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He doesn’t flinch at my tone. After more than three hundred years at my side, very little I do surprises him. He gestures toward the refrigerated lockers at the far end of the hold.

“Stored blood. Fresh. Untouched. We have a dozen varieties from this morning’s collection.”

I bare my teeth, a growl building low in my throat. The thought alone makes my stomach churn like I’ve swallowed acid. “No.”

Eagan studies me more closely now, gaze sharpening with a calculation I recognize. He’s piecing it together, and I hate him for it.

“You’re not refusing because it won’t sustain you,” he says, voice dropping lower so the humans can’t hear. “You’re refusing because it isn’t her.”

I don’t answer. I can’t. To admit it aloud would make this real. I’ve feared this since I woke from our encounter, that she’d done something to me that can’t be undone, and now the bond won’t allow me to feed from another. In seeking to break my curse, I’ve bound myself to her in ways I never anticipated.

The fucking Vampire King is now tethered to a girl who refuses him.

The rage that floods me at the thought burns hotter than the hunger, and I welcome it. At least rage is an emotion I understand. One I can use.

“I need to feed off someone,” I mutter, already turning away from the carnage I’ve created. “Before this gets worse.”

Eagan’s silence speaks volumes. We both know it’s already worse than I’m willing to admit.

A sudden shout echoes from above deck, cutting through the haze of hunger and rage. Then another. The sound of boots pounding across wooden planks, voices rising in alarm. I whip toward the stairs, my senses already stretching outward, searching for the cause. Something isn’t right. The air shifts, carrying new scents of panic and urgency.

“What now?” I growl, fangs still extended, body vibrating with unmet needs.

Before Eagan can answer, the ship lurches slightly as something heavy shifts above. The sound of chaos bleeds down through the wooden beams, shouting, the clash of metal.

I take the steps two at a time, moving faster than human eyes could track, stopping just short of where sunlight spills across the deck in a wide, blinding stretch. It crawls across the floor like molten gold, an enemy I’ve learned to respect but never fear. Now it traps me here, at the threshold, while something important happens beyond my reach.

Eagan halts beside me, his eyes narrowing at the scene outside. Unlike me, he can step into that light without consequence.

“I’ll find out what’s happening,” he says, voice steady as always.

He steps into the light without hesitation, his form silhouetted against the brightness. I growl, pacing the edge where shadow meets sun, irritation gnawing at me like rats at a corpse. Waiting is dangerous. Waiting means thinking, and thinking leads back to her. To the taste of her blood. The way her eyes widened when I touched her. To the fact that my body now rejects all sustenance except what flows through her veins.

Eagan returns moments later,

“Just a servant,” he says, voice flat. “Escaped during unloading. I’ve sent a crew after them.”

Something in my chest tightens, a suspicion rising like bile in my throat. I turn away from the light, already moving back toward the interior corridors.

“Come with me.”

Eagan hesitates, glancing back toward the deck. “I thought you wanted me to assist on deck. The captain is—”

“I need you,” I snap, not slowing my pace. “I need to feed.”

That makes him pause, as I knew it would. In three centuries, I’ve never needed assistance to feed. Never needed a witness to my hunger.

I turn to look at him, my voice low and dangerous, as I admit what we both suspect. “I believe that now I’ve found her, I can only feed from her.”

Silence stretches between us, heavy with implications. If true, this is a vulnerability no king can afford.

“With you present,” I add, “she may . . . reconsider her reluctance.”

Eagan’s brows draw together slowly, calculations running behind his eyes. Then he nods once, understanding the unspoken order. I shouldn’t be near her while being this ravenous, and if I lose control, I trust him to pull me off her.

We return to the suite through the ship’s interior corridors, my pace increasing with each step. Something doesn’t feel right. The door is closed, exactly as I left it, but there’s a difference in the air, one that has the hair on my arms rising.

I open the door and call her name. “Alessia.”