BLOOD OF THE CRIMSON THRONE

I should not be here.

The thought hammered against my skull as I flattened myself against the throne room wall, silver tray biting into my palms. Blood servants belonged in kitchens. In corridors. Anywhere but this massive chamber where vampires gathered to remind everyone exactly who held the power.

Someone had miscounted tonight. Or Marcus was drunk again when he assigned the posts. Either way, here I stood with two dozen other servants while the five great bloodlines assembled before their king.

King Kael Draeven lounged on his throne like a predator pretending to rest. Black stone. Blood crystal. The seat fit him. All sharp edges and casual menace, those red eyes tracking nobles the way a wolf watches a herd for the weakest one.

I had glimpsed him before over twelve years in this palace. You could not avoid it. But never this close. Never where he might actually see me looking back.

Keep your head down. Disappear. Live another day.

The only rules that mattered when you were hiding what I was hiding.

"Your Majesty." Lord Cassian Morweth stepped forward, all golden hair and perfect features. The kind of beautiful that made you forget about the rot underneath. "We gather on this Blood Moon to witness your strength, as tradition demands."

What he meant: prove you are not dying like everyone whispers.

Court politics were not subtle. Every vampire in this room smelled blood in the water. Their king fed less. Appeared less. Snapped more. And tonight they would watch him either prove them wrong or confirm what they already suspected.

"The Blood Moon rises." Kael's voice could cut glass. "Let the ritual begin."

Two nobles came forward from House Silvane, wrists already extended. The old ritual. The king fed from the bloodlines to remind everyone their power came from him. That he could take whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted it.

Kael moved down the throne steps like water, like something that had never been human. He took the woman's wrist first. Brought it to his mouth.

Fangs extended. Pierced skin. Blood welled up dark and rich.

Nothing happened.

Three seconds of absolute stillness. Then Kael dropped her wrist like it burned him, jaw clenched so tight I heard his teeth grind from across the room. His eyes flashed black before bleeding back to red. The woman stumbled away looking confused and terrified in equal measure.

"Your Majesty?" The male noble held out his arm, voice shaking just slightly.

Kael bit down harder this time. I watched the muscles in his throat work. Watched him try to swallow what his body would not accept.

He could not feed.

The room understood before he pulled away. Whispers spread like poison. Vampires who had been standing rigid as statues started shifting, glancing sideways. Looking at Cassian, who barely hid his satisfaction.

The king was dying. Here. Now. In front of his entire court.

"Perhaps Your Majesty requires different sustenance." Cassian practically purred the words. "Something more... basic."

Human blood. He meant human blood. The insult hit like a backhand. Kings did not feed from humans in public. It was degrading. An admission that you had fallen so far down the hierarchy you might as well be a fledgling again.

Kael's eyes went solid black. "Careful, Morweth."

"I only want to help, Your Majesty. If vampire blood no longer sustains you, perhaps the old ways are best." Cassian waved carelessly toward us servants lining the walls. "After all, what else are cattle good for?"

Every drop of blood in my body turned to ice.

No. Please no.

"Fine." The word came out of Kael flat and dead. But underneath I heard fury that could burn the palace down. "Bring one forward."

Marcus moved first, bless him. Trying to volunteer himself, to take the humiliation meant for someone younger. But Cassian was already moving. He crossed the floor faster than my eyes could track and his hand locked around my arm like a vice made of ice.

"This one." He dragged me forward even as I tried to pull back, tried to melt into the wall like I had learned to do. "Fresh blood for our failing king."

Terror did not just fill me. It became me. Every instinct screamed to run, to fight, to do anything except let Kael's fangs pierce my skin. Because the moment he tasted what I really was, I would die. They would rip me apart on this floor for having the audacity to exist with tainted blood in my veins.

My eyes that sometimes flashed wrong in the mirror. The way I healed too fast from burns. The strength that flared up when I was frightened. The vampire blood singing through me that I had spent twelve years pretending did not exist.

One bite would expose it all.

"Please." I hated how small my voice came out. "Please, I cannot—"

"Shut up." Cassian shoved me toward the throne and I went down hard, catching myself on the bottom step. My tray clattered across marble, the sound impossibly loud.

Kael stood three steps above me. Looking down with those red eyes that held nothing. No pity. No interest. Just cold rage at being forced into this moment, into feeding from a servant like he was nothing.

"Come here."

Soft. Deadly. The voice you heard right before someone died.

My legs would not move. If he bit me, if he tasted the truth, I was dead. But if I refused, I was also dead.

Some choices are not really choices at all.

I climbed the steps. Each one brought me closer to him, to the power radiating off him even dying, to the fate I had avoided for twelve years by being invisible.

I stopped one step down. Close enough to see his face was not just cruel but beautiful in a way that made you understand why people used to worship dark gods. Close enough to see pain carved into the tightness around his eyes that he would never admit to.

Close enough to smell blood and winter and something wild underneath that called to parts of me I had buried so deep I pretended they were not real.

"Your wrist."

I held it out. It shook badly. I hated that. Hated the tears burning behind my eyes that I would not let fall. Hated that my last thought was of my mother screaming as the executioner's blade came down fourteen years ago.

His fingers wrapped around my wrist. Cold. Unbreakable. He pulled me up the last step, so close I felt the unnatural chill of his body. His other hand cupped my jaw, tilted my head, exposed my throat.

Made me bare for him.

"Look at me," he said.

I did not want to. Did not want those red eyes to be the last thing I saw. A king who thought I was cattle. Who would kill me the second he realized I was not.

But I looked anyway. Because I had never been good at doing what I was told, even when it would save me.

Red met violet. Predator and prey.

Something flickered across his face. Confusion, maybe. Like he saw something that should not be there in a servant's eyes.

Then his fangs came out and he struck fast.

Pain. Sharp and bright. Then heat rushing through me like I had swallowed fire. It started where his fangs pierced my throat and exploded outward until every nerve was screaming.

The world turned red.

Light burst from where he bit me. Crimson light that lit up the entire throne room like someone had dragged the sun inside. Gasps. Shouts. The sound of vampires stumbling backward from something they had never seen.

The blood bond.

It snapped into place between us with enough force to bring me to my knees. Would have, except Kael caught me. One arm around my waist, yanking me against him as the bond locked us together with chains made of blood and magic and fate.

I felt him in my head. His shock. His rage. His sudden, terrible relief as my blood poured into him and fed the hunger that had been slowly killing him for decades.

And I felt my secret rip open for everyone to see.

My eyes flashed red. Just once. Just long enough.

The throne room exploded.

"Half-blood!" Someone screamed it. Maybe Cassian. Maybe others. Hard to tell over the roaring in my ears. "The servant is half-blood! Abomination!"

Kael jerked back from my throat, my blood on his mouth, his eyes wide with something between horror and fury. The bond thrummed between us. Alive. Demanding. Tying me to a king who would have had me executed an hour ago without a second thought.

"Kill her!" A woman's voice, shrill with disgust. "Kill the tainted thing before she—"

"She is MINE."