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Books. Change. Lives.

Copyright

Copyright © 2023 by Scarlett St. Clair

Cover and internal design © 2023 by Sourcebooks

Cover design by Regina Wamba/ReginaWamba.com

Cover images © Victor/Adobe Stock, wimage72/Adobe Stock, thawats/Adobe Stock, 4 Girls 1 Boy/Adobe Stock, Yura/Adobe Stock

Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks.

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

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Published by Bloom Books, an imprint of Sourcebooks

P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

(630) 961-3900

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Contents

Front Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Content Warning

Map of Cordova

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Author’s Note

About the Author

Back Cover

To those of us who have had to survive

Content Warning

This book contains violent themes such as rape, assault, torture, and infant loss. If you or someone you know is struggling, please reach out for help.

Here are just a few resources:

National Sexual Assault Hotline • (800) 656-4673

National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline • 988

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (Options for Deaf and Hard of Hearing) • For TTY Users: Use your preferred relay service or dial 711 then 988

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration National Helpline • (800) 662-4357

Map of Cordova

One

Isolde

Nine corpses were impaled outside the gates of the red palace.

I could see them now from the library window, aglow in the torchlight. Over the last two days, I had learned a lot about the process of impalement. Namely, that if done well, it could take hours, even days for the prisoner to die. It was a horrific death, and even more horrific to watch as each body slid slowly down, their weight inevitably driving the end of the spear through their mouth or throat or chest.

All the while, they begged any who passed to kill them faster, but no one came to their aid, not even me.

In the aftermath of Ravena’s attack, those who had betrayed our kingdom fled, but my husband was a merciless king. He had ordered his loyal noblesse to hunt, and he had joined them. In a day, they had captured the vassals who had supported Adrian’s former noblesse in their rebellion, and now they were a gruesome warning to anyone considering treason.

I wondered what it said about me and who I had become that I was not appalled by Adrian’s choice of punishment.

Even now, as I stared, I felt nothing but anger—anger toward those who had tried to hurt me, who had attempted to take away my power, who perceived me as weak.

Among them, my father, whose death had occurred by my hand.

You are worth every star in the sky, he’d said in the throne room of Lara when Adrian had asked for my hand. My father had been willing to go to war with the Blood King for me.

And perhaps he had meant it then, until I had given him another way to reclaim his kingdom and the rest of Cordova.

I still could not fathom it, could not come to terms with how everything had ended. My mind was a whirlwind of feelings, the greatest among them shock. My body was heavy with it, my chest tight with it, my eyes blind with it. Through my numbness, there were bursts of anger and sadness, each of them shaking my body, violent tremors that left me exhausted. Yet I could not sleep, because each time I closed my eyes, all I saw was my father, his face drained of affection, possessed by a determination to end my life because it would end Adrian’s too.

That haunting memory was how I’d found myself in the library before sunrise.

If I couldn’t sleep, I might as well research. Usually, I preferred the company of the librarian Lothian and his lover, Zann, but tonight I was glad for the quiet as I leafed through books on the history of witches.

Ravena had escaped with The Book of Dis, which she believed would give her the power she always wanted, though it likely would come at a grave price.

All spells cost something, but the toll for dark magic was life.

And yet I had been willing to pay that price two hundred years ago. Now I wondered why. I could not remember, just as I could not remember any of the spells I’d written in the book. I came here now to search the library’s archives in hopes that something from those texts would spur memories from my life as Yesenia.

So far, I’d only recalled a few things. I remembered High Coven and most of the relationships I’d formed with my sisters. I remembered Ravena, her betrayal, and her allegiance with King Dragos. Mostly, I remembered Adrian and the quiet way we fell in love, but those memories did not compare to the feeling of relief, the strange peace that came with knowing exactly who I was.

I had no conflict over my two lives—Yesenia was of the past, a life once lived. Now, I was Isolde Vasiliev, queen of Revekka, future queen of Cordova, and I was here to conquer.

“I do not particularly like waking alone,” Adrian said.

I turned to find him leaning against one of the ebony shelves lined with black-bound books. He wore a long robe, red and patterned in gold. His hair was unbound, falling in loose waves around his shoulders. His arms were crossed, and while he teased, I knew something more had driven him from bed—worry.

