Amara’s POV
The rain hammered against the trailer roof like bullets trying to pierce through rusted metal.
I cracked one eye open on the sagging couch and stared at the water stain spreading across the ceiling like dried blood.
Happy birthday to me.
Something rustled on the coffee table.
A handful of wild night-blooming jasmine, still damp from the forest, sat in a chipped ceramic mug.
Next to them, a folded note in Mom’s careful script.
My precious daughter.
Another year today.
I’m so proud of the woman you’ve become.
There’s fresh bread in the kitchen.
I love you beyond eternity.
—M
My throat constricted.
I read it twice, then folded it carefully and tucked it into my back pocket.
She’d slipped away before dawn.
Again.
Working multiple menial jobs just to scrape together enough to keep us breathing in this godforsaken place.
I swung my legs off the couch and padded to the grimy window.
Slate gray sky.
Dense, shadowy woods.
The trailer sat at the very end of a crumbling dirt path, miles from the grand estate where the clan gathered, miles from anyone who held real power.
That was exactly how they preferred us.
Invisible.
Are you planning to sulk all morning, or shall we actually accomplish something today?
Mist, my vampire spirit, stirred lazily in the depths of my mind like a predator stretching after a long slumber.
“I’m getting up,” I muttered under my breath.
I pulled out a crumpled, half-smoked cigarette from my jeans pocket.
That poison will damage our lungs, Amara.
“Your lungs are immortal.
Mine need the nicotine.”
You’re being unnecessarily melodramatic.
“It’s my birthday.
I’m entitled to some drama.”
She huffed with ancient disdain and retreated into silence.
I yanked on my faded jeans, worn paper-thin at the knees, and pulled on a black fitted shirt.
Black combat boots, scuffed and weathered but still solid.
I braided my platinum hair back in a tight rope that fell past my waist and caught my reflection in the cracked mirror by the door.
Over six feet of pure defiance.
Perfect.
I’d need every bit of that attitude today.
The trek to school stretched endlessly through the persistent drizzle.
My boots squelched through thick mud and loose gravel.
By the time the imposing brick building materialized through the mist, my hair clung to my neck in damp tendrils and my mood had soured into something dangerous.
Inside, the corridors reeked of industrial cleaning solution and dampness.
Locker doors slammed shut.
Conversations died abruptly as I walked past.
I kept my chin raised and my gaze fixed straight ahead.
Then a shoulder crashed into mine with deliberate force.
My face collided with cold metal, the impact echoing down the empty hallway.
Sharp pain flared across my cheekbone.
Something warm trickled down toward my jaw.
I pushed myself away from the locker and slowly turned around.
Dorian.
Naturally.
He wore that smug grin like he’d just won some twisted prize.
Broad shoulders, arrogant smirk, and Penelope clinging to his arm like expensive jewelry.
Penelope, who used to braid flowers into my hair during childhood sleepovers.
Penelope, who hadn’t made eye contact with me in years.
“Oops,” Dorian drawled mockingly.
“Didn’t notice you there, Wellington.
Though you’re pretty hard to miss, being a giant freak and all.
My mistake.”
“Walk away, Dorian.”
Instead, he stepped closer.
His fingers reached out and brushed the blood from my cheek with deliberate slowness, as if he were savoring the moment.
“You know what,” he said, his voice dripping with malice, “I bet you’d do absolutely anything for a hot meal.
Is that how your pathetic mother still has a roof over her head?
Because you’re spreading those long legs for the kitchen staff?”
My hand clenched into a tight fist at my side.
He slapped me.
Not hard enough to snap my head back.
Hard enough to sting and humiliate.
“Worthless half-blood slut.”
Mist snarled with enough fury to rattle my consciousness.
I smiled slowly.
Then I drove my forehead straight into his nose.
The satisfying crunch was music to my ears.
Dorian yelped and stumbled backward, and I grabbed the back of his skull and slammed his face into the metal locker.
Once.
Twice.
Blood smeared across the surface.
His knees gave out and I followed him down, driving my knee into his stomach, then his jaw, until his eyes rolled back and his body went completely limp beneath me.
Someone was screaming hysterically.
Probably Penelope.
The sound barely registered in my consciousness.
“Miss Wellington!”
I glanced up.
