Page 21

I drifted through the shelves, tracing my finger along every spine. Each cover was smooth beneath my fingertips, the titles embossed in gleaming gold and silver. A faint rune, almost invisible, was etched into the leather. Preserve . That explained why every book was pristine, not a single cracked binding, frayed edge, or curling yellowed page in sight.

I sank into the shelves. Here, the world was quiet, peaceful. Just the hush of paper, the weight of knowledge, and the pull of stories, waiting to be chosen.

Fur brushed my shoulder. I flinched, but it was just Titus meandering past me, deeper into the library. I followed the hellwolf until we reached an open space in the room’s center.

Titus dropped onto a thick rug in a patch of sunlight between a pair of sofas to my left, but my attention fixed on the large table to my right. I approached without thinking. This space belonged to the kings, same as the bedchamber and the art studio, but the books made it feel like home.

Scrolls, star charts, and neatly stacked books covered every inch. I circled the table, my gaze drifting across every stroke of ink, whether word, symbol, or sketch. There were calculations, something that looked like an angular diagram. Were they tracking the Blood Star’s rising? Back in Mabon, we celebrated its return weeks ago, but I was further south now. I had no idea when it would appear here.

As I rounded the back, a desk tucked into the corner caught my eye. Expanding my loop around the space, I traced my fingers along its golden edge. A small, framed portrait sat on the desk. The beautiful vampire in the painting had dark, curling hair, deep brown skin, and luminous silver eyes. She smiled, her gaze soft with affection and locked with that of her observer. The brushwork resembled the chaotic style of the art studio next door, but this workspace was too meticulous to belong to the same person.

Assuming Jules was the artist, that meant this must have been Luc’s desk.

Did the Conqueror have a queen? I didn’t think so. Perhaps a paramour? If so, she hadn’t attended last night’s celebrations. Unless she had stood at the back of the room, watching.

Not that I was any sort of threat or competition. I was human, a thrall. It wouldn’t even count as infidelity, assuming the Azarasians believed in such a thing. From what I’d learned and witnessed, monogamy wasn’t common beyond heartmates and the occasional beloved pair. Companions took lovers freely, affection shared rather than claimed.

I shook my head. Stars, all their flirting had gotten to my head. I didn’t want to be a threat or competition. The Imperium had lured me into becoming their Mortal Bride. Now that I was, I would surely meet the real Conqueror and the Butcher, the two brutal warlords an entire continent feared.

I turned to Maire, but she wasn’t behind me. She wasn’t in the library at all. I stepped away from the desk, circling back around the table toward the aisle. Maire stood in the open doorway, her lips pursed in a frown.

Was she waiting for me to invite her in? I wasn’t her master, but she sort of served me. “Uh, come in?”

“I can’t enter the Imperium’s library without—” Maire paused, her hands raised and stepping forward. Then another step. Another. Her brow furrowed. “How odd.”

“What?”

“I tried to follow you before and hit the apartment’s wards. I should have hit it again by now.”

“Oh.” I didn’t know what else to say. The kings had mentioned the apartment’s wards, but they hadn’t said anything more about them.

Maire hesitantly walked into the library, each step slow and simple like she expected the wards to sneak up on her. “Odran could only enter the bedchamber without the Imperium.”

Memory flashed through me. The old man spasming as blood poured from his neck, coming as he died. I shuddered and grazed my fingers along the cold metal of our shared collar.

I cleared my throat, forcing the image away. “What does the Imperium expect of their Mortal Bride?”

“Not much,” Maire said. “Most of your hours will be your own. I can bring you books, paints, anything you want. The... happier you are, the longer it will take the covenant to deplete your lifeforce.”

My stomach dropped.

Maire must have noticed because she quickly added, “Odran was the Mortal Bride my entire lifespan. You won’t live any shorter a life as their bride than you would as a thrall.”

As a thrall. That wasn’t exactly comforting.

“I see,” I said. “I won’t be expected to serve them?”

“Serve them, no.” She paused at the edge of the last shelf before the open space. Her gaze flickered briefly to Titus, who remained seated, his dark eyes locked on her. “Feed them, yes.”

My heart stuttered. “I figured that.”

Maire studied me, her expression unreadable. “Odran fed the Imperium and the Imperial Council.”

