Chapter 1

The crystal goblet slipped from my fingers and shattered on the marble floor.

Neither of them flinched.

Lord Damien Ashford, my husband of three years, Vampire King of the Eastern Coven, had his fangs buried in my twin sister Vivienne's neck. His hand was fisted in her red hair—the same shade as mine. His eyes were closed in ecstasy.

Vivienne's legs were wrapped around his waist. Her dress—a designer gown I had bought her last Christmas—was hiked up to her thighs. The wet, rhythmic sound of him drinking from her filled the room like obscene music.

I stood in the doorway of our private chambers, frozen. My body refused to move. My wolf—dormant, suppressed for three years under the drugs the Coven physician prescribed—whimpered somewhere deep inside my chest.

Mate. That is our Mate.

I wasn't supposed to have a wolf. That was what everyone told me.

I was a half-breed. My mother was a werewolf. My father was a vampire. In the supernatural world, hybrids were considered abominations—too weak to be either, too cursed to be both. My wolf had never fully surfaced. I couldn't shift. I couldn't produce fangs.

I was, as my father-in-law once said at dinner, "barely more than a human with good hearing."

Damien married me because my bloodline was ancient. The Valdris wolves were the oldest pack in the Northern Hemisphere, descended from the Original Lycan. My blood was a political key that opened every door between the vampire covens and the wolf packs.

That was my only value. My blood. My name. My obedience.

Damien pulled his fangs out of Vivienne's neck with a wet pop. He licked the wound closed, and Vivienne giggled—a sound I used to find endearing when we were children.

"She's standing right there, you know," Vivienne whispered, looking directly at me over Damien's shoulder. Her eyes glittered with triumph.

Damien didn't even turn around.

"Close the door, Seraphina," he said. His voice was bored. "You're letting the cold in."

I couldn't breathe. "You... you're feeding from her."

"Obviously." He finally turned. His eyes—those devastating silver eyes that had once made me feel chosen—were empty. Irritated. Like I was a servant who'd interrupted his meal.

"Vivienne's blood is compatible with mine," he said, straightening his shirt. "Yours isn't. It never was. Your hybrid blood tastes like ash and iron. It's practically poison."

Vivienne slid off the desk, smoothing her dress. She walked toward me, and I noticed something that made my heart stop.

Around her neck was the Ashford Crest. The ancient ruby pendant that Damien had placed on me during our bonding ceremony. The symbol that marked me as his Queen.

"He gave it to me last month," Vivienne said softly, touching the pendant. "Didn't you notice it was missing from your jewelry box?"

I had noticed. I had asked the maid. She said it was being cleaned.

"Vivienne is carrying my heir," Damien said, pouring himself a drink.

The words detonated in my skull.

"What?"

"Three months along." He swirled the whiskey. "A pure vampire child. Not the half-breed abomination your womb would produce."

My knees buckled. I grabbed the doorframe.

"The Blood Summit is in four days," Damien continued, checking his phone like he was discussing the weather. "After I secure the alliance with the Valdris Pack using your name, I'll file for annulment. You'll be sent to the Barren Wing of the estate. Quietly."

"The Barren Wing," I repeated. It was where they sent discarded vampire brides. No sunlight. No visitors. A living tomb.

"Don't be dramatic," Vivienne said, rolling her eyes. "You'll have books."

My wolf stirred again. Not a whimper this time.

A growl.

Low, ancient, and so full of rage that Vivienne actually took a step back.

Damien's eyes narrowed. "Control yourself, Seraphina. You know what happens when you get emotional. Your little... episodes."

He meant the blackouts. The moments when my suppressed wolf tried to surface and the medication forced her back down, leaving me unconscious for hours.

"Take your pills," he ordered. "And stay in your room tonight. The Council is coming for dinner, and I don't want them to see you looking... unwell."

He turned his back on me.

Vivienne mouthed one word as she followed him: Goodbye.

I stood alone in the hallway, blood from the shattered goblet pooling around my bare feet.

Something cracked inside me. Not my heart—that had been broken for longer than I realized.

Something deeper. Something locked in a cage of wolfsbane and lies.

And it was waking up.