T HE HOUSE WAS SILENT WHEN K IDAN MADE IT HOME FROM THE GALA. She fought past the hallway as June blanketed her shoulders, whispering foul things about how Kidan had almost let him drink from her. Kidan stumbled to her room. At once, air stirred in her lungs, and the blanket was ripped away. It amazed and horrified her how each room stirred different emotions. Her room always offered relief.

She took off her heels and changed before sinking into bed. Soft light from her desk lamp turned her golden.

Her plan of keeping Susenyos in line by using Dean Faris wouldn’t work forever. She needed to get back into the Southern Sost Buildings. Learn what other clubs existed besides blood courting, and how Ramyn became wrapped up in their sick games. Hopefully Ramyn would lead her to June.

But there was no way Kidan could sneak in without getting caught again. How had Ramyn done it? Kidan’s mind churned away. It wasn’t Ramyn’s sweetness that got her in. She’d been dying. Looking for a life exchange.

If only Kidan was dying.

Her neck snapped down to the bottom of her vanity. Kidan did have something. Ears roaring, she fished out the wooden box taped under the furniture and retrieved the clear liquid. Her aunt’s words resurfaced.

In case you choose to run, ingest the fake poison enclosed in this book.

Her heart drummed. How had she not thought of it until now? If she played her part well—a girl afraid for her life—could she retrace Ramyn’s exact steps, make it deep into those restricted groups? Possibility thrummed in her veins. Yes. It was dangerous, but it could work.

Kidan opened the lid, hesitated. It smelled like vinegar and acid. June’s voice slithered in from the hallway.

Drink. Find me.

Kidan downed it in one go. Only after she got under the covers did she consider the possibility of it being real poison. Still, she slept deeply.

The sound of her door creaking made Kidan blink one eye open. She switched on her lamp, and Susenyos’s silhouette stretched along the floor.

She buried her face deeper into the pillow, groaning. “Can’t you torture me in the morning?”

He said nothing.

Kidan sighed. “What disgusting thing are you putting in my bed this time? A snake? Maybe a—”

“Something’s wrong.”

His tone held no trace of amusement. She sat up and studied his stiff posture, two fingers rubbing her hairpin.

“Your smell…” His eyes settled into their unnerving blackness. “Are you sick?”

Oh. The false poison worked quickly.

Kidan cast her gaze to the floor for a heartbeat. It was difficult to act out the role. She tried to imagine what a person who feared for their life looked like. Uneasy, parted mouth, slow to respond.

“Kidan,” Susenyos called. “Are you ill?”

She lifted her lashes. “No.”

She could see his brain trying to piece together her reactions.

“You’re lying.”

Aunt Silia had thought very carefully about this life-threatening illness. It needed to invite no clinical treatments and exhibit no symptoms. It needed to move through the body silently, with a sudden rupture that would take her away in a few months’ time. It also had to be incurable.

“Tell me,” he demanded, furrowing his brow. “I know this scent. It’s Shuvra’s plant. That can’t be right because it’d mean you’re…”

Quietly, cast in the thin glow of the lamp, she said, “Poisoned. Yes.”

His eyes split wide. The urgency in his voice surprised her. “Who? Who poisoned you?”

“I… don’t know.”

It was strange, almost beautiful, to see the fear on his face. She felt like she was granted a peek into one of nature’s secrets. That the sun was never in the sky but drowning underwater.

Yet he wasn’t looking directly at her but more above her head, as if a ghost only he saw stood near. She blinked, coming to her senses. Of course. This fear wasn’t for her. Her pride bled at the realization. Had she actually wanted his concern?

He feared what Dean Faris promised him if any harm came to her.

Kidan crossed her arms. “Why do you look so surprised? I think it’s you that poisoned me.”

He blinked like she’d slapped him. It was only a matter of time before her coldness called his, the same way the devil called on hellfire.

“You believe I poisoned you?”

She shrugged. “It’s no secret you want me gone.”

“Poison is a coward’s weapon,” he bit out. “If I wanted to kill you, it’d be while looking you in the eye.”

Hate festered between them. The familiar deep gut feeling that all her demons would be vanquished if she killed him threatened to overpower her. Each day Kidan spent in this house, she was mirroring him, matching his violence, matching his desire. He was absorbing her entirely, but Kidan couldn’t break her promise. She had to destroy them both.

Kill all evil.

His distrustful eyes searched her face. “You have a few months left if it’s Shuvra. If you think I poisoned you, why are you still here?”

When she said nothing, anger vibrated through him. How little it took to raise the monster curled inside him. She’d read somewhere that all dranaics were a host of dead faces. They’d collected souls they found bright and lovely, and grafted the essence of them onto their very skin. It was why, during a conversation, their smile would turn foul, light would leach from their eyes, or a biting sorrow would engulf them. They were a collection of a hundred lives, and on a whim, on a bad day or hour, they could kill them all.

Her voice held the command of steel. “You have to help me.”

“Have to?” he snarled. “I didn’t poison you.”

His fangs made an appearance, causing Kidan’s pulse to skip.

“You will get me a life exchange.”

He shook his head in disbelief, gave her a long pitying look, and… walked away.

As if he was done. As if she was nothing. How dare he leave her alone in this?

Kidan shot out of bed and followed him into the hallway. “Help me, or I’ll tell Dean Faris you poisoned me.”

He froze like lightning had struck him. In an instant, her back was pressed against the wall, his forehead against hers.

Words of rage flitted out of him. “You will not blackmail me into caring for you.”

Her heartbeat was in her throat, but her voice didn’t tremble, and her lips almost curved into a smile. “I think I’m doing it quite brilliantly.”

“This has gone on long enough.” His voice dragged with something she couldn’t identify. “Enough, Kidan. You need to leave. You’re done.”

What did he mean by that?

Was he finally breaking? Perhaps tired of this back-and-forth? If that was the case, she needed a different strategy. As if the house sensed her, it wrote the restrictive law in golden thread on the wall.

Searching his roiling eyes, she softened her words with great effort. “You will have the house. If I’m a vampire, I can’t fight your inheritance. I’d no longer be considered a human descendant of House Adane. The moment I turn… you’ll win.”

His wild expression shifted like thunderous clouds breaking, possibility shining in those wretched eyes. Yes, this would intrigue him.

“You will help me,” she demanded.

Muscles shifted in his jaw. “Ask me properly. Don’t order me.”

“What?” she barked, forgetting her strategy.

“Ask me to save your life.”

This was about pride for him again. Her fingers twitched with fury. She’d just gotten the upper hand, but he was determined to win. Although… would this be a win for him? She still pulled the strings.

“I need your help,” she muttered.

“That’s not going to do it.” His features remained hard. “Louder and more specific.”

“I…” Her voice fought out of trapped vocal cords, asking for something more intimate than two souls becoming one. “I want… to… live. Please, help me.”

He brushed her braids away with cruel gentleness. This time she didn’t flinch, allowing the burn of his fingers to sear into her flesh.

“And you’ll tell Dean Faris I didn’t poison you?” His words were sweet poison themselves.

She hated herself as she nodded.

He’d been bored the first day they met, his expression long dead, but something was awake in those pupils now, a startling brightness.

“Are you truly ready to be a vampire, little bird?” A concealed emotion lurked in his voice as his gaze dropped to her full lips. “Can you survive it?”

She breathed in sync with him. “I don’t want to be a vampire.”

He considered her words, stepping back and letting her relax. “Sometimes, to survive, we must be made something entirely new.”