Bloodthirsty Beloved

Chapter 1

The only man I loathed more than my husband was my father.

That I needed to see both before I’d so much as sniffed a cup of tea had me snapping at the ghost trailing me down the hall. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“I didn’t know he was coming until he was at the gates.” Groth sounded as panicked as I felt. “I assume the city guard could not delay him long enough to send word, as he appears to be accompanied by many of his men.”

My steps faltered halfway down the hall.

He’d brought a show of force this time.

Nervous, Groth pulled at his purple cravat, his form smudging at the edges. With a shake of my head, I marched on to my husband’s tower.

Groth followed. “Perhaps we should leave the king out of this visit,” he said. “He and Lord Aphylus no longer seem to get along.”

Unless it was gold, my father didn’t get along with anything.

I’d excluded my husband from his previous visit, which had only served to make my father linger, watch me more than he ever had before, and question the state of things between us.

No one paid any mind to how insincere a husband and wife’s relationship was when arranged marriages between the born were often far from true. But ours had been—at least it almost had been—and that made people pay attention.

I didn’t care for anyone to discover how that had changed. Certainly not my father, whose favorite pastime was using people’s misery against them.

My husband, however, didn’t care at all.

I pushed open the steel door to his tower. It shuddered closed behind me as I swept up the stairs. Although he could walk through any door in this palace, the ghost waited out in the hall.

He’d known what I’d find in King Breyron’s bedchamber.

I’d known what I would find. There I still stood, staring with dry yet burning eyes at the feeders sprawled across Brey’s arrogantly sized bed. The man and woman untangled their limbs and murmured their confusion at my intrusion.

I waded through the discarded clothing, stepped over a glass of spilled wine and a bloodied knife on the plush carpet, and peered around the open door to the bathing room.

Empty.

As was the overflowing dressing chamber beside it. Withholding a groan, I headed back past the wide-eyed feeders to the spiraling wooden stairs beside the balcony doors.

If venturing into Brey’s bedchamber was miserable, then visiting his sitting room was downright tragic. The many portraits and easels and paints had long disappeared. Only one easel remained.

Well, not really.

It was now in pieces on the carpet before the divan where my husband slept.

Curious, I stared at those chunks of splintered wood, then looked over at the balcony doors. They were open, and the lace curtains billowed in the breeze. Shredded canvas fluttered across the terracotta tiles beyond. Perhaps Brey had tried to paint after playing with our feeders.

The mere thought made venom surge through my veins.

My eyes wandered to the king curled on his side and snoring quietly. Like black silk against the divan’s silver velvet, his hair lay perfectly strewn. His feet and torso were bare. Light gray linen pants adorned his legs.

On my way across the room, I picked up a paintbrush and used it to poke his ass. His next snore became a snort. Maybe he’d forgotten where he’d fallen asleep—for he startled and rolled.

Straight onto the paint-flecked carpet at my feet.

“Unmerciful Mother.” Groaning, Brey slumped on his back and blinked, then stilled when he squinted up at me. “Unmerciful indeed.”

I retreated a step. “My father’s here.”

“I’m afraid I didn’t quite catch that.” His pupils shrank as he murmured, “You may need to come a little bit closer.”

I was about to tell him he’d heard me just fine when I realized his sleep-heavy gaze was on my bare legs.

Rolling my eyes, I tightened my robe. “Just get dressed and meet me downstairs.”

He pouted. “Sadly, I cannot.”

“You must.”

“Why?”

My teeth met. “I told you why. My father is here.”

“But what does that have to do with me?” Smacking his lips together, Brey gazed up at the rafters. “He’s your father.”

“He became your problem when you took his gold in exchange for taking his daughter.” I crossed my arms. “I refuse to endure him alone again. Be downstairs in ten minutes, or I’ll make sure I interrupt more than your sleep tomorrow evening.”

“Now I simply must stay right here because…” His teeth slid over his lower lip. “Well, few things would please me more.”

If I’d known this king was capable of such cruelty, perhaps I wouldn’t have been so reluctant to marry him.

“Brey,” I growled.

Smirking, he stretched his legs over the floor. A hand moved down his muscular chest to his abdominals. “Ethel.” His feline gaze just dared mine to follow that hand to the waistband of his linen pants—toward his manhood.

But I’d seen every inch of him before. I’d touched every inch of him before.