“I couldn’t sleep,” I said.

He frowned, and my gaze lingered on his mouth before rising to meet his eyes. That was one thing that had changed in the two hundred years we had been apart—his eyes. Once, they had been blue, but now they were rimmed in white. I always assumed it had happened after he was turned, but then, no other vampire I had met since coming to Revekka had those eyes.

“Couldn’t sleep,” he said, tilting his head. “Or wouldn’t?”

He knew the answer, so I asked a different question.

“Did I ever tell you about The Book of Dis?”

He shook his head. “No. You never told me about Dragos either.”

I had not told him of the former king’s abuse. A strange guilt blossomed in my chest, though I knew that was not what he intended.

It was my turn to frown as I searched for a reason for my silence.

“Though why would you?” he asked, and I met his gaze as he approached, his hand pressed against my cheek. “You were so far above me then.”

“Stop,” I said, the knot of guilt growing. It had not been about status at all. If Adrian had known, he would have killed Dragos, and while he had ultimately done so, it was in the aftermath of his victory over Revekka. “You know that isn’t true.”

“Ah, but it was,” he said, taking a step closer. His hand moved to my neck, his body flush with mine. I tilted my head all the way back to keep his gaze. “I was nothing but a glorified guard, but you—you were something more.”

I wrapped my hand around his wrist, not to push him away but to keep him close.

I shook my head, feeling something thick gathering in my throat. I could not help hearing the screams of my sisters—my coven—the night of their burning. It had been the first day of what would become the reaping and a complete decimation of every witch in Cordova.

I took a deep, shuddering breath.

“I got everyone killed,” I said.

“Dragos needed power, so he turned on the only people who had it,” Adrian said. “You were just a way to shift responsibility.”

I could barely breathe. When Adrian had taken my blood, I’d only known the consequences of the curse Dis had cast on him—that tasting my blood meant our lives were tied. If I died, he died. I did not know that the traumas of my past would also haunt me.

“Tell me how you killed him,” I whispered, searching his eyes.

Adrian tensed, his fingers pressing slightly into my skin. I wondered if he thought I would run, if he wasn’t quite convinced I was firmly rooted by his side, but there was nothing that would drive me away, save death.

“Will it help you to know?” he asked.

In truth, I did not know, but I answered anyway. “Yes.”

Still, he was quiet, but when he spoke, his gaze did not waver from mine, like he wanted to see how I changed with the knowledge of his execution of Dragos.

“I cut off his head. The blade was dull.”

I was not surprised by his choice of weapon or the brutal way in which he’d chosen to execute the former king of Revekka, and because of the last two days, I had no trouble imagining him hacking away at Dragos’s neck until his head rolled.

“And I kept it on a pike outside the gates where our treasonous dead are now. His body lay beneath it, and it was picked apart until it was nothing more than bones.”

“And the bones?” I had not imagined he would give Dragos the satisfaction of a burial in any form.

“Look closer at my throne the next time we hold court,” he said.

Something in the pit of my stomach twisted sharply. Adrian had built an empire on the bones of his greatest enemy. A month ago, I would have been disgusted, but life at Adrian’s court had changed my opinion on his brutality. There was no room for vulnerability here, no room for forgiveness. It was conquer or be killed.

Dragos had taught us that, and he had taken everything.

So had Ravena.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

I raised a brow. Adrian could hear my thoughts, but not always. I think it had become harder to break through the numbness that overwhelmed me since my father’s death. “You cannot tell?”

“Your emotions are quite tame,” he replied.

I didn’t believe him. I felt like chaos, but I respected that he asked.

“I am thinking about how I will fashion a throne from Ravena’s bones.”

The corners of Adrian’s lips curled, and he leaned closer, his breath on my lips as he spoke. “If that is your wish, I shall build it myself.”

Then his warm mouth was on mine, and his arm tightened around my waist. He was an anchor I grasped in the darkness of my grief, the only thing that brought feeling, and I craved this—his heat, our madness, the distraction.

I clung to him, my fingers digging into his biceps as his mouth left mine, lips trailing over my jaw and neck, his tongue caressing my skin, and I ceased to breathe when I felt the scrape of his teeth there. He seemed to notice and pulled away.

