Page 69 of Sold to the Dark Vampire Prince

Alex coughed. “Sorry. Of course, that’s good news. What did you learn?”

Dani touched her throat, tears pricking her eyes. She blinked them away. “Yes, can you break it?”

Sera smiled sympathetically, as if understanding how deep her feelings ran on the subject. She didn’t want to sever the last thing tying her to Alexander. But how could they stay linked, knowing the blood addiction would eventually destroy them both?

“We have to go to the fae. Only a high-born fae can sever these types of bonds.”

“You’re referring to Finneas?” Alex raised an eyebrow.

“Yes.” Sera frowned. Dani didn’t miss the way her cheeks picked up color at the mention of the fae king. “Is that a problem?”

“Only because there are probably wanted posters with you making that exact expression on every tree at the edge of the fae kingdom.”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous.” She waved a hand. “I’m pretty sure those were just rumors.”

“Are you sure? Because you two have this weird hate-hate thing going on.”

“You’re exaggerating.”

“Am I?”

Evan smirked. “Sounds like there’s a story.”

“I don’t like this,” Sera said, pointedly ignoring the remark, “but I’m not entirely sure Finneas will agree to meet with us unless I ask for an audience with him. The resistance has tried to get him to come to the negotiating table countless times. He won’t even send a delegation.”

Alex rubbed his lip. “I just think that given the way you left things with him last time—”

“We’re not getting married this time, so we’ll have nothing to fight about,” she said sharply. “And I don’t want to hear any more about Finneas Hawthorne.”

Shooting her brother a dark look, she stalked to the door. Evan followed.

“Dare I ask?” Dani tilted her head up.

Alex sighed. “I’d better let her tell you. The funny thing is, I never got the real sense that they objected to each other. Oh, my sister could have named off a long list of his faults without stopping for breath, and once did over the cheese course, no less.”

“Oh dear.”

“It was… something.” He smirked. “Except, Finneas just seemed sort of… amused? Meeting her point for point. And they were sitting very close together while they whisper-shouted their little character assassination, almost like—”

“Like they hated each other a little too much?” Dani bit back a smile.

“Exactly. And like if we’d left them alone for ten minutes, rather than father and the fae king and queen trying to force them to wed, we might have caught them together in the coat closet, rather than Sera and her bodyguard.”

Dani chose her next words carefully. “Do you think, had things turned out differently, that Sera would ever have chosen Micah?”

Alex considered the question. “I think that their situation was complicated, not just on Sera’s side, or because Micah turned out to be an ass who seduced Isabella as well. Do you know many families that are mixed, human and vampire?”

“Of course.” While such matings were now outlawed, the pandemics thirty years before had torn through families indiscriminately, the virus killing some, sparing others, and triggering the genetic cataclysmic storm that resulted in vampirism.

“Micah was the only vampire in his family. His mother was human. I’m not sure what happened to his biological father, if he was still around when the pandemics struck. She remarried, maybe nine or ten years after, and had another son.”

Dani frowned. “I’m surprised he was allowed to work in such a high-profile position, as bodyguard to the future queen.”

Alex shrugged. “His mother worked as a maid for years. The family was considered thoroughly vetted. It’s why Micah was so comfortable around Sera. They grew up together, played in the palace gardens as kids. What Sera did…” He chewed his lip. “How can I fault my sister for following her heart? Perhaps she truly thought there was somewhere they could run that my father’s power and influence couldn’t reach. But in the end, that choice, that gamble, doomed the man she loved to death, along with everyone in his family.”

Dani felt a cold iciness grip her chest. “They killed his mother and brother, too?”

“Officially, they disappeared, but of course no one believes this. After Micah was sent to the front, his mother spoke out against my father, and Sera as well, asking why her son was being sent to die so they could pretend Sera hadn’t exploited a subordinate on her protection detail, then abandoned him when it threatened her arranged marriage to Finneas Hawthorne. She refused to believe her precious boy, who was well over thirty at the time, mind you, had been sleeping with Isabella as well. Micah’s mother and brother disappeared in the middle of the night. No one has heard from them since.”