I inhaled sharply, but I forced my shoulders to stay still. A pit opened in my stomach. For some reason, fucking the kings didn’t horrify me, not entirely, but the thought of touching their council did. My pulse quickened, nausea creeping up my throat.

But this was the life of a thrall. I had known that.

Maire had served the kings and their council for years before becoming Prince Cédric’s personal thrall. If she could survive it, so would I.

I forced the thought aside. “Can you show me around? Where do all the thralls spend their—”

Maire cut me off. “The Mortal Bride can’t leave the Imperium’s apartment unless escorted by the kings, their council, or the Imperial Guard.”

“Oh.” I fiddled with the ends of my hair. “Will I ever get to leave?”

“If the kings decide to bring you to revelries or events, but otherwise… no.”

I swallowed hard. I was locked in here. My stomach twisted, a strong turn that bordered on pain. My illness was creeping back, a quiet warning. If I let myself spiral, stress could turn it into something worse. But I couldn’t keep changing the subject to avoid stressful things.

Everything Maire shared was stressful.

Maire narrowed her eyes, thinking. “But… you walked through one of their wards.”

“Do you think I can leave?”

She hesitated. “I’m not sure.”

“Can we try?” My voice was quiet, but insistent.

Maire’s lips parted slightly, like she wanted to say no. Like she should say no.

I pressed on. “If something’s wrong with their wards, they’ll figure it out eventually. This might be…” My throat tightened. “This might be my only chance to walk around without supervision ever again. For my entire lifetime.”

I had spent my whole life confined. To Corraidin since birth and my bookshop since my illness worsened. I wanted to see more. Even if it was just the thrall quarters. Even if it was ugly. I just wanted to know.

Maire didn’t respond right away.

Shit. I hurried to correct myself. “But I don’t want to get you in trouble. That was selfish of me—”

“No, you’re right.” Maire cut me off again, her voice firmer now. “This might be your only chance. You should see the thrall quarters. Odran never did, and… it made him difficult.”

Difficult? What did that mean? “Are you sure it’s not a risk?”

Maire exhaled, casting a wary glance toward the doorway. “Not if we stick to the thrall quarters,” she said. “We’ll have to hurry. The Imperium will return after their audience. But no one should notice otherwise. The Imperial Guard they leave at their door rarely check, and your scent should linger long enough that they won’t be able to tell you’ve left. The wards mute their senses, anyway.”

“How will we get out if there are guards at the door?”

Maire’s expression didn’t waver. “We’re not taking the hallway.”

I nodded, but doubt crawled up my spine. Was this worth the risk? The kings didn’t need me willing anymore. But Maire didn’t think we’d get caught. I barely knew the woman, but if I wanted to survive here, I had to trust someone. It wouldn’t be the vampire kings who owned me.

“Lead the way.”

Maire turned and exited the library. I lingered, glancing at Titus, but the hellwolf just watched.

I followed her into the sitting room as she approached the wall near the main entrance. With a tap to a section of patterned gold, a servant’s door popped open silently. So that was where she had appeared from earlier.

Maire glanced over at me, about to say something. Her jaw snapped shut as her gaze flicked behind me and widened. Titus had followed us from the library. He sat in the doorway, silent, watching.

Waiting.

Disapproving?

But he wasn’t growling. He had no intention of stopping me. I shouldn’t have known that, but I did.

That didn’t mean he intended to let me go alone.

“Stay here, Titus.” I gave his snout a gentle stroke. “I’ll be back soon.”

The hellwolf stared, shadows swirling in his eyes.

“Please.”

After a moment, Titus relented, dropping his head. I scratched behind his ears, digging both my fingers into the thick fur at his neck. The hellwolf closed his eyes, his tongue lolling out.

“Thank you.” With one final scratch, I turned back around to Maire. She quickly masked her expression, but I had seen the shock. The same shock the kings had when Titus first let me touch him.

She shook herself and stepped through the servant’s door. I followed, peering over her shoulder. The passageway was narrow, just wide enough for one person. A few steps in, the corridor twisted into a steep stairwell that plunged into darkness.

Maire reached for a wall sconce and pulled free a slender metal wand. Without hesitation, she pricked her finger. “Most runes in Dawnspear are useless to humans since we have no power to activate them. But the runelights have been spelled for us.”