“I do not have to feed,” he said, his hand lifting to brush my cheek. “But I do want you.”

Adrian had not taken my blood since the night he had first fed from me. When I asked him, he said, “I need you strong.” And yet when dawn broke in a few hours, he would leave once more to hunt for the last two rebels—his former noblesse, Gesalac and Julian.

I needed him strong for that.

“I am well enough,” I said.

“You aren’t sleeping,” he said.

“Who needs sleep,” I said, rising on the tips of my toes and lacing my arms around his neck, “when there is so much we could do?”

His hands were on my hips, but he was still.

“Adrian,” I said, his name a breathless whisper, and my eyes fell to his lips once more, my fingers trailing his cheek. “Please.”

It wasn’t until I looked into his eyes that he caved, and his mouth collided with mine. I basked in the way my mind went blank, the horror and the anger of these last few days replaced by a blissful heat that seemed to swell, filling me to bursting, but making me aware of how much I needed this, needed him.

Adrian’s fingers dug into my skin, and he guided me until my back hit the wall where he pinned my wrists so he could kiss me uninhibited, lips tracing a path to my breasts, which he lavished with attention. Even through the fabric of my nightdress, the teasing was exquisite, and my hands were soon free to rake through his hair and drag his mouth back to mine.

Between us, Adrian untied his robe and hiked my shift up before lifting my leg, cradling the back of my knee over his arm, his erection pressed into my heat. I sucked in a sharp breath, my head falling back on a moan, exposing my neck, where he kissed and nipped at my skin, his voice a heady rumble.

“I love the way you taste,” he said, grinding into me until I felt too hollow, too empty.

“I need you inside me,” I said, my hands on his shoulders, ready to give him the leverage he needed to cure my desperation. “Give me your come and you can have my blood.”

He chuckled breathlessly. “Oh, Sparrow. I will fill you to bursting.”

Our position against the wall did not give me the opportunity to watch as he guided himself inside me, but I felt him, exhaling as he slid deeper and began to thrust. I couldn’t catch my breath as each wave of pleasure rose higher than the last. I was drowning in this and I never wanted to resurface.

“Isolde,” Adrian said, and I opened my eyes. He stared back, gaze fierce and lustful. “Look at me.”

He cupped the back of my neck, his other hand pressed flat to the wall, and he moved deeper, ground against me harder. I lost control of my expression, my mouth caught between moans, grinding my teeth, and biting my lip. When the first keening cry bubbled from my lips, Adrian descended, his sharp teeth cutting into my skin.

I clung to him, nails digging into his flesh. He still moved inside me, but slower, timing the pull of his lips with the thrust of his hips. He drew back once to kiss my mouth before returning to the wound he’d made, and with the taste of my blood on my lips, I followed each wave of pain and pleasure until it dragged me into darkness.

***

I woke with the memory of how Adrian had filled me and fucked me and bit me, and I had ascended into something ethereal and divine—something that had taken me from sorrow to bliss. I wanted to go back, to reclaim that power, but I was once more in this mournful body and confused.

How had I gotten to bed?

There was movement to my right, and I shifted to find Adrian standing near the window, bathed in the bloodred light of Revekka’s dawn. He wore armor that glinted gold and silver as he turned to look at me. He had pulled his hair back, and the angles of his face showed sharply, contoured by shadow.

He was fierce, frighteningly beautiful, and already bathed in red.

“Do you expect to be injured?” I asked as I sat up, pushing the blankets from my body, already feeling better without their weight. I had never seen Adrian wear armor, not when he came to claim my kingdom and not when we made our return to Revekka.

It startled me, and I had to work to swallow the panic that rose into my throat, knowing I could not protest his departure. This was necessary to the survival of our kingdom—to what Adrian had built and what we would continue to build together.

Adrian offered a small smile, as if he thought my concern was cute rather than valid.

“It’s merely a precaution,” he said. “I am no longer hunting mortals.”

Today he would search for Gesalac and Julian, whom Sorin had not been able to track beyond the borders of our land, which meant they were likely hiding, harbored by Revekkians. Or were they relying on the land for shelter until they could begin the next phase of their plan?

And what was that plan?

