Page 32 of Collared by the Vampire Prince

“They are my real parents.”

I wait.

She exhales. “I never knew them. Your kind made sure of that when they invaded our village during the Takeover.”

I’m careful not to react. I can’t decide whether she truly believes it—or merely wants me to think she does.

The carriage turns, winding upward. Ahead, the Academy gates come into view: tall wrought-iron bars flanked by red torchlight, enclosing the vast grounds beyond. Beyond the gates stretch neat lawns and carefully trimmed hedges, leading the eye to the dark, compact silhouette of the castle itself.

“The ward woven through the fence and gates prevents students from leaving without a faculty member’s permission,” I explain. “Of which, technically, I am one.”

“Right,” she mutters, but she seems distracted.

Two enforcers stand guard at the gates—one a born vampire, the other made—both with swords at their belts and dressed in my father’s colours, black edged with crimson. Their uniforms resemble ceremonial robes more than the practical grey worn by the City Guard.

Kira’s gaze flicks to the guards only briefly as the carriage slows before she looks back at me.

“They died defending our home,” she says quietly. “I was only three.”

I startle to realise she is still thinking of the parents she lost. I look at her more closely, her eyes sad and lost, her chin dipping like she is bracing against the memory.

Sitting across from her in the dim carriage, confronted by the rawness of her grief, I find it harder than I should to remain detached.

“By morning, most of the village had burned,” she continues. “Their cottage was gone completely. Everything they owned with it. Sometimes I wish I could go back. Just to see where I lived with them. But there was nothing left to go back to.”

Something rises in my chest—pity, along with an utterly unbecoming, unvampiric urge to acknowledge her loss. To apologise for it, even. To tell her what I endured that fateful night. Except no one regrets the Takeover. We are taught to speak of it as a restoration. A rise in prosperity. A unity of all lands, with vampire intelligence and leadership at the helm.

No. I will not apologise. But I dwell on the part I played as the carriage comes to a complete stop.

The born vampire approaches the window, his broad features and rust-tinged brown hair marking him as decidedly non-noble. We exchange a few brief words before he steps back to open the gate. Pricking his thumb with a fang blade, he presses his blood to the ironwork.

The ward recognises him at once, and the gates begin to part.

“What about your mother?” Kira asks suddenly, her voice so soft I almost don’t hear her.

I glance at her, my hand half-raised towards the carriage ceiling, ready to summon the carriage onward. She blinks at me, sadness still lingering in her expression enough to give me pause. “My mother?”

She gives a tiny nod.

I slowly lower my hand. I had not expected such a question, certainly not outside the Academy gates. Or at all. Everyone knows about my father, King Henrikk Arpay. Few ever think to ask about my mother. She is barely mentioned in the histories he commissioned, almost as though I had been born of nothing at all.

For a heartbeat, I simply stare at Kira, wavering between the urge to answer her grief with something honest, and the colder duty of being her captor.

“My mother died when I was a boy,” I say at last.

“I know. You were four years old.” Her hands twist briefly in her lap, then still. “I was wondering what she was like.”

“You choose to ask me this now?” I glance out the window. The gates yawn open, waiting to admit us, the castle looming beyond in all its dark-stoned magnificence. It fails to command so much as a glance from her, her attention fixed on me.

How flattering.

“Yes.” Her gaze holds mine, intent and searching. “I heard you lost your mother young too.”

This is more than idle curiosity, I realise. An attempt to understand me? Or perhaps she wonders if my mother was anything like my father. If she approved of his bloody conquests. And though I have never said so aloud, I find myself wanting Kira to know that she did not.

What harm can one small admission cause? My mother is dead.

“She was kind,” I say cautiously. “Intelligent. Fiercely protective of those she loved. Or so they say.”