Principal Foster stood frozen at the end of the hallway, his face purple with rage, his tie askew.
A crowd of students had formed a semicircle around us.
I wiped the blood from my split lip with the back of my hand and stood calmly.
Dorian remained unconscious on the floor.
“He initiated the confrontation,” I stated matter-of-factly.
“She attacked him completely unprovoked!” Penelope shrieked.
“Out of nowhere!
He didn’t do anything wrong, I swear to you—”
“Liar.”
“My office immediately, Wellington.
Now.”
I’d been summoned to Foster’ office many times before.
Motivational posters about clan loyalty covered the walls.
A framed portrait of the previous Prince hung prominently.
Uncomfortable plastic chairs.
What I hadn’t anticipated was the man standing beside his desk.
Impeccably tailored charcoal suit.
Fitted precisely to his lean frame.
Italian leather shoes that probably cost more than our trailer was worth.
Archduke Nigel.
I froze in the doorway.
Foster scurried in behind me, already adopting that nauseating submissive posture, tilting his throat in deference.
“Archduke Nigel, sir, thank you for responding so quickly.
The girl is, as you can clearly observe—”
“Leave.”
Foster blinked in confusion.
“Sir?”
“Leave us.”
Foster fled so rapidly he nearly stumbled over the threadbare carpet.
Nigel turned those calculating gray eyes on me.
I refused to lower my chin.
I refused to avert my gaze.
I stared directly back at him.
A muscle twitched in his jaw.
Something that might have been amusement.
Or contempt.
Impossible to determine.
“Miss Wellington.
My vehicle is waiting outside.
Get in.”
“No.”
“That wasn’t a request.”
“I didn’t hear a proper one,” I replied evenly.
He exhaled slowly through his nose.
“Prince’s direct orders.
You can accompany me voluntarily, or I can carry you out.
Your decision.”
My stomach plummeted.
The Prince wanted to see me.
Personally.
Over a simple schoolyard fight.
This is extremely dangerous, Mist whispered urgently.
Amara, this is very, very dangerous.
I followed him outside.
The car was sleek black, elongated, and smelled of rich leather.
The seats felt more luxurious than my mattress at home.
I sat with my knees pressed tightly together and my bloodied knuckles hidden in my lap, watching the town blur past through tinted windows.
The clan estate rose majestically at the end of a tree-lined avenue.
Stone and gleaming glass.
Too massive.
Too pristine.
Nigel escorted me through doors that sealed silently behind us, down a lengthy corridor lined with portraits of deceased nobles I couldn’t care less about, to a pair of intricately carved mahogany doors.
He knocked once.
“Enter.”
The voice rumbled through the wood like distant thunder.
Nigel pushed the door open and stepped aside respectfully.
I walked inside.
The office was enormous.
Floor-to-ceiling windows.
A fireplace large enough to stand upright in.
And behind a desk the size of a small dining table sat the Prince himself.
He didn’t look up initially.
He was writing something with slow, deliberate strokes.
Then he raised his head.
Angular jawline.
Dark hair swept back from a prominent forehead.
A mouth that appeared incapable of genuine kindness.
And his eyes—green, not gentle green, not spring green.
The deep green of shattered emeralds.
He wore an expensive, perfectly pressed three-piece suit.
The man who’d condemned us to rot in that decrepit trailer.
The man who allowed my mother to bleed herself dry paying his inflated taxes.
The ruthless leader who enforced our misery through systematic oppression.
The man I despised with every fiber of my being.
Then his scent reached me.
Cedar.
Smoke.
Something dark and intoxicating underneath, warm and utterly masculine and impossibly perfect.
It flooded my lungs and my knees actually buckled.
I gripped the back of the chair in front of his desk for support.
Mist completely lost her composure.
MATE.
MATE.
MATE MATE MATE—
She was howling, clawing frantically at the inside of my ribs, desperately trying to break free, get closer, reach him.
No.
Absolutely not.
Not him.
Anyone in the world except him.
His pen had stopped moving entirely.
Those penetrating green eyes lifted slowly to meet mine.
He’d gone perfectly still, like a apex predator sensing prey.
Did he already know what we were to each other?
Was that why he’d personally summoned me over such a minor altercation?
“Blood mate,” I whispered in complete shock.