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I glanced down at my hand quickly, then closed my palm. The mark where Kage had cut me had faded, but I could still feel it. The memory of his blood mingling with mine as it entered my body. The heat of it, the power of it. I should never have made that vow. I should have gone straight to Viktor. What I’d learned might have changed the entire balance of power between the two houses. But that was just it, wasn’t it? Viktor had enough power already.

I pictured the wolf, throat torn out, lying bleeding in the snow. No. I’d made my choice. I was doing everything else Viktor asked of me. What more could he possibly want?

Everything, the voice in my head said softly.

The room was quiet. I licked my lips, sensing the tension. Good, let them be angry. Fear and anger would keep them all in line. It certainly worked on me. “This meeting is adjourned,” I said abruptly, turning away from the horror on their faces before I could see my own fear reflected back there.

In the corridor outside of the boardroom, four members of my Bloodguard were waiting: all in prime physical condition, all alumni, all wearing their identifying blood-and-sword badges that marked them as loyal enforcers of my new regime. As I began to stride down the corridor, they flanked me, Bloodguard badges flashing, boots echoing alongside my pointed high heels as we crossed the stone floors.

I kept my chin up, my stride quick but steady. I should have felt powerful. Instead, I felt nauseated. As if something inside of me was rotting away.

Kim’s decapitated head flashed behind my eyes again. Mouth gaping. Maggots crawling along his blackened lips. Eternally silent.

I pushed the image away, only to have it replaced by a new one. Dark, intense eyes staring into mine with the fierceness of a wolf.

I shoved that one away, too.

I had a school to run. I was doing this for everyone’s good, whether they knew it or not. I thought of Persis, far from his family, helpless and afraid, and I steeled myself. There could be no room for regret. I was my brother’s only way back home.

A soft scritch of claws made me glance to my left. My eyes wid-ened: Blake’s pet. I’d seen the tiny fluffin marching through the Drakharrow Tower last year, looking as if he owned the place. Much like Blake did, I thought sourly. Now the fluffin sat between two tall pillars, not yipping or scampering away but simply watching me. His wide golden eyes followed every step I took. I swallowed. No one else seemed to notice him sitting there, and yet I could swear the creature was looking right at me, judging me. That he could see straight through the silk and bravado, right to the rot beneath.

I missed a step, my heel clipping the stone. Tearing my gaze away, I faced forward. Behind me, I thought I heard the fluffin give a faint, reproachful chirp. The creature was far smaller and quieter than Rodriguez. Yet his outrage rang for much longer in my ears as I walked away.

CHAPTER 13

MEDRA

The halls of Bloodwing Academy had started to feel like home to me not long ago. Now they were simmering with something ugly. Anger radiated off blightborn students like heat from a stove, and it was easily attributed to the new programs our headmistress recently put in place. The extreme force of the Bloodguard had pressed in on the student body all at once, but no one quite knew how to fight back without facing extreme consequences.

I stood with my back against the wall, flipping through the pages of my essay for Professor Allenvale’s alchemy class, while I waited for my Intermediate Combat class to begin. We’d been moved to an older part of the castle and were using a gymnasium that was in a sorry condition. I knew Professor Stonefist wasn’t fond of the new space, but she’d managed not to complain too loudly in front of the class.

I’d decided I’d either imagined or dreamed Blake’s red eye. Because when I woke up the next morning, he looked exactly the same as when we’d fallen asleep the night before: one eye perfect and gray, the other still wrecked but slowly healing.

The corridor was full of students arriving from their previous classes, most wearing blue and silver. A few highbloods strolled through, looking like they owned the place as usual. Most of us pretended not to notice them. A sound from across the hall caught my attention. I looked over to see a highblood boy leaning in close to a familiar-looking dwarven girl and swore under my breath. Dani had her head tilted up obediently, her body relaxed and pliant as he sank his fangs into her throat, drawing out her blood. The bliss on her face was unmistakable, which would have been fine if she’d managed to stay quiet. Unfortunately, she let out a loud, throaty whimper of pleasure that had more than a few heads turning.

I forced myself to look away, feeling uncomfortable. The scene had too many parallels to my own existence. But Blake didn’t use thrallweave to coerce me, I reminded myself. No, I was a willing participant now. Being fed from … and being fucked. Was that any better? I felt a disturbing twinge of guilt. Usually, a feeding like that would have been done in a more private space, tucked away in an alcove or behind a closed door. Not because it was shameful but because highbloods had some sense of, well, discretion and tact. But apparently, not anymore. This was open. Blatant. Deliberately provocative.

The highblood boy—someone from House Mortis, from the look of his red and white attire—pulled away lazily from Dani, his mouth wet and gleaming red. He wiped the back of his hand over his lips carelessly, then tossed a smirk over where I stood with the rest of the blightborn students, and walked away.

I muttered a curse under my breath. What a fucking fool to leave his thrall there like that, if she even was his thrall. The last time I’d seen Dani, she’d been with a highblood named Brocklin. The enthralled girl stayed where she was, eyes half-closed, swaying slightly, clearly still caught in the haze of thrallweave and the highblood’s bite. At first, I thought it was over. That the crowd of students around me would just ignore her. Maybe they would have, if Professor Stonefist hadn’t been late that day.

The buzz of chatter in the hall started to shift. A group of blight-born boys—four or five of them—broke off from the rest of the crowd of waiting students and moved over to Dani. Their faces were tight, angry. I recognized one of them, a tall burly boy I’d encountered a few months back. He was from House Avari. Kage had told him off once for harassing me. I was pretty sure his name was Lochlan.

Now he sneered down at Dani. “Slut,” he spat.

The crude comment stopped me in my tracks.

The other boys began to close in.“Highblood whore,” one hissed.

“Disgusting,” muttered a third. “You’re throwing yourself at them. For what? A moment of their attention.”

A blightborn girl marched up. I recognized her long braided hair from a previous encounter. “She’s not even dressed right.” She yanked at Dani’s dress. “Look at her—House Mortis colors.”

My heart sank: She was right. Dani’s dress was red and white. A silver cloak had covered it so I hadn’t noticed at first. Now the dress was like waving a flag in front of a herd of rampaging bulls. A symbol of favor.

Before I could even think to react, the girl with braids drew back her arm and slapped Dani full in the face. “That’s what you get, whore,” she hissed, then followed the slap up by spitting full in Dani’s face.

I watched the dwarven girl blink rapidly, horror dawning as she finally realized what was going on. The boys around her laughed and jeered, quickly following up with mouthfuls of spit of their own.