Before we’d ruined everything with hostility and wounded pride and vengeance.

Before all of that, this marriage had been arranged purely to protect Saltblood Isle and vampirekind—to see to the fracturing wards causing violent unrest. So rather than try to fix something unmendable, I’d accepted this union for what it had always been.

A business deal between two greedy men.

“It’s just occurred to me that I need to tend to something.” A sinister smile brightened Brey’s eyes. “Something achingly important.”

Heat spread beneath my skin.

To hide it, I turned for the stairs. “We both know you can be quick. Don’t you dare disappoint me now.”

He coughed out a laugh and a curse.

My smile remained until I returned to my tower, where I prepared to face my other enemy.

My father was far from a kind man.

At three-hundred and fifty-two years of age, some might argue that he was more of a corpse than a man. That any remnants of his soul had long withered, and all that remained was a monster giving truth to tales woven about us across the sea.

Some might argue that my husband was worse.

There had been a time when I’d struggled to believe such talk. Now, I was wholly inclined to agree.

My father’s ruthlessness was self-serving—born from a need to become more than immortal and utterly untouchable—whereas my husband’s cruelty came from his unrelenting desire to avenge his bruised ego.

The ego always made things more deadly.

My father had indeed brought along a large bundle of his made men.

Twenty of them lined the far end of the throne room, eyeing our own guards, who stood before the wall behind the thrones.

Our guards wore a mixture of leather and steel.

My father’s wore the uniform they’d earned like a medal after they’d made it through their trials and transitions.

Of course, those stiff uniforms were ash gray and deep blue—the colors of the Blueburn family.

Though I could feel his attention, I kept my eyes from roaming to a certain captain.

“So sullenly silent.” Lord Aphylus Blueburn gazed at the emerald tapestry hung between the two oval windows. “Yet you sit comfortably on the throne I put you on.”

I smiled at my nails.

He’d stared at that pilling royal emblem during his last visit, too—a coral-wrapped chalice overflowing with blood.

The only interesting thing about the moth-eaten fabric was the plum bloodstains on the bottom right corner. Vampire blood. Too often, I’d stare at them and wonder who it had belonged to. Too often, I was tempted to ask my husband.

Fear of rejection kept me from daring.

“Never will I forget who put me here, Father.” Deciding I’d paint my nails later, I lowered my hand to the shell-dotted armrest of my throne. “And it’s far from comfortable.”

My father eyed one of the ribbed columns rising to the palace ceiling. Vines climbed them and tangled around the wrought-iron railings encircling the second floor above.

“Tell me, Ethel…” Turning, he linked his hands behind his back. The action tautened his dark blue coat at his heavy shoulders, the gold stitching at risk of snapping. “Do you think the primary families would be pleased?”

I needn’t have asked what he was getting at, so I remained silent.

“Or do you think they would detest knowing that you two laze about in the palace they built while your subjects plot to overthrow the born empire?”

Born vampires were the sole reason for the existence of made vampires. Without the continuation of our noble bloodlines, without our divinely gifted blood, no humans could be turned. It might take many centuries, but without us, made vampires would become extinct.

“They wouldn’t dare,” I said. “Humans and the made need us more than we need them.”

Some of my father’s guards shifted.

They didn’t have to like it, but they knew it was true. The born were once as revered as the goddess herself.

Frankly, this growing disdain was appalling.

“Ethel, it’s hard for people to care about what they need when they’re fucking starving.

” Each word rose and echoed through the throne room.

Though he lowered his voice, his tone remained aggressive.

“While you manage just fine in your protected palace with your smuggled feeders, vampires are continuously poisoned by the lavender flooding the city and killed.”

A bit rich, considering we’d gotten our last human from him.

My husband chose then to finally grace us with his presence.

“And just when did you decide to care about our made subjects?” Brey strolled into the room with a slowness that said he wished to appear as lazy as my father thought him. “Last I heard, you and some of your born-blooded pals still enjoy hunting them for sport.”

Instantly incensed, my father’s face mottled.

“I started caring when I remembered they have the numbers and the anger to get rid of us.” Spittle flew as he seethed, “And I hunt those who deserve to be hunted, just as your ancestors did. Just as you ought to.” A menacing grin lit his green eyes. “You preening peacock.”

My nails curled, threatening to crack the ancient shells in the armrests.