Page 46

ONE MONTH LATER

SEBASTIAN

“ H ow sure are you that this worked?” Grace asks.

She stands at my dresser—or rather, her dresser.

She moved my weapons to a cabinet two days after officially moving into my quarters.

One month as a vampire with free reign and my funds, and Grace has accumulated more clothes than she could ever possibly wear.

I roll my eyes whenever she comes home with another find, but I don’t complain.

I never will.

“It worked, Grace,” I say. “I promise.”

I come behind her, wrapping my arms around her waist. I rest my head on her shoulder, slowly trailing my hands up her sides, until they reach her breasts. I’ve already fucked her twice today, and it’s not even noon.

I’m insatiable. Now that’s she’s no longer breakable, I’m addicted to the point I’d be happy to do nothing but fuck her.

It’s probably for the best that I've stepped down as king. Not only because that’s what it took to get my inner circle on board with Grace’s rescue, but also because now, if I feel like it, I can ignore everything outside of these bedroom walls.

If only Grace was as easily tempted.

She whirls around, pushing my hands back to her hips. Despite having thirty days of her in this form, I’m still not used to her strength. So much of her is different. The way she moves, smells, tastes. Before I changed her, I was worried I wouldn’t like it, that I’d miss her human softness.

I don’t. I like that she’s stronger now, that I can fuck her against the wall hard enough to crack stone. That I can skip a few feedings without feeling tempted by her blood. That I can tie her to my bedpost and do whatever depraved ideas enter my head.

“We don’t have time,” she says pointedly. She pinches my wrists, a smile sneaking through her feigned annoyance. “If you wanted to fuck me, you should have done it before I got dressed.”

“I did,” I say. I echo her smile, leaning in to trail my tongue up her neck. I curl my hand over her shoulder, roughly grabbing her braid. “Then you had to go and put on this dress. Now I need to fuck you in it.”

Grace shoves me away. She rolls her eyes and turns back to the mirror. I expect her to fuss with her hair more, but instead, she leans over the dresser and lifts her skirt. She’s bare underneath, and I raise my eyebrow.

“You have three minutes,” she says. “You better make them count.”

I’m inside her before she’s finished speaking.

“You’re late,” Beatrice drawls as Grace and I enter the courtyard .

She’s not wrong.

Our three-minute tryst on the dresser slipped into a final round on the floor, with her straddling my hips.

Grace moves slowly across the cobblestone. It’s her first time being outside since Cora transformed her with the sun spell. She raises her arms, watching the sunlight bathe her bare skin.

“I missed this,” she murmurs. She tilts her head back, closing her eyes. “It feels so good.”

“Hells, man, get a hold of yourself,” Milas laughs from his place at the table. Cora sits beside him and a stack of parchment is spread between them. He rests on his elbows, grinning stupidly. “You already fucked her. We can all smell it. Stop looking at her like you’re about to take her again.”

I glare at Milas, fists clenching before I can stop them. For all the shit I gave Oskar over the years, I never understood this feeling. I’d slept with dozens of women, and I never cared if someone made jokes like that. With Grace, it makes me want to rip Milas’s tongue from his body.

Luckily for him, I’m distracted by Grace’s laughter.

“I don’t know,” she says, giggling. “It might be fun. We’ve never slept together when we’re both mortal.”

Great. Now I’m getting hard, and there’s an audience here to mock me for it.

“At least wait until we’re done,” Beatrice calls. “Then you two can consummate every room in this manor, for all we care.”

“Now there’s an excellent idea,” I say.

Grace and I cross the courtyard, taking our place at the stone table. This area feels so much larger now. Shortly after escaping from the Day Realm, and while Grace was still adjusting to life as a vampire, I met with my inner circle one last time .

In exchange for ruining our chance of breaking the curse, I promised a change. And unlike the last time I made an agreement, I kept my word. I stepped down as king of the vampires, to let this group lead as a clan. Beatrice, Milas, Amelia, and I now have equal claim.

I offered a place for Cora, and she’d pretended to vomit.

I’m a witch, Sebastian, she’d said. What would I want looking after a bunch of bloodsuckers?

And yet, here she sits. In her baggy black dress, thick tights, and clunky shoes. She can pretend all she wants—we all know she belongs at this table as much, if not more, than the rest of us.

