Seraphina's POV
Lucien's sword clears its sheath with a deadly whisper.
"Wait!" I scream, stumbling backward. "Please—"
"There is no waiting." His voice is ice. "I've done this twenty-three times. You're number twenty-four. The bond makes you dangerous. I kill you now, or you destroy me later."
The mate bond mark burns on my chest like fire. Through it, I feel him—his rage, his fear, his absolute certainty that I'm a weapon sent to hurt him.
"I'm not a weapon!" Tears stream down my face. "I'm just a courier! I didn't want this!"
"None of them wanted it either." Lucien raises his sword. "They all died anyway."
He moves to strike.
Then stops.
His whole body goes rigid. The sword trembles in his hand.
"My lord?" A new voice calls from the courtyard entrance. A tall vampire with kind eyes rushes over. "What's happening?"
"Misha." Lucien's voice cracks. "I can't... the bond won't let me..."
He tries again to swing the sword. Agony explodes through both of us—so intense I collapse screaming. Lucien falls to his knees beside me, gasping.
The bond is punishing us for trying to hurt each other.
"Bloody hell," Misha breathes, staring at our matching marks. "The bond actually completed. In three hundred years, I've never seen—"
"Make it stop," Lucien snarls through gritted teeth. "Break it. Now."
"I can't break a completed mate bond, my lord. Nobody can." Misha crouches beside me, helping me sit up. "What's your name, little one?"
"S-Seraphina," I manage.
"Well, Seraphina, you've just done the impossible." He glances at Lucien. "You made his dead heart beat."
"What?" I look at Lucien.
He's clutching his chest, his silver eyes wide with shock. "It's beating. For the first time in three hundred years, my heart is actually beating."
Through the bond, I feel his wonder. His terror. His confusion.
"Your blood," Lucien whispers, staring at me. "When I tasted you... what are you?"
"I'm nobody," I say. "Just a human who got framed and—"
"You're not human." Lucien cuts me off. His hand shoots out, grabbing my wrist. His eyes glow silver as he does something that makes my skin tingle. "You have... impossible. You carry Sanguine markers."
"I don't know what that means!"
"It means," Misha says slowly, "that you have royal vampire blood in your veins. The Sanguine bloodline—the old queens who ruled us three hundred years ago."
I shake my head. "That's crazy. I'm completely human. I've been human my whole life—"
"With a suppression seal hiding your true nature." Lucien's grip tightens on my wrist. "Someone placed powerful magic on you as a baby. Buried what you are. Made you appear human."
My mind spins. "Why would anyone do that?"
"To hide you." Lucien releases me, standing up. He paces like a caged predator. "To keep you secret until... until when?" His silver eyes snap to mine. "Who framed you? Who sent you to the courier system?"
"My ex-fiancé Marcus and my best friend Jade," I say bitterly. "They destroyed my life."
"Were they working alone?"
I remember the warehouse. Marcus as a vampire. His words about Viktor.
"No," I whisper. "Marcus mentioned someone named Viktor. Said Viktor had plans for me. That I was special."
Lucien goes completely still. "Viktor Corvus?"
"I don't know his last name—"
"Lord Viktor Corvus." Lucien's voice drops to deadly quiet. "Head of House Corvus. The vampire who murdered the last Sanguine Queen three hundred years ago." He stares at me with an expression I can't read. "He's been hunting for her bloodline ever since. And he found you."
"But I'm not—"
"You are." Misha interrupts gently. "Your blood doesn't lie, Seraphina. You're a Sanguine heir. That's why the bond formed with my lord. He was the Queen's Guard three hundred years ago, sworn to protect the Sanguine bloodline. The bond recognizes what you are, even if you don't."
I can't breathe. This is insane.
"So Viktor placed the seal on me as a baby?" I ask. "Why?"
"To raise you as his puppet queen," Lucien says darkly. "Control you from birth, then reveal you when he was ready to use you to legitimize his rule. But something went wrong. You ended up in the courier system where he could track you but not control you."
"And now you're bonded to the one vampire Viktor fears most," Misha adds. "This is... well, this is going to start a war."
My legs give out. I sink to the ground, head spinning.
Everything I thought I knew about myself is a lie. I'm not human. I'm some kind of hidden vampire royalty. My entire life was engineered by a monster who murdered my ancestors.
And now I'm bonded to a vampire lord who wanted to kill me.
"What happens now?" I whisper.
Lucien looks at me with those glowing silver eyes. Through the bond, I feel his emotions warring—rage, fear, protectiveness he doesn't want, and something else. Something deeper.
"Now," he says quietly, "I do what I failed to do three hundred years ago. I protect the Sanguine bloodline." He extends his hand to help me up. "Even if it kills me this time."
I take his hand. His skin is cold, but his grip is steady.
"The other houses will come for you," Lucien continues. "Viktor will send assassins. The Council will demand you be executed as a false heir. You have maybe three days before this entire empire descends on Blackthorn Keep to destroy you."
"Three days?" My voice cracks.
"To train you. Awaken your powers. Teach you to survive." His fingers tighten around mine. "And to figure out why your blood does something no other blood has done in three hundred years."
"What does it do?"
Lucien's silver eyes bore into mine. Through the bond, I feel his confession before he speaks it.
"It makes me feel human again," he whispers. "And that's the most dangerous thing in the world."
Before I can respond, a horn blares from the keep's tower.
Misha's face goes pale. "That's the alarm. Someone's breached the outer wards—"
An explosion rocks the courtyard. Fire erupts from the eastern wall.
Through the smoke and flames, figures emerge. Vampires. Dozens of them.
Leading them is Marcus—my ex-fiancé—with Jade at his side.
"Hello, Sera!" Jade calls out cheerfully. "Viktor sends his regards. He wants his queen back."
Marcus grins, fangs gleaming. "And if Lord Nocturne dies protecting you? Even better."
Lucien steps in front of me, his sword raised. Through our bond, I feel his cold determination.
"They'll have to go through me first," he says.
"That," Marcus laughs, "is exactly the plan."