark hair cascaded unbound down her back. The heavy gold jewelry around her neck mirrored the color of her eyes. Her soulbound, Lord Raul, stood beside her, representing the Court of Dusk in a deep navy vest. His ebony skin and hair made the molten silver of his gaze shine even brighter.

We rarely saw the Azarasians, but when we did, they always seemed more than us, their otherworldly beauty and glowing eyes remnants of the godstars their demon ancestors had once been.

“It’s with great pleasure that we gather here for the second harvest of the year 10,533 after the Fall,” Lady Delphine continued, her sweet voice laced with an edge that sent shivers through the crowd. “But let us not forget—the harvest is a transaction, not a celebration. We provide for you, and in return, you provide for us. It’s a simple arrangement, one that has stood for centuries.”

“If Mayor Kavanagh calls your name, you’re to report directly to the stables,” Lord Raul said. “We do not tolerate disobedience. If you think to hide, your entire family will be harvested as thralls, as will any who attempt to interfere. There is no escaping your duty.”

“And there is no escaping us.” Lady Delphine smiled sharply before snapping her fingers. “Mayor Kavanagh, if you will.”

From behind Corraidin’s true leaders, Mayor Kavanagh jumped forward. His overly embroidered doublet looked tacky beside the magistrates’ opulent wealth. He dropped the town’s spelled ledger into the carved divot of the balustrade with a heavy thunk. The vampires lurked behind him as he took his place at the forefront of the crowd, forcing a tight smile to his lips.

“We thank our generous lords and masters for allowing us to live on their lands in freedom, bliss, and harmony.” A black rune twisted on his neck, the same one the magistrates wore to project their voice. Amplify , some part of my brain whispered. “In return, per the accords signed three hundred and fifty years after the surrender of King Turlough the Last, we tithe a portion of all we own and have to the Azarasian Impire, the Imperium, and their Courts of Dusk and Dawn...”

I stopped listening. Every harvest, the magistrates and the mayor had the same script. If I ever suffered a head injury, I bet that would be the one thing I retained. Blah blah, praise to our benevolent overlords, blah blah, they allowed us mere humans to live in relative freedom and we owed them everything, blah blah.

The entire thing was a work of fiction.

The Impire’s brutal rulers, the Imperium, had given King Turlough two choices: sign the accords or die. They had already killed half his family and claimed his wife as their blood thrall. It wasn’t really a choice, not for a human king. It just made for a good story.

Not that Turlough’s short-lived kingdom was even a footnote in the books the Azarasians approved and provided. To the vampires, we had never really ceased being Mabon Farm . If not for their centuries-long war on the mainland, Turlough’s rule never would have happened. A human governing any nation thousands of years after the First Godsfall was nothing more than a temporary miracle.

After a minute, I concentrated on the speech, just in time for the only variation in this entire terrible event. The mayor finished his spiel and cleared his throat.

Shit. My stomach rolled. That wasn’t a good sign.

“This harvest, our generous lords and masters require twenty new thralls from Corraidin.”

Gasps and light grumbles echoed through the crowd. Most harvests, the vampires took around ten Maboni per town. In all the harvests I’d attended, they had never wanted over thirteen. I shuddered to think why they needed more this time around.

Behind the mayor, Lord Raul laid a hand on the hilt of his sword. Everyone fell silent instantly. The magistrates had once thrown a woman into the transport wagon for coughing too loud. They wouldn’t think twice at the whiff of dissent.

“Nineteen of those new thralls will be selected by the ledger at random, but the twentieth was selected by the law,” the mayor continued. “Fergus Sullivan, for failing the birth quota.”

I stiffened in the suddenly tense silence. The crowds shuffled as a dark-haired man crossed the square with a lowered head. Fergus celebrated his birthday a mere two months before mine. We had attended school together, though I had rarely seen him since. Last I remembered, he had married around the same time I left home.

The godstars clearly hadn’t favored his union.