“Let’s start with the worst of it,” Grace says before anyone else has the chance.

I smile despite myself. Here for thirty seconds, and already taking charge.

“What did you do with Oskar?”

My smile falls.

Grace has her hands on the table, palms up and to the sun. She’s staring at them, rather than me, so I’m sure she won’t notice the way I pause. The way my fingers curl into fists.

Her hand finds mine instantly. She strokes her thumb over my knuckles, glancing at me with a reassuring smile.

“It’s okay,” she says. “Whatever you decided, it’s okay.”

When I told her I’d saved his murder for her, she had balked at the idea. When she realized I was serious, she actually laughed . She’d gotten laughing so hard she started crying.

Look at that , she’d said, still giggling. Vampires can cry!

After that, she told me to do what I wanted with Oskar. She made it clear she wouldn’t be killing anything, and that she certainly wouldn’t be killing Oskar .

If someone caused my death, I think you’d go crazy too, she said. I’d want them to have mercy on you. But this isn’t about me, Sebastian. Do what you need to do.

I visited him that night. He’d been kept in the basement cell for a week at that point. He was wild with bloodlust, snarling like an animal from within his cell. It made me nauseated in a way I hadn’t expected.

You were supposed to be my friend , I wanted to say. The rush of anger paralyzed me and twisted through my gut until I said something that surprised us both.

I’m sorry , I said. Oskar paused in his erratic pacing, glaring at me from between the rungs. Truly, Oskar. I am sorry for what happened to Freja. For my part. I never meant for our people to get hurt. I’m sorry that they did. That she did.

He didn’t respond. He only stared at me, as though trying to decide if I was fucking with him

I wasn’t. The truth was, I hadn’t been a good friend to him either.

When I killed him, I was fast. He knew it was coming, but he didn’t fight me. He stood proud, chin lifted, as I tore his head from his shoulders.

“Sebastian,” Grace says.

I startle back into the present, blinking at her. Everyone else at the table is looking at me, waiting. They’re not going to tell her what I’ve done.

Cora. Beatrice. Milas. Amelia.

So fewer than we used to be.

“Dead,” I say. Grace flinches, but I don’t let myself look away. “I made it fast. I promise.”

I expect her to cry, to look disappointed. She only nods, and her thumb resumes its strokes over the back of my wrist.

An hour later, we are deep into discussions of a new Night Realm. How we’d like to lead, how we’ll balance power, how we’ll continue to fight for our people.

“Maybe we should find more witch allies,” Cora says. “We can’t break the curse, but we can make more sunwalker spells.”

“Cora,” I say, shaking my head. “You can’t be serious. After everything?—”

“It’s just an idea,” she says, cutting me off. “A lot to consider, obviously, but Grace and I can’t be the only decent witches in this world. There might be others willing to help.

“I like it,” Grace announces. “And not just because everyone hates me for immediately getting a sunwalker spell.”

“Nobody hates you,” I’m quick to say, and Beatrice howls from the end of the table.

“Hells, you’ve gone soft,” she accuses. She glances around before pushing to her feet. “Can we go now? Their love is making me physically ill.”

“Good with me,” I say. I pull Grace to her feet, already tugging her toward the manor entrance. “We’ve got a lot of rooms to consummate.”

“That’s disgusting,” Cora says.

“Blame Beatrice for giving him the idea,” Grace says. Now, she’s the one pulling me , giggling as she hurries us along.

Fuck. Yes.

“Love is peculiar,” Amelia says. She scrunches her nose. “I’m not sure I’d like it.”

“I certainly wouldn’t,” Beatrice agrees.

“You would,” I say, but I don’t stick around to argue.

Grace and I cross the patch of dirt in the courtyard’s center. Not long ago, my statue stood there as a painful reminder of everything I lost, as a desperate hope of what I might find again.

We tore it down days after returning. Beatrice wanted to get statues of all of us, but thankfully the others put a stop to that idea.

“Every room?” Grace whispers as we disappear into the house. “That’s going to take a while.”

I spin her around, tossing her over my shoulder. She squeals but makes no attempt to get down.

“Don’t worry. We’ve got all the time in the world.”

The End.