She brushed the wand against the sconce. A rune flared into shadows the second her blood touched the metal. The darkness sucked her blood down and flared against the wall. Then, golden light erupted, illuminating the stairwell.

We descended, the runelight following beside us, leaping from sconce to sconce. The kings’ apartment was at the top of Dawnspear. Assuming the thrall quarters were near the bathing chambers, we had at least a few floors between us and our destination. Maire didn’t speak. Neither did I. The only sound was the patter of our steps and the soft rumble of my stomach.

I hoped Maire planned to feed me during this trip.

A couple minutes later, the stairs curved sharply before straightening out. At the bottom, a half-closed door loomed ahead. A low thrum of voices seeped through the crack.

Maire halted and turned to me. “Keep your head down and don’t speak to anyone.” She grabbed a section of my hair and pulled it forward, letting the loose strands curtain my face. “You just became the Mortal Bride, so no one should recognize you, but we shouldn’t risk it.”

I swallowed. “Why? Are there vampires in the thrall quarters?”

“No. But half the thralls would report you if they thought it might earn them a favor.” Maire kept her hands busy, fingers combing through my hair. “We’re the lucky ones. We’re fed, clothed. We don’t get sent to the abattoirs or the workhouses. We help our masters dress, run their errands.” A pause. Her hands stilled for just a breath. “The hardest thing we do is feed them.”

I frowned. “And the other half of the thralls?”

Maire’s voice was flat. “The other half worship demonbloods.”

I had thought that was just something the Church said to scare us. My gaze dropped to Maire’s falling star pendant. “Do you?”

“Vampires are less suspicious of those who wear the falling star.”

I nodded. A practical choice, then. Maire finally finished fussing with my hair and continued down the stairs. I scurried after her. I wouldn’t be able to navigate back on my own and that wasn’t an option. The kings had already threatened me with punishment today. I wasn’t eager to find out what that meant.

My pulse leaped.

Fine. A part of me wanted to know.

I ignored it.

When Maire reached the bottom step, she pushed through the door and kept walking. I forced myself to follow, head lowered just enough to avoid drawing attention. It took everything in me to put one foot in front of the other.

The thrall quarters weren’t as extravagant as the rest of the castle, but they weren’t dank and run-down either. The walls were smooth stone, the floors swept clean, but there was no mistaking what this place was—a barracks, not a home.

Dozens of thralls moved down the long hallway, their footsteps light, their murmured conversations a constant, shifting hum. Doorways lined the passage, some closed, others yawning open, revealing glimpses of the lives inside. I couldn’t help but stare. Beds crammed the rooms, lining both walls, some stacked two or three high. Pallets were shoved into corners where beds wouldn’t fit, thin blankets folded neatly at their ends. There was easily space for twenty to thirty thralls per room.

The murmur of voices thickened, turning into a low, steady drone. Underneath it, there was something else.

A slow, rhythmic sound.

A drum.

I frowned, listening hard, but as we turned a corner and passed another open door, I figured it out.

On the nearest bed to the doorway, a woman straddled a man, riding him with frenzied movements. I only just stopped myself from stumbling. My pulse jumped in my throat, my gut tightening. Not just from the display itself, but from the ease of it, the normalcy. I should have been witnessing something private, forbidden. But here? No one was hiding. No one was ashamed.

And once I noticed, I couldn’t stop.

In every room we passed, thralls fucked in the open. Some in pairs, others tangled in groups, skin shining with sweat. One room was little more than a writhing mass of limbs. On a nearby bed, a thrall lay fully clothed, flipping through a book as if the gyrating bodies around her were nothing more than background noise.

No one reacted to them.

No one stared.

Because this was normal.

Maire must have noticed my discomfort because she grabbed my hand and tugged me forward, muttering, “You Maboni are so easily scandalized.”

“You don’t consider yourself Maboni anymore?” I kept my voice low, grateful for something— anything —to focus on.

“I’ve never set foot in Mabon,” she said. “My mother was harvested years before I was born.”

I faltered. Maire had been born into this—into servitude, into feeding them, into a life where even her body wasn’t her own. I’d always guessed this happened to the Maboni taken as thralls. It’s not like none of them would ever get pregnant. But I had never truly thought about what that meant.

