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The sound of the orchestra was still playing as I slipped through the halls of the palace. Guests and servants were everywhere, making it difficult to evade them all, but I finally reached the gardens.

Despite the night still being young, I was exhausted. The cool gardens, with their soft lights, provided a respite from the crowds of people who kept telling me what a good match I was. The ones that pressed their congratulations on me as though they were bestowing me a great favor. The ones that simpered and fluttered around Luken like moths on the flame.

Worse were the women who made no secret of the way they were throwing themselves at him. It was clear from all their behavior that Luken wasn’t expected to stay faithful to his new human wife.

Did I expect him to be faithful? I wasn’t sure. I didn’t want to care if he did or not… but I knew in my bones that if he slept with anyone else, it would devastate me. Despite everything that was between us… or maybe because of it. I just wanted one thing I could actually trust him with. But I didn’t know him.

How could I trust him when I didn’t know him? All I wanted from Luken was safety, to feel like I had someone in my corner who could take care of me.

“Elara?” a voice whispered behind me.

I jumped and turned. Thessa crept in the shadows, flitting closer to me. I could barely make out her face in the glow from her brown eyes. Relief washed through me, and I rushed over to her, pulling her into a tight hug. I wasn’t sure either of us could sneak away from the party when I’d whispered for her to meet me here.

“Did you get everything we need?” I asked anxiously.

Thessa nodded. “It was difficult to sneak past the guards, but I was able to do it in my panther form. Once they find it missing, though, they’ll be able to smell I was the one who took it all.”

She passed me a small rucksack. Inside was a dagger, a canteen, and several packs of dried food. The item that she had just taken for me tonight was a map of the kingdom. Not just any map that you could buy on a corner of the city, but one that was magically enhanced. It would show us where we were at any given time and map our route to where we were going, like a GPS.

The location of the temples was a highly guarded secret, but the vampires who collected the tributes had to have a means of getting them to the temples. And this map was exactly how they did it. It was the most vital of all the supplies we’d been building the last few weeks. Even my staff, my weapon of choice, wasn’t as important as this square of paper.

“And you have weapons for yourself?” I asked her.

She nodded. “I told Marissa that I didn’t feel safe in my room and that I wanted to keep a staff with me.”

Her words made me release a short breath. “Are you safe in your room?”

She flashed me a smile. “Oh, yes. Very safe. The king told me right from the start that if anyone tried to mess with me, I was to tell him or Marissa, and they’d deal with whoever was making my life difficult. The other vampires might not be happy with me being around, but they all know I’m under the king’s protection.”

My heart fluttered at her words, though I tried to push it aside.

“We’ll have to wait until the newness of the marriage wears off,” I murmured, looking up at Thessa. “You’ll have to come to my room tonight so we can make plans for getting out of here.”

“On your wedding night?” Thessa asked doubtfully.

My stomach clenched as I shook my head. “Yes, on my wedding night. Luken already knows that I’m not receptive to him. He won’t come to my room tonight. We’ll have privacy.”

Would he take one of the gorgeous women from the party to his room? I hated this feeling of jealousy, of uncertainty. I didn’t want to care if he slept with someone else or not. If Marissa was to be believed, Luken didn’t even look for a bedmate in the past four years, since he thought I was dead. But it wasn’t as though I could really trust Marissa, either.

Thessa’s fingers brushed against my hand. I flinched back out of instinct, rolling to the balls of my feet as I prepared to defend against an attack. She flinched in response, harder than I had, and bit her lip.

I let out a shaky breath. “Sorry. This whole wedding business just has me on edge.”

“Um, that’s what I wanted to ask you about,” Thessa said uncertainly. “Are you certain you want to do this? Especially with the wedding…”

I straightened, smoothing down the front of my old-fashioned white dress. “We only have a few months before Darcie is lost to us forever. We have to save her. There’s no other choice here.”

My hands clenched into fists as panic threatened to start swelling in my throat. Four years ago, Luken’s half-brother Greyson killed my parents, all of my family except my younger sister Darcie, and framed Luken for it. I’d nearly died in the attempt, too. It was only because I’d hidden Darcie earlier that she was able to pull me out of the fire that scared me so badly.

Those days were bleak, but even bleaker was when Darcie had been claimed as a tribute to the gods. The last person I had in this world was ripped away from me. I’d spent every moment of the last four years getting stronger and planning how to get her back. I wasn’t going to give up now.

“I don’t want to give up on her, either,” Thessa murmured. “I know that you gave up your chance to save her when you saved me.”

It was true. To win the Blood Trials, I had to stab Thessa through the heart. I killed her, earning myself one wish to be granted. When entering the Trials, it had been my plan to use that wish to save Darcie from being sacrificed. With Thessa’s blood gushing over my hands, I’d instead begged Luken to turn her into a vampire, saving her life.

