Page 125 of Sold to the Dark Vampire Prince

Witch. Harvester. Monster.

Murderer.

Okay, not exactly titles, but they were all anyone could talk about these days.

She hadn’t wanted to come tonight at all, had wanted to shut herself in her closet with the door tightly closed and all the lights off. The dark crevice between her hamper and her shoe rack was the only space where she couldn’t quite hear the chants calling for her death from outside the palace grounds. They made her stomach hurt from the moment she woke, made her fall asleep every night with tears soaking her pillow.

But it was her brother’s day, and she loved Dani as well. And so as always, she pushed her feelings down, put on a lovely dress, long opera gloves, and told herself she was simply not allowed to throw up at dinner. Or the ball.

Except now there were hundreds of guests crowded into the ballroom. No one said anything to her face. But from the way eyes tracked her and heads ducked together as she passed, Sera knew what everyone had to be whispering.

She stayed through dinner, keeping a smile plastered on through the toasts. Her face was starting to hurt from all the fake smiling by the time Alex finally twirled Dani around the dance floor. Only when she thought she would be physically ill if she remained a moment longer did she slip out a side door onto one of the dark terraces.

After the stifling heat of the ballroom, the cold night air was a blessed relief against her skin. She tucked herself into the shadow of a marble column, staring up at the brilliant winter sky scattered with stars overhead and the spires of the castle silhouetted before them. Just for a second, she was reminded that she didn’t hate everything about this place.

Then she heard the chanting.

After so many weeks, Sera wasn’t entirely sure what they were screaming anymore.

Witch.

Whore.

Monster.

Demands that her entrails be strewn across the city and left out for the birds.

It was hardly the stuff of poetry.

Even as the rational part of her mind tried not to listen, told her the cowards would eventually move on and channel their hatred towards some new target, it was the sheer number of them who gathered day after day that frightened her.

How could so many people she’d never met want her dead that badly?

A tear traced down her cheek. Shaken, she swiped it away. She knew she should just go back inside. She had no idea what had even drawn her out to the terrace—

That was when Sera realized she wasn’t alone.

A man stood at the edge of the balcony, staring down at the protestors. His blond hair seemed almost to shimmer in the moonlight. Unexpectedly, Sera felt her stomach twist, the sight of the fae king setting her on edge for reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with the angry crowds below.

Checking to make sure her gloves were securely in place, she walked to the edge of the balcony.

Finneas didn’t turn at her approach, silently taking in the lights of the sector stretching out before them.

“Come to shove me into any more expensive displays of glassware, Serafina?”

She refused to smile. “Why, did you commission something hideously expensive and inappropriate for the occasion?”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “That bowl belonged to my great grandparents. It was meant to bring us years of good fortune in our mating.”

“I didn’t know that.” She wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly uncomfortable.

Frowning, Finneas started to remove his coat.

“I’m fine.” She took a small step back.

“You’re freezing.”

She started to deny it, but her teeth had begun to chatter, and the lie would have been obvious. And yet, as Finneas shrugged the jacket from his shoulders and held it out for her to slip on, even as she felt the inviting heat coming from the fabric where it had just touched him, she couldn’t unknot the dark, poisonous thing that for weeks (longer, if she were being honest), had been threatening to strangle her.