Generation after generation, raised under vampire rule, never given the choice to be anything else.

“And your father?” I asked.

“I don’t know who my father was,” she said. “It doesn’t matter anyway. We’re not raised by our parents.”

A cold knot formed in my stomach. I had willingly taken my sister’s place to spare her and her unborn child from this same fate. But Maire had lived it her entire life. How many of Maboni descent had been born here, just like Maire? How many more would be?

Did the Azarasians encourage it? Expect it?

Were their birth quotas here, too?

I forced the words out, low and unsteady. “Do the Azarasians force you to reproduce?”

Maire didn’t even blink. “Not exactly, but we aren’t given contraceptive runes or herbs. The Azarasians could always use new thralls.”

“Then why…?” I waved a hand awkwardly, trying to find the right words. “Why does no one resist?”

Maire only arched her brows at me. “Resist?”

I gestured vaguely around us. “This. All of it.”

A bitter smirk tugged at the edge of her mouth. “You’ve only been bitten once. Give it a couple more times and you’ll understand.”

Maire didn’t elaborate. She didn’t need to. The Azarasians kept a lot from us, but we knew about their venom.

“But why should we?” she added. “It’s one of the few things we can enjoy in this life. There’s no marriage here, Nessa. No weddings, no wives and husbands, no families in little houses. Those rules bound you once, but in the Impire, they don’t exist. Not for thralls. Not for most vampires, either.”

Was that terrifying? Or freeing? “I’ve realized.”

Maire slowed her pace, glancing at a closed doorway. “I need to check on something before we continue.”

“Check on what?”

Instead of answering, Maire pushed open the door and stepped inside.

I hesitated. Standing idly in the hallway felt too exposed, too conspicuous. After a second, I stepped closer. The door remained slightly ajar. From the threshold, I could see little more than dim lighting and the shapes of beds.

Curiosity pulled me forward. I peeked through, craning my neck for a better look—

Into a room like all the others. Almost like all the others. This one was smaller, without any stacked beds, and sleeping women in iron collars occupied the closest three.

Pregnant , sleeping women.

I stopped dead—inside the room. I had wandered forward without thinking.

“What is this?” My voice came out hollow, barely above a whisper.

Maire didn’t answer me. She was already moving, her steps quick, purposeful. On the fourth bed, a dark-haired thrall lay awake, her thin shift pasted to her sweat-drenched skin. The bulge of her stomach rose sharply beneath it, etched with thick, twisting lines of shadow.

I couldn’t see the other women’s bellies, but I knew if I could, they’d be marked the same.

Each of these thralls carried a demonblooded child.

My insides went cold.

“When did she wake, éamon?” Maire asked the two thralls hovering at the panting woman’s bedside.

The red-haired man at her bedside shifted slightly. “A couple of minutes ago.”

The other thrall didn’t speak, only continued patting the pregnant woman’s brow with a damp cloth.

“Have you reported it to Healer Chastain yet?”

“No.” The thrall glanced over at me, but there wasn’t any recognition in his eyes. He placed a hand on Maire’s arm and led her slightly away from the bed. “We thought… this is her only chance to say goodbye.”

Maire flinched. I didn’t know what was happening and didn’t want to interrupt, but I itched to ask the question.

“I’m sorry, Maire.”

Maire’s throat bobbed. She glanced at me, as if recalculating something. Then, to éamon, “I’ll be back in ten minutes. Fifteen at most. Send for the healer when I return.”

éamon frowned. “Maire—”

She leaned closer, her whisper harsh. “She can’t be here when the healer arrives.”

The man’s eyes flickered to me and widened with sudden recognition. “How in the stars did you bring the Mortal—?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Maire snapped, cutting him off. “Sophie is like a little sister to me, éamon, but I need to return her first.”

éamon nodded slowly. “I have apartment access. Let me take her back.”

“And if the kings return before I do?”

éamon exhaled through his nose. “I’ve attended the…” he gestured at me “...before, when you’re indisposed. If they notice and ask, I’ll say you asked me to take over for you today. But they won’t notice or ask.”

Maire gripped his shoulder. “Thank you, éamon.”

“Of course, Maire. Anything.”

Maire turned back to Sophie, leaned over, and pressed a kiss to the pregnant woman’s damp forehead. “I’ll be back in a second.”

