Killian’s POV
The door clicked shut behind her, and my private chambers felt wrong.
Wrong scent.
Wrong air.
Wrong everything.
Her blood still lingered in the room, rain-soaked skin and something warmer underneath, something that made my fangs ache.
I sat back down at the obsidian desk.
Picked up the quill.
Set it down again.
You’re a fool.
Caius’s voice surfaced low and vicious in my skull.
Not now.
You put that pure-blood wench on your lap.
With our blood mate in the doorway.
Our mate, Killian.
You let Lydia paw at you while our mate bled on the floor.
It was necessary.
Necessary.
He laughed, a sound like breaking glass in my mind.
You tell yourself pretty words.
I watched you.
You could barely keep your fangs off Amara and you know it.
I pressed my palms flat to the desk.
Midnight.
Solid.
Real.
When I first discovered she was my fated blood mate as a child, she had been just a young girl.
The blood bond had been a whisper then, barely a hum.
Easy to walk away from.
But now that she was of age, the intense pull she displayed completely shocked me.
Today she had walked into my chambers with a split cheekbone and a mouth full of fire, and the hum had become a roar.
Tall.
Almost my height.
Hair like pale silk.
Eyes that did not lower when I looked at her.
I’d wanted to put my hand on her throat and feel her pulse.
I’d wanted to put my mouth on the blood at her cheekbone.
I’d wanted a great many things that a Prince in velvet and silk cannot want in front of his political fiancée.
Political.
Caius spat the word.
You keep saying it like it’s a shield.
It is a necessary political alliance.
Her uncle leads the Northern Territories, and we need this connection.
You want war?
Because I don’t.
I want our mate.
You cannot have her.
Not openly.
Caius went quiet.
That was worse.
I stood.
Straightened my cuffs.
Smoothed my midnight-blue waistcoat.
Lydia was waiting in the carriage.
Evening feast.
Smile.
Squeeze her hand across black linen.
Order the wine she preferred.
Do the job.
The manor’s grand hall was the finest in the territory, which wasn’t saying much, but the servants knew me and the corner alcove was kept empty.
Lydia slid in beside me instead of across.
Pressed her thigh to mine under the table.
“You’ve been quiet, Killian.”
“Council meetings.”
“Mm.” Her crimson nails walked up my sleeve.
“That little half-blood in your chambers.
She’s been handled?”
I didn’t answer.
I picked up the goblet.
Caius snarled under my ribs.
“Killian.”
“Drop it, sweetheart.”
She pouted.
Reached for my wine goblet like she owned it.
I let her.
The blood servant came.
I ordered for both of us without looking at him.
Lydia talked.
Something about a new gown.
Something about a ruby necklace.
Her voice slid over me like oil over glass, not sinking in.
I was thinking about a bloody cheekbone and a mouth that said you’re a coward without saying it.
Then, behind my eyes, Duke Nigel slammed through our mental link.
My Lord.
Mind-link.
Tight.
Panicked.
Nigel was never panicked.
Speak.
It’s the girl.
Amara Wellington.
She was attacked in the alley behind the blood tavern.
Multiple pure-bloods.
I got there too late.
She’s en route to the healing ward.
It’s bad, my Lord.
Skull, ribs, internal bleeding—it’s bad.
The room went white around the edges.
Caius exploded.
MOVE.
I was already on my feet.
Chair scraping.
Lydia’s hand falling off my arm.
“Killian, what—”
“Stay here.”
“Where are you going?
Killian—”
I threw coins on the table without counting.
I heard her call my name again, sharp now, wounded.
I did not turn around.
I walked out of the hall and broke into inhuman speed the second the door shut behind me.
The healing ward corridor reeked of antiseptic and cheap blood wine.
I smelled her before I saw the room.
Blood.
Her blood.
A great deal of it.
And underneath, another male’s scent, all over her.
Caius lost his mind.
I shoved through the door and a man spun away from the bed with his hands raised.
Dark hair.