A bitter laugh nearly bubbled out of me. Fergus’s fertility score had been low, though not as low as mine. No one’s was as low as mine. It was deluded of Deidre to think the patriarch could’ve sired a child on me, much less the three the quota demanded by our thirtieth birthdays. I’d just be a body to warm his bed.

After Fergus disappeared down the path toward the stables, the mayor pulled a thin blade from his belt. Holding his hand above the ledger, he sliced across his fingertip. Blood welled from his pale skin. It dropped to the ledger’s case and sunk into the groves of the runespell carved on the cover. Shadows flared as the magic activated, absorbing his blood.

He quickly wrapped his finger and then cracked open the book. I had never seen the ledger up close, but I imagined the names appearing one by one in neat, red script.

Aislin and I gripped each other’s hands, as we had always done since my first harvest at sixteen.

“Bridie Gallagher.”

Somewhere behind me, a woman cried out.

The mayor called another name, then another. With each one, I flinched. Both with relief and pity, as some poor soul shouted or screamed or cried or dropped into a horrible silence.

I’d happily never listen to another harvest again. And after the next one, I wouldn’t have to. Pain twisted harder through my core. I didn’t regret my choice, but the closer I got to that deadline, my looming thirtieth birthday, the more my body thrashed and rebelled.

“Una Cavey.”

My jaw dropped. Through the crowd, a blond-haired woman stared blankly at the mayor. Had it only been a week ago that Una had passed me in the streets and sneered at me for choosing damnation? I couldn’t remember. That might have been the time before. My former childhood friend hadn’t said a nice word to me since my fertility results were announced.

Unlike me, Una had done everything right. Married at eighteen. Three children by thirty. She had fulfilled her quota to avoid the life I walked toward, only to end up fated for it anyway.

“Oh, not Una,” my stepmother said, her hand pressed to her star pendant. “I always said the godstars wouldn’t look kindly on the arrogant pride she had in her beauty. I always said that, didn’t I, Padraic?”

“Of course, Dee,” my father said absently, agreeing by default with my stepmother as he was oft to do as of late.

“Mama?” Two little girls tugged at Una’s skirts. Her husband held their toddler, his lips moving in soft words as tears streamed down his wife’s face. Her children were all younger than I was when my mother was harvested. Would her eldest even remember her?

“Aislin Milligan.”

Everything within me went cold.

My sister’s hand clenched in mine until pain shot through my arm, a faint mirror to the stab jolting through my core.

No.

Not this.

Not my sister.

My little sister.

My pregnant sister.

But there were no exceptions to the harvests. The vampires didn’t care if Aislin was pregnant. To our immortal overlords, a pregnant human was a bargain. If she survived the harvest and the birth, her child would grow up as a thrall, too.

For a moment, no one moved, all of us frozen in shock. Then my stepmother wailed, a pitiful, dying noise. She shoved my father and brother-in-law out of the way to pull Aislin’s stiff body into her arms. My sister released my hand.

“No, he must be wrong. The godstars wouldn’t let them choose you. Not my daughter.”

“The godstars must have a reason, Mother,” Aislin said automatically, patting her mother’s back. “I’ll accept the path They have chosen for me.”

“You will not.” Deidre spun, her green gaze fixing on my father. “Fix this, Padraic.”

He flinched. My father had stood by and done nothing when my mother was selected. Would he do the same for his favorite daughter?

His eyes dropped.

The bastard.

Donal wouldn’t be any help either. He was already backing away.

Tendrils of dread clawed through my stomach. There was really only one choice, wasn’t there? One I could live with, that was.

Though Aislin and I rarely talked about it, she knew how hard it was for me without my mother. Her own mother conspired to make it worse, treating me like a stranger who lived in her house and ate her food. I wouldn’t wish my childhood on my worst enemy.

And if Aislin was harvested today, the fate awaiting my nephew or niece would be a thousand times worse.

I steeled my spine. The final three names had been called, but none of them mattered to me. I wasn’t selected. Only Aislin. It was a simple fix.