Of the two, I feared Gesalac more. He was the most outspoken and perhaps had the greatest vendetta against Adrian, as he had killed Gesalac’s son after I had grown annoyed by his continued harassment. I’d snapped when he’d touched me and drove a knife into his neck.

Adrian had finished the job.

Julian was less imposing, but he, like Gesalac, saw me as the enemy, and it was his opinion of me that had cost him his eye.

“Do you think you will find them?” I asked.

My lungs felt heavy in my chest, my breathing far too shallow.

I was afraid of what would happen if they managed to escape.

“Perhaps,” Adrian said. “They will likely seek refuge with kings whose petitions to become immortal I denied.”

Kings like Gheroghe of Vela, the slave king who conquered my mother’s people.

I rose to my feet.

“Can either of them sire vampires?” I asked.

“They can,” he said. “And they likely will.”

Under Adrian’s rule, only he held the authority to decide who became immortal. Anyone who disobeyed was executed, but Gesalac and Julian had signed their death warrants already. They had nothing to lose.

“What happens then?”

Adrian’s fingers tilted my chin as he answered, “I will kill them all.”

I should draw comfort from his confidence, and I had no doubt he would exact revenge, but would it come too late?

Adrian drew me from my thoughts with a kiss, a soft brush of his lips before he pulled me close. With our bodies pressed together, there was a shift in his behavior and his tongue drove into my mouth, hand tightening into my hair, knee coaxing my willing thighs apart. A moan caught in my throat as the friction of our bodies sparked a fever in my blood, filling, tightening, drenching.

I wanted to touch him, but my hands were barred by his armor. I questioned my power and his restraint. Could I convince him to delay?

But I also wanted this over. I wanted Gesalac and Julian caught. I wanted to watch their torture and their deaths.

Adrian must have sensed the change in my thoughts because he pulled away, mouth tense, eyes alight.

“You will rest today,” he said.

My lips flattened at his command, and very gently, he pulled my hair, guiding my head back, exposing my neck. He pressed his lips to the spot he had bitten in the library. It was healed now, but the memory lived on my skin.

I held my breath and shivered at the soft caress of his mouth. A wave of heat blossomed in my chest and made me light-headed.

As he pulled away, he studied me, twisting a piece of my hair around his lithe finger.

“You will rest today,” he said again. “If you want me tonight.”

“Are you attempting to bribe me?” I asked.

“I should not have taken your blood,” he said. “You could not handle it.”

“I feel fine,” I said.

“It doesn’t matter that you feel fine,” he said. “You lost consciousness.”

I frowned. “Why is that…bad?”

His hand loosened in my hair, and he brushed his thumb along my lips.

“You should always be alert when we are together,” he said. “When I took your blood, I was inside you. You went limp. You were gone. So yes, it is bad.”

I dropped my gaze. I couldn’t help feeling a little guilty, even a little embarrassed. I hadn’t thought of what Adrian had experienced after I blacked out. Now I considered just how unnerved he must have been.

“Isolde,” he said in an attempt to draw my attention, but still I looked away, swallowing.

“I will rest,” I said, my tone far more cross than I intended.

“Isolde,” he repeated quietly, and when I finally met his gaze, his stare was gentle. “You are my light.”

I took his face between my hands.

“You are my darkness,” I said and kissed him.

We stared at each other for a long moment, and then he took a step away, and I felt the distance sink into my heart.

“Will you see me off?” he asked.

“Of course.”

I was still wearing my shift and did not want to delay Adrian by returning to my room to dress. Instead, he offered a woolen overcoat. The fabric was heavy, the sleeves too long, but it was warm and smelled like him.

We walked in silence, my hand on Adrian’s arm, and when the doors opened to the courtyard, a wave of cold air stole my breath. Frost had settled on the stones, gleaming like bloody webs beneath the sun’s light.

Adrian’s men were gathered there with their horses, and at our appearance, they knelt, rising at his command. Some were soldiers, others noblesse, and while none here had aligned themselves with Gesalac and Julian, I couldn’t help questioning their loyalty to Adrian. Since I’d joined him here, he had lost four of the nine noblesse.

Were the rest merely biding their time before they struck?

Suddenly my stomach churned. If they chose today to attack, could Adrian take them?

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