Sophie gritted her teeth, tears streaking her face, but managed a nod. Maire brushed back her damp hair, fingers gentle. Then she turned to me. She gestured for the door, and I followed her out into the hallway silently.

éamon slipped out behind us. The moment the door closed, Maire slumped against the wall and bowed her head. Her breathing was unsteady.

“I’m sorry, Nessa,” she murmured. “This wasn’t the last thing I planned to show you. Sophie isn’t due for another week. I didn’t expect…”

I swallowed. “Is she… dying?”

Maire’s glistening eyes met mine. “No human woman survives a vampire birth without help. Their little parasitic spawn are born hungry.”

Little parasitic spawn. My stomach twisted. Maire had birthed a vampire child. She wasn’t legally his mother as a thrall, but she had carried Prince Rosier and breastfed him like he was her own.

“But you’re summoning a healer?” I pressed. “In Mabon, vampire healers help our mothers with their births.”

Maire let out a humorless breath. “You’re a delicacy, Nessa. Born and raised in near freedom, all to make your blood taste better. Sophie is just another Impire-born thrall. There are millions of us.” Her voice hardened. “Vampire babies are as hard to kill as an adult. It’s only the human or witch mother who’s at threat during labor. Prince Cédric is the only reason I lived while his son tried to drain me.”

Maire wiped her eyes and pushed herself to full height. “These thralls don’t have a vampire who cares enough about them to ensure they survive. They don’t even know who fathered their child. I was hoping…” She glanced away, swallowing thickly. “Some thralls never wake from the hibernation the baby forces their body into during the final weeks. I hoped Sophie would sleep through her death. It’s the kinder fate.”

I swallowed down my nausea. Sleeping through her death was the kinder fate? I glanced back at éamon, who had stepped away to give us our privacy. “So you have to take me back upstairs.”

Maire nodded. “We have to summon Healer Chastain. She might not know what the new Mortal Bride looks like, but she could sense the covenant in you.”

“It’s fine, Maire.”

She blinked, surprised.

I forced a weak smile. “I’d do anything to see my sister again. You shouldn’t miss any time with yours.”

Maire studied me for a beat, then sighed. “You won’t get another chance to see Dawnspear without a vampire a step behind you.”

“I’ve seen enough.” And I had. Whatever life the kings had planned for me, no matter how comfortable their apartment, it would remain a gilded prison, a home to the worst of the monsters. I couldn’t look at it and see anything else. Not if this was how the rest of the thralls lived, packed into crowded rooms or left for dead while baby vampires ate them from the inside out.

Maire turned back to éamon.

“éamon will take you back.”

Without another word, she turned and slipped back into the room. She kneeled beside Sophie as the door swung shut behind her.

éamon stepped up beside me. His voice was quiet, but firm. “Come on. Let’s get you back upstairs before you’re missed.”

I nodded, my throat dry, and followed him into the hallway. The scent of too many bodies pressed in from all sides, but I kept my head down. Don’t look. Don’t listen. Just keep moving.

This time, I didn’t glance inside the open rooms. Didn’t count the beds crammed together. Didn’t listen to the voices, the low moans, the soft murmurs between thralls who had long since learned to find comfort where they could.

éamon didn’t speak at first. He moved quickly, his steps light but purposeful, his body tensed as though expecting an interruption at any moment.

“I’m glad you saw this.”

I frowned, glancing at him. “What?”

éamon’s expression was grim. “Odran attended the occasional feast and revelry, but he was content to obey. He didn’t know what it was like to really be a thrall.” The narrow hallway twisted until finally we stopped at the servant’s staircase. He pushed the door open, but his voice lowered, almost urgent. “But you’ll remember that this is all we are to them. Something to bite, fuck, use, and discard—”

A hand caught the door, stopping it mid-swing.

The world seemed to contract in an instant.

Pale fingers. A leather-clad arm. The brush of magic, featherlight but unmistakable. My heart stopped, then lurched as I felt them before I even saw them.

Estrella and Tristan towered over us.

Behind us, the thralls in the hallway dropped to their knees.

Estrella smiled, slow and sharp. “You better hope that isn’t true, human.” Her eyes flicked from éamon to me. “Think the Imperium will bite, fuck, use, or discard you for endangering the covenant?”