I opened my mouth but nothing came out. I’d spent most of my life with my head in a book. Talking wasn’t my strongest skill. Neither was courage. Already, people drifted from the square. I wanted nothing more than to run through them back to my shop and hide within crinkled pages.

But I’d forever be haunted if I didn’t say the words.

“I’ll go.”

As soon as the sentence escaped my mouth, I wanted to swallow it back. Stars, I was going to puke. I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want to be a thrall. But life had never cared what I wanted. Why start now?

Every member of my family went still again. But it was far shorter than a pause this time. Deidre’s shoulder slumped instantly in relief. Donal, my father, and Orrin stared at me with wide eyes like I had said something insane.

I didn’t disagree.

After a second, my sister rushed to me and dug her fingers into my arms. “Nessa, no.”

I gripped my sister’s hand and squeezed it. “I have to, Aislin. You can’t go. You and your child don’t deserve to be harvested as thralls. This is my path either way.”

“Nessa...”

I pulled her into a hug and squeezed her tight. The harvested never returned to Mabon. They couldn’t send letters. They were as good as dead, even those that managed to survive. I’d never see Aislin again. Never meet the child I volunteered to save.

A small part of me whimpered and screamed, but I shoved her down. My eyes remained dry. There would be a thousand more reasons to cry today.

I met Donal’s gaze over Aislin’s shoulder. He looked... relieved. I wanted to blame him, but could I? If someone offered to take my place right now, I’d feel the exact same way.

I simply stared. He would protect my sister. He would love her and cherish her until the end, whether that came by death or harvest. He would be the best father Corraidin had ever witnessed, or I would haunt his ass for the rest of eternity.

He straightened under my glare, swallowing audibly.

I released my sister and pulled back to study her. My mother’s face was a blur in my mind. Had her eyes been hazel brown like mine or a lighter gray? Did she have my straight nose or a rounded tip like Great-Aunt Cloda? Had she smiled at the antics of her young daughter or frowned like Deidre always had? I didn’t know. I wouldn’t ever know.

I’d hold on to every memory of Aislin for as long as I was able. “I’m volunteering. You can’t stop me.”

“Nessa—”

“You don’t know how wonderful it is to hear those words,” a deep, melodic voice said behind me.

My nausea disappeared, wiped away by a wave of pure fear. It prickled across my skin, under my skin, an uncontrollable compulsion to flee or fawn.

The innate sense of prey in the presence of a predator.

I turned slowly, knowing what I’d find. Half the people shuffling from the square around me had peered over at the entrancing sound, but now stared straight ahead with stiff backs. Proximity made the air tense with fear, even though an Azarasian could easily kill a human from three feet or three hundred feet away.

A cloaked vampire in the Court of Dawn’s red stood at my side. I stared for a second, dumbfounded. Where had he come from? I knew vampires were stronger and faster than humans, but I’d never witnessed any of their superior abilities outside of stories. The magistrates paraded around like they had all the time in the world. But this vampire wasn’t one of the magistrates.

That couldn’t be right. The magistrates lived here, along with a handful of warriors and a rotating roster of healers. But no other vampire had ever attended the harvests.

From within the depth of the cloak, luminous golden eyes ensnared me. “May I?”

My mouth went oddly dry. I dropped my gaze, from the white-blond hair brushing his sculpted shoulders to the black, hardened leather that fit him like a second skin. I finally settled on the hand he held extended. Gold rings bejeweled with rubies and pearls decorated the ivory of his knuckles.

I stared at that pale, glittering hand for a thousand years. The vampire had phrased it as a question, but I didn’t really have a choice in the matter.

Without shaking, I placed my hand in his palm. The magic in his veins made him a few degrees warmer than a human, but his skin felt normal otherwise, soft, flawless, and unscarred. He raised it to his mouth like he meant to kiss my knuckles.

An inch from my skin, he stopped.

Then he inhaled.

I almost wet myself. Honestly, I was impressed I stayed standing. I couldn’t see his eyes from this angle, but his lips twitched into a small smile, flashing perfectly normal teeth. I had never seen a vampires’ fangs before, though I had learned about them in school. The Azarasians taught us everything we’d need to know to be a good thrall.

