Page 105 of Princess Redeemed

“Would you have loved me so much if you knew I was half vampire?”

She cups my cheek again.“I have no doubt.”She brushes a strand of hair from my face like I’m still six years old and safe in her lap.“You always had the fight in you.Even when you were just a little thing.You think I didn’t know there was something different about you?”

I freeze.“You did?”

“I didn’t know what,” she says gently.“But I knew you weren’t like the others.You saw things.Felt more.Held pain in those little shoulders like a grown woman.”

She presses her forehead to mine, and I swear I can smell the flour on her apron, feel the thrum of her heartbeat like it’s meant to sync with mine.

“You arenotyour bloodline.You’re an individual who is capable of so much love.Does it matter that you’re half vampire?Of course it doesn’t.All that matters is that you areyou.Do you understand?”

I nod, too fast.

“Then act like it,” she whispers.“Stand up.Take back what’s yours.If it costs you the love of your mother, then I shall take that blame, not you.I should have given her more while I was on earth.I should have shown her how much she was valued.That is on me.It was never on you, Hannah.Don’t you dare let the darkness make you forget who loved you first.”

“You?”

“Yes, honey.Me.And your mother.”

She’s not wrong.My mother did love me once.Before Richard.

She places something smooth in my hand, and?—

I wake up gasping, fists clenched in my sheets, eyes burning with something that isn’t blood lust for once.Just memory.

And something that feels like hope.

The dream clings to me like smoke.But my grandmother’s voice is a blade in my chest.Clean.Unshakable.

All that matters is that you areyou.

I sit up, the sheets twisted around my waist, my body thrumming with something ancient and sharp.Not just thirst.Not just rage.Purpose.My grandmother saw me.Sheknew.Maybe not the name of what I was, but the shape of it.The weight.

And she still loved me.

She would’ve fought for me.

So now I will fight for my child, for Rogan.

For myself.

Rogan sleeps next to me.I smooth my hand over his stubbled jawline.In sleep he looks almost gentle.Awake?Not so much.I wouldn’t have him any other way.His wolf blood will give our son that feral strength that will make him unstoppable when cornered, savage when threatened, loyal beyond reason.

My vampire half will give him the shadows, teach him how to move through them, how to command them.Visual and auditory acuity and supernatural speed.Power stitched into every heartbeat.

And my humanity will… God, I hope it gives him mercy.The ability to choose softness when the world demands violence.To love without needing to destroy.

Because he’ll have enough monsters in his blood.He doesn’t need to become one.

Rogan stirs next to me and lets out a yawn.“Princess?”

“I’m here.”

But I won’t be for long.Already I feel the storm raging, my blood preparing me for what I must do.

Not merely dethrone the demon king.

But end him.