Chapter 13 Bronwen
Bronwen
“King Augustus and Queen Bronwen!”
The sound hit me like a wave, all thundering applause and sharp whistles.
The great room was wilder than it had ever been.
More vampires filled the room, dancing, kissing, drinking.
They were chaos in motion, an unholy sea of movement and sound.
But the moment we entered, their attention snapped toward us.
My hand was still bandaged from the ceremony, wrapped in fine linen now spotted faintly with blood. Some vampires noticed. I caught the way their eyes drifted toward it—how their nostrils flared and their pupils dilated. August had told me I couldn’t heal it because it would raise questions.
A few stepped forward to offer congratulations.
I ignored them. I didn’t bow my head, didn’t offer a smile.
One brushed my arm, murmuring something about sacrifice.
Another dipped into a low, theatrical bow, their movements too exaggerated to be sincere.
I said nothing. I didn’t even blink. My gaze was locked forward, past them all.
August said nothing either. He merely walked beside me as if we were a matched pair. But I felt every inch of distance between us. Every step echoed with the tension we didn’t speak aloud.
We ascended the platform together, and the eyes of the court followed us like tethered ropes. When we reached our thrones, we sat in unison, two carved statues in a sea of living shadows.
The music resumed—strings and drums, frenzied and sharp—but it felt distant, disconnected. The vampires spun and twirled like shadows, elegant and careless, but I didn’t move. I didn’t breathe. I just simmered.
The weight of the crown on my head grew heavier with each passing second.
The gold band on my finger sat like a shackle.
My hand throbbed beneath the bandage, the ache syncing with the pulse behind my eyes.
My teeth ached from how hard I was clenching my jaw.
My spine was so stiff I thought it might snap.
The rage crept higher, inch by inch, like hot wax filling my veins. My thoughts spiraled—burning, blistering, sharp. I wanted to scream. I wanted to tear every candle from the wall, rip my dress down the center, set the whole fucking castle on fire.
He had taken everything.
And now he expected me to sit still and smile like a well-fed pet?
Not a chance.
I would make him bleed for every second he made me sit beside him like this.
I stood up, feeling the sudden shift in the room. Eyes flicked toward me. I half-expected August to stop me, to grip my wrist or say my name. But he stayed silent.
“Move,” I said to the guard that stepped in front of me when I made it to the stairs.
He hesitated, glancing over my shoulder to August.
“Do not look at him. I told you to move.” My voice cut through the music like a blade. “So move.”
He looked again, this time meeting August’s gaze. I turned to see August give him a single, slight nod. Permission. That infuriated me more than anything.
I descended the dais, each step echoing across the marble floor like a challenge. I didn’t glance back at August. Marrying him had not been my choice, and his smug stillness beside me as the ceremony ended had only made it worse.
Especially after he ripped my heart out.
The tables were covered in blood-red wine—no, just blood—and plates of half-eaten meat, steam still curling in the air. A few of them whispered as I passed. One dared to bow. I didn’t acknowledge him.
I moved toward the dance floor. The vampires spun and laughed, a haunting mix of beauty and malice.
The music pounded like a second heartbeat.
I was still in my wedding gown. I, dressed in white, stood out in the sea of darkness.
I was their sacrifice. I tilted my chin higher, heart hammering from more than just the rhythm.
I would not sit and be looked at like a doll.
I would not be silent beside August like some prize he’d won.
Someone caught my hand.
A vampire—tall, pale, handsome in that ageless way they all were—grinned and pulled me into the dance. I let him. His hand was cold and strong, and he twirled me easily, as if I weighed nothing.
“So this is the little queen,” he said as we spun. “I thought you’d be taller.”
My brow twitched, but I said nothing.
“You know,” he sneered, “usually the human queen is kept locked away, used only for the ability to bear a child for Carrow’s bloodline to continue. But here you are. In the den where in one quick motion, you could become my next meal. What makes you so special?”
I smiled, but it didn’t reach my eyes. “Would you like to find out?”
He laughed, low and cruel. “Oh, but I think I already know. Your scent is not just your own. Our dear King Augustus has marked you. You know, I might feel a little pity for you now. It was all just a game to him. A spectacle. And I think he is just waiting for someone to toss you around like the nothingness that you are.”
The words struck like slaps. And maybe that’s why I did it.
Maybe I just wanted him to shut up. Maybe I wanted to feel something other than the hollow August left behind. Or maybe—I just wanted to hurt something. Someone. Anyone who dared look at me like I was weak.
I wrapped my fingers around his forearm, sharp and sudden.
His laughter faltered. “What are you—”
I pulled. Magic rushed into my hand, drawn straight from the vampire’s body. He screamed. It echoed over the music.
Everything stopped.
Eyes turned. Music died. Conversations ceased mid-word.
A crackling orb of fire bloomed above my palm, pulsing and alive, like it had a will of its own. It cast flickering shadows across my face, painting the great room in shades of terror and awe.
Someone screamed, “Witch!”
The word sliced through the air like a blade. Chairs scraped against the floor. Cloaks whipped. Fangs flashed. Movement swelled at the edges of the room like a tide preparing to crash.
But I didn’t run.
My breath was slow, controlled. My body was still, defiant. I turned my head with precision, ignoring the chaos unraveling around me. I sought only one face.
August.
He hadn’t moved. He sat sprawled across the throne like a god watching a play, chin resting against his knuckles, elbow propped casually against the armrest. He looked so calm. Too calm.
