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Before another moon crowned the heavens, Aurelion would stand once more beneath these vaulted ceilings. He would walk these halls with that patient smile which never quite reached his eyes, trailing silence behind him like a funeral shroud. He would ask questions in that infuriatingly gentle voice; never needing to raise it because everyone already feared the answer.
The ever-obedient son, Lucan would kneel.
He always had.
Five centuries spent cultivating obedience until it resembled sovereignty. Five centuries convincing an entire kingdom—and, on his weaker days, even himself—that the Blooded Prince ruled these lands.
A beautiful lie.
Every decree bore Aurelion’s shadow. Every alliance survived only because the Bloodlord permitted it. Every dawn Lucan emerged from his chambers still wearing his own crown was another day granted by the mercy of a man who had long since forgotten the meaning of the word.
And now—gods, now there was Elarian.
His gaze drifted toward her before he could stop himself.
She stood near a desk, moon-pale against the amber glow, studying him instead of the room. Her silver hair brushed against the side of her neck, hiding the place where his fangs had marked her only hours before. Beneath her gown, the wound meant to kill her had already begun to vanish, knitted closed by the gift of his blood in her veins.
Mine.
The thought arrived without permission. For one impossible heartbeat, it filled him with a warmth he’d thought forever denied to creatures like him. Then, terror followed.
Aurelion would see those fading bite marks. He would smell Lucan on her skin. With a single look, he would taste the truth hanging between them before either of them ever spoke a word.
Gods.
He would kill her—and not quickly.
Lucan’s lungs refused to draw another breath.
“No.”
The word emerged raw.
“No, no!”
Every drawer exploded from its frame. Marble cracked,and glass burst apart beneath writhing tendrils of shadow.
“It has to be here!” he thundered, voice raw from the terror gripping his heart.
Flashes of Aurelion standing before him with Elarian’s severed head sent him to the floor, knees buckling at the thought of losing her. His shadows recoiled from him before surging violently through the apartments, overturning chairs, splintering wardrobes, ripping paintings from ancient walls as though enough destruction might somehow uncover a letter that no longer existed.
Godsdamn him, why?
Why did he let her into his heart, let her see those flickers of his former self still hiding in the shadows—decayed, but not fully dead?
Lucan doubled over.
His stomach twisted violently. He remembered another floor. Another palace. A pair of boots stopping before a kneeling prince too frightened to look up.
“You have one sentence to convince me you deserve my immortal gift, princeling.”
Five hundred years, and the words still hadn’t left him.
A hand settled lightly against his shoulder. “Lucan,” Elarian said softly.
He flinched so hard, it almost hurt.
“Look at me, Lucan.”