Servant’s clothes under his jacket.
He had the hem of her shirt lifted, her ribs bared to the crystal light.
I hit him.
I had him against the wall before I’d decided to move.
Forearm across his throat.
His feet left the floor.
“Get your hands off her.”
“I’m not—” He wheezed.
Didn’t fight.
Didn’t even flinch.
“I’m a blood servant.
Tavern worker.
I pulled multiple pure-bloods off her in the alley.
Staff here won’t touch her.
Her ribs are broken, I was checking if they’d punctured—”
“You were undressing her.”
“I was saving her life.”
His eyes stayed level on mine.
Grey.
Calm.
I hated him on sight.
He moved one slow hand to his pocket and pulled something out.
Held it up between two fingers.
A signet ring.
“One of them dropped this.
Thought it might mean something.”
I took it.
I recognized it immediately.
It was the seal my father had given to Amara’s father before his death.
Caius made a sound in my chest I had never heard before.
I let the servant down.
He straightened his collar without comment.
“Out.”
“She needs—”
“Out.”
He went.
I turned to the bed.
She was grey.
Her lips had no color.
A bruise was blooming black across her temple, and her breathing was shallow, catching on something broken.
Dried blood crusted at her ear.
A blood transfusion bag hung beside her, untouched.
Two blood servants hovered by the door.
A healer stood with a ledger, not writing.
“Why isn’t she being treated.”
The healer cleared his throat.
“My Lord, Amara Wellington is low-caste.
Our policy for mixed-blood intake—”
I did not raise my voice.
I lowered it.
The Prince’s authority rolled out of my chest and filled the room, and the healer’s ledger clattered to the floor.
“You will start a transfusion.
You will administer healing salves for her head trauma.
You will move her to a private chamber.
You will do it now.
If she stops breathing while you consult your policy, I will tear this building down with my bare hands.
Do you understand me?”
“Yes—yes, my Lord—”
They moved.
They moved her to a private chamber at the end of the hall.
Duke Nigel guarded the door outside without being asked.
I did not look at him.
Blaming myself for leaving her in such a vulnerable position, I sat in her room and held her hand for hours.
Her fingers were cold.
Small, for a girl so tall.
Calluses along the knuckles where she’d hit something, someone, and meant it.
I turned her palm up in mine and pressed my thumb to the pulse at her wrist.
Come on, Caius whispered.
Come on, little one.
Feel us.
The blood bond flickered between us, thin as thread.
I leaned into it.
Poured what I had through my blood into hers.
Ancient magic.
That was what they called it in the old stories.
A bonded Prince could heal a wound with his own essence.
The bag emptied.
A new one went up.
Her color came back in fractions.
My communication crystal buzzed in my pocket.
Again.
Again.
I didn’t have to look.
Lydia.
I silenced it and dropped it face-down on the bedside table.
Her fingers twitched in mine.
I sat up.
Her lashes fluttered.
Lifted.
Blue.
Clouded.
Confused.
“What…” Her voice was sandpaper.
She tried to swallow.
“What happened.”
Relief hit me so hard my ribs ached.
I leaned in.
Brushed her hair off her forehead.
My thumb against her temple, gentle, the way I had not been gentle with anyone in a very long time.
“You’re safe.
You’re—”
And then her shirt shifted against the pillow, and that scent rose off her, and I stopped breathing.
The servant.
All over her collar.
Her hair.
Her skin.
Caius surged up behind my eyes and I lost the reins.
I stood.
The mattress tilted under my weight as I pulled back and set my palms flat on either side of her head, bracketing her.
I heard myself growl.
It came from somewhere low and not quite human.
Her eyes widened.
She tried to shrink back into the pillow.
“Who was he.”
“What—”
“The blood servant.” I leaned closer.
My nose almost at her jaw.
I dragged in a breath and my vampire spirit snarled at what I found there.
“Why is he interested in you.
Why are you covered in his scent.
Answer me, Amara.”