“Lovely,” he all but purred.

Heat flooded me. Whether it was fear or something I refused to name, I wasn’t sure. No one had ever called me lovely. Especially no one who sounded like that.

Then again, he was talking about my blood.

I tugged my hand back without thinking. The vampire let go of me. His smile grew into a dazzling grin. Great. Glad I could be entertaining. I backed up—

And bumped into a chest that felt like solid steel.

I stiffened. Fuck. Shit. Fuck. I couldn’t do this. I wasn’t meant for life beyond my bookshop. I especially wasn’t meant to be a vampire’s afternoon meal. Two vampires’ afternoon meal. Azarasians always traveled in pairs and shared everything with their soulbound.

“Who’s this?” The second vampire’s voice rumbled through him, vibrating lightly across my back. I had wider shoulders than most, and even my sides barely brushed the inner part of his massive arms. I might have been short next to the Dawn vampire, but I was tiny compared to his Dusk counterpart.

“A volunteer,” the Dawn vampire said, sounding absolutely delighted. “It only took a month.”

“Hmm.” A huff of breath brushed my ear. Was the vampire leaning... closer? I didn’t dare turn. I didn’t think I could.

“I haven’t volunteered yet.” I don’t know why I said it, but the words escaped my lips before I could stop them. The breath tickling my ear stopped. My heart nearly seized. “Sir,” I added quickly, like addressing him properly would make him forget I had spoken without permission.

After an eternal moment, the solid heat left my back as the second vampire circled me.

A figure in a dark blue cloak entered my line of sight. He towered over me, the top of my head in line with his broad shoulders. The black, curved blade of a daemium axe wafted faint shadows from the holster on his back. I glimpsed bronze skin, a strong jawline, and silver eyes before ducking my head down.

“Haven’t you?” he asked. “Shall we take your... sister, was it?”

Aislin paled as the Dusk vampire focused on her.

“No,” I nearly shouted the word. “Fine. I volunteer in the place of Aislin Milligan.”

The Dawn vampire clapped. “Excellent! Glad we could come to an agreement.”

I started to glare, but stopped myself mid-expression and ducked my head. You idiot. Never make eye contact with a vampire. The few texts I had on vampire biology and culture were heavily redacted, but I didn’t need a book to know that. It was one of the first things every Maboni child learned. To hold a vampire’s gaze was to issue a challenge—one they always answered.

But the blonde didn’t react beyond the curl of his lips. Thankfully I had found a vampire amused by my idiotic slip-ups or I’d be very dead right now.

“Come with us.” The Dusk vampire crooked his fingers once, silver rings circling each digit except his thumb. He turned firmly on his heels and started through the crowd, forcing humans to scurry from his path. He didn’t wait to see if I obeyed. Even if his soulbound wasn’t beside me, I had a feeling he wouldn’t have waited. His tone was absolute, following his command the only option.

I faced my sister, who watched me with terrified eyes. Poor Aislin. I wasn’t leaving much behind, but I would miss her. The only person in my life who had ever cared. I took her hand and searched for something to say, but no words felt right.

How did one say goodbye to someone forever?

I thought I’d have more time to figure that out.

“Take care of yourself, Ais.” I gave her hand a final squeeze. “I’ll miss you.”

My sister released a small sob before slapping a hand over her mouth. She nodded and backed away, like if she stood any closer, she’d try to grab me and hold me back. Deidre stepped up to her daughter’s side. At her touch, Aislin spun and dropped her head against her mother’s shoulder.

“May the godstars shine upon you, Nessa.”

Though my stepmother’s voice was soft, it didn’t reach the bitch’s eyes. I almost slapped her. It was now or never, after all.

I settled for a cathartic, “Fuck off, Deirdre.”

The Dawn vampire cackled and dropped an arm around my shoulder. I stiffened at the touch. “You’re hilarious. I like you already.”