Chapter 1

I helped Varen Ashworth—lord of the weakest Vampire House in the Five Realms—become High King.

On his coronation day, he threw me aside for a girl he'd pulled out of a Demon camp.

I exposed her. Proved she was a Demon spy. She swallowed poison before anyone could question her.

Afterward, Varen smiled at me. Thanked me. Said I'd saved the Five Realms.

But ten years later, he cursed my bloodline and burned my people from the inside out. Five thousand Fae. My father among them.

Then I opened my eyes—and it was coronation morning again.

The Great Hall was packed wall to wall. Every lord and lady from the Five Realms had come to watch Varen take the crown. Three rounds of wine in, the room was loud with laughter and the clinking of cups.

Varen raised his glass. "One more announcement. I've found the woman I want beside me. I hope you'll offer your blessing."

Every head turned to me.

A lady from House East lifted her cup in my direction. "To the Queen. The Fae have more than earned it."

Others followed. Smiles. Nods. Raised glasses pointed my way.

Then Varen coughed. "Elara. Come out."

A girl stepped from behind the curtain. White dress. Pale skin. Eyes that darted across the room like a rabbit caught in torchlight. She looked human—fragile, out of place among the Vampires and Fae lords filling the hall.

Varen watched her like nothing else in the room existed. "My queen will be Elara. No one else."

The hall went dead.

Then the whispers started.

"Didn't the Ashworths sign a blood contract with the Fae?"

"The Fae carried his entire war. Without them, he'd still be sitting in the weakest House counting cobwebs."

"I heard the Fae princess nearly bled out shielding him at Ashenmoor."

Every word reached me. Every word landed like a needle sliding under my skin.

They weren't wrong. Three hundred years ago, House Ashworth sent an envoy to ask for my hand. My father laughed them out of the throne room. The weakest Vampire House proposing to Fae royalty? He thought it was a joke.

But I'd already met Varen by then. That cold, sharp face. The silence I mistook for depth.

I begged my father for months. He gave in.

For three hundred years after that, I fought beside Varen in every battle against the Demons. I bled Starblood into his wounds when the healers couldn't save him. I handed him Fae war strategies that turned the tide. He wouldn't be wearing that crown without me.

And the first thing he did with it was throw me away.

Back in the hall, Varen swept his gaze across the crowd. His voice dropped cold. "Elara took an arrow that was meant for me. She nearly died in my arms. If I don't make her my queen, I'm the one breaking faith."

Then he glanced at me. An afterthought.

"Liora chose to fight beside me. I remember her contribution. She'll be compensated—titles, land, whatever she wants."

A pause. Then, like it had just occurred to him:

"If she'd like to remain at court, she's welcome to serve as Elara's lady-in-waiting. Attend to Elara well enough, and I'll see about finding her a minor title."

Lady-in-waiting.

He wanted the Fae King's only daughter—the woman who won his war—to serve as a handmaid to the girl he'd picked up from a Demon camp.

In my first life, this was where I lost it. I stood up, screamed the truth about Elara, and watched her die on the banquet floor. I thought I was saving him.

He spent the next ten years making me pay for it.

Not this time.

I laughed. Short. Sharp. The kind of sound that made people nearby flinch.

"Keep your throne and your compensation, Varen. I didn't bleed for your war so you could hand me a servant's post."

His jaw tightened. "Don't push this, Liora. I can give you anything except the crown."

"I don't want your crown." I stood. My chair scraped against the stone. "The blood contract is void. From today, you and I are nothing."

The hall held its breath. I could feel Elara's eyes on my back—wide, confused, waiting for the explosion that wasn't coming.

She'd expected a fight. A scene. Two women tearing each other apart while Varen played the tortured hero in between.

She got nothing.

I walked toward the door without looking back.

"Permanently."