And then, slowly, deliberately, he smiled.
My stomach turned to lead.
He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t horrified. He wasn’t even surprised.
He was fucking entertained.
Like this was exactly what he wanted to see.
My fury rose like a second flame, consuming every thought I had. The magic surged again, wilder this time, clawing through my veins with a hunger I couldn’t restrain. I let it feed. I let it consume.
The vampire in my grasp choked, his scream faltering into a rasp. Color leeched from his skin like water draining from cloth. His cheeks sank. His veins turned black beneath his flesh. Bones pressed against skin.
Gasps rang out like cracks of thunder. One vampire clutched the arm of her date. Another fell back into a chair, eyes wide with frozen fear.
The room pulsed with light and heat. For one moment, I felt as if I were floating, as if the power inside me had lifted me above it all.
Around me, vampires dropped to their knees.
Their skin dulled to a sickly gray, veins standing out like blackened roots.
They clutched at their throats, mouths gaping open, gasping for air that wouldn’t come, their bodies beginning to wilt under the pressure of my magic.
It felt as though invisible threads had tethered them to me, their strength siphoned without a single touch. I had never managed that before.
Still, I held on.
Then—
I let go.
The fire erupted from my hand in a violent surge, a wave of heat and fury that ignited the vampire’s chest. Flames bloomed like twisted roses, engulfing him in seconds.
He dropped to his knees, clawing at the fire as it consumed him, but there was no escape.
In near unison, the graying vampires around me burst alight, flames spearing through their chests as if their bodies themselves had betrayed them.
Gasps and shrieks tore through the great room.
A few vampires backed away in horror, but others stumbled, fangs bared, their instincts slipping free of control.
Sparks arced from the magic still crackling in my hand, and where they landed—skin ignited.
One vampire yelped as his sleeve caught fire.
Another clawed at her throat, flames licking up her collarbone before she vanished in a blur, smoke trailing behind.
Others snarled and surged forward, ready to strike.
I stood my ground, fire still dancing in my palm. I looked up at the throne to see August leaning forward with a wicked grin. As if he was urging me to go further. As if I had done exactly what he was hoping I’d do.
I dropped my hand, letting the fire burn out. Vampires launched forward, but before they made it to me, August’s voice boomed through the room.
“No one touches her.”
He descended with deliberate steps, each one echoing against the silent, blood-scented air.
No one dared move. Vampires froze, caught in the tension that wrapped around the room like smoke.
August stopped in front of me, close enough that I could see the slight shimmer of amusement in his eyes—and something darker beneath it.
He leaned in, too close, and whispered, “You never disappoint, my queen.”
I froze.
My stomach twisted, but beneath it throbbed something worse than fury—betrayal. Had any of it been real? The protection, the stares, the way his voice softened when no one else could hear? Or had I always been part of the show?
“But Your Grace, she is a witch!” cried one clinging to Simon’s arm, his face pale with panic.
Simon tilted his head slightly, a faint, curious smile curling his lips. He looked less concerned than entertained, as if he were watching a particularly dramatic opera rather than a threat. I guess he had come to terms with this since I almost killed Lavina.
“Do you think I am so dumb that I didn’t already know that?”
Whispers rippled through the vampires.
“This changes nothing. She is your queen. You will submit to her. If she chooses to leave you alive, then you thank her.” Then he turned his head and locked eyes with me again.
“And if I even hear of an ill word said about her, you better hope that she gets to you first. Because my methods will be long, drawn out, and excruciating.”
He felt nothing and yet he said that.
In an instant, the world blurred, and my stomach dropped like I’d been hurled from a cliff. By the time my vision stopped spinning, we were in our chambers and I was in his arms, cradled like something fragile and breakable.
I shoved out of his grip, stumbling back. Fury flared in me.
August smiled but it didn’t touch his eyes. If anything, it looked like it hurt. Like he was smiling just to keep from breaking apart. “Was that your attempt at being my worst nightmare, Winnie?”
“You should be angry!” I screamed.
“Oh I am angry. Angrier than I’ve been in a long time.”
Gods, he was truly insane!
“Then why are you smiling?”
“Because I should have known better. Of course you did the one thing I asked you not to do! You wouldn’t be Winnie if you didn’t!
” Then his eyes widened, as if something had just clicked—some horrifying truth or revelation known only to him.
And instead of fear or fury, he laughed.
A deep, unhinged sound that spilled from his mouth like a wound torn open.
I shoved him with both hands, hard enough that my palms stung. He didn’t stumble. Of course he didn’t. “What is so fucking funny?”
He moved closer. “Well, Winnie, before you did that, you still had freedom. Time away from me. But now? Now you’ll have to be with me at all times. Every second of every day. Even during your baths.”
My jaw clenched. “What?”
“You being a witch is going to raise questions. And vampires love gossip. If they find out what you did to Carrow, his supporters will crawl out from under their stones to seek revenge. Just to win favor with him.”
I just stared at him.
“So was it worth it?” He spoke coldly. “To spend forever with the person you betrayed?”
“Why would you want that if you felt nothing?”
His voice dropped. “You said you were going to be my worst nightmare. I’m just returning the favor. And you haven’t even seen what I’m capable of yet.”
He reached out and gently brushed a strand of hair from my face, his touch a mockery of kindness. “And when you scream, when you cry, when you try to claw your way out… I’ll still be there. Because that’s what you chose when you betrayed me.”