I knew I couldn’t regret that choice. Not when Thessa and Darcie were such close friends that Darcie had given her the necklace she inherited from our grandmother. Memories washed over me from the all-too-recent Blood Trials. It had been less than a month, and despite the training I’d put myself through with an assassin’s coven, I still had nightmares about what happened. Our teammates Kael and Ysara…

My stomach clenched, and I closed my eyes, breathing my emotions away. “Given what I know now, I’m not sure I would have been granted my wish to free Darcie, even if I hadn’t saved you, Thessa. Besides. It’s a good thing to have you here.” I opened my eyes again and took her hand, squeezing lightly. “I need the reminder that there’s still goodness in this world. And I needed you, an ally I can rely on.”

Thessa bit her lip, still looking hesitant. “I guess I… I don’t understand why you can’t ask Luken for help, since he’s on our side now.”

“Because he won’t help,” I answered, clenching my hands again. “I made it clear that I wanted to save Darcie, and he made it clear that he didn’t intend to help me. He’s not on our side, Thessa. He just used me.”

“I…” Thessa fell silent, but her expression clearly said she wasn’t convinced.

It didn’t matter if she was convinced or not. I knew the truth. How even though I’d given Luken everything I had left, he wasn’t willing to give me my sister back. Maybe it was jealousy on his side. Maybe he didn’t want anyone around who might compete with him for my affections.

Thessa was quiet, rubbing her chest where I’d stabbed her through the heart. I shuddered as I recalled my own experience. Greyson had flung a knife into my chest, too, seconds after Luken saved Thessa. I hadn’t gotten as close to death as Thessa had, but Luken still needed to feed me his blood and pump the vampire venom into my body to save my life. I was close enough to death that it had changed me, even if I wasn’t a full vampire now.

And most worrisome, the feeling of him drinking from me was the most blissful experience I’d been through. Even regular vampires created a euphoric sense in the people they drank from. Many people said there was nothing more orgasmic than an orgasm from a vampire’s mouth. I’d trained myself against sexual arousal, building up a tolerance so I could control my body.

When it came to Luken, all that training disappeared.

“Elara?” Thessa said.

I shook myself, too swept up in the memory of the sheer delight of Luken’s body. Even now, my core tightened, and my breasts swelled, wanting him to touch me, to hold me, to inhabit me. It was like an addiction from the first hit.

“Are you sure?” Thessa asked.

“Am I sure what?”

“That Luken isn’t on your side? You said that he isn’t coming to your room because you told him you don’t want him. Surely, if he respects you enough not to push the matter—”

I snorted. “He doesn’t respect me at all. It’s just a game to him.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” I slid the pack onto my shoulder and jerked my chin toward the hiding place where we’d store everything, to make sure it couldn’t be connected to us if it was discovered. “I know that he puts on a good show. He even fooled me. But he doesn’t care about me, Thessa. He only cares about himself and his goals.”

Disappointment hit the pit of my stomach. Tears pricked my eyes. It was a lie to say that I succumbed to Luken simply because of the desire that he created in my body. More than that, it was the desire he created in my mind. I wanted him to love me. I wanted to trust him. I wanted it so badly, I’d let myself believe without evidence.

We stashed the supplies and started back toward the palace.

“You told me that you trained to be able to resist a vampire when they fed on you,” Thessa said abruptly while we walked. “How did that work? And how can I make sure that I… I only drink from people who went through the same training?”

Her cheeks went red.

Oh.

Oh.

I hadn’t considered what it would be like from her perspective. At the temples, she would have been trained to believe that her virginity was her greatest value. Now, as a vampire, her sustenance would eventually require her to drink from another person.

“I’m not sure how much to tell you,” I hedged.

She gave me a firm look. “Please. I don’t want to take advantage of anyone.”

I smiled slightly. “My training included putting me through pain whenever I was sexually aroused. And that includes having vampires drink from me, and punishing my body for responding. But it’s not perfect, you have to know. Most times, I’m able to control my body, but sometimes pain elicits arousal, too. But as for drinking from people,” I hesitated, uncertain how she’d take this suggestion, “You can drink from me, at least to begin with. I can handle it.”

Thessa opened her mouth again, but closed it. She nodded jerkily. “Marissa says I’ll have to drink within the next month. We should try before we leave the palace. In case I can’t stop and you need help.”

Her breathing was rapid, and as we passed through a beam of light, I saw that her normally golden skin tone had gone pale.

I understood her fear. “We have time,” I assured her. “We’ll have to wait until our guests leave, and Luken lets down his guard before we make our move, anyway.”

“I—” she started, then froze.

Moments later, I heard it too. The sound of voices wafting through the gardens. I cocked my head, triangulating the sound. Guests, maybe? Or it could be servants taking advantage of the party. Either way, I didn’t want word to get back to Luken that Thessa and I were wandering the gardens having secret conversations.

“Go this way,” I said, pulling Thessa to a little-known path. “Get back to the party and act like nothing’s wrong. I’ll just tell them that I needed some air.”

Thessa nodded and scurried off.

I rolled my shoulders and checked my hair before I strode forward, intending to walk past whoever it was and get back to the party. I rounded the corner of one of the hedges to find a party of half a dozen vampires, all men. Their glowing eyes locked on me, and all at once, a shudder ran down my spine. Maybe I should have taken the same path as Thessa had.