13. Aurelia
And Father was worried I’d embarrass myself.
It was a laughable notion. He and I both knew no matter what happened the night before, I would be dolled up in the finest jewels and clothes to meet guests.
It was a given in our family. There would never be a time where it was acceptable to show up with even a hair out of place. If I could dream, I would surely have nightmares about the one time I embarrassed him in front of his guests.
The memory of my parched throat and sore wrists from being bound and starved was pushed far into the recesses of my mind and buried under the rubble. Where it belonged.
I never made that mistake again. I was young then. Na?ve. I knew better now.
The prince, on the other hand, and his lack of trust had been annoying. He came into this palace, not knowing anything about our customs, and still had the audacity to doubt me. Even if it was his fault.
I gave him a side glance as he shifted next to me, his hand coming to touch my thigh under the table. His touch left a slimy feeling on my skin. I jerked my leg away from him and sent him an innocent smile when he turned to glare.
The place where he all but ripped open my neck the night before still ached. Phantom pain. My venom should have taken care of even the worst of the damage sometime this morning, but that didn’t mean the mental pain was gone.
I can’t wait to pay him back for it one day.
If he thought I was just going to sit here and take it for long, he was wrong. I didn’t care about what my father would do. I would get out of it one way or another.
“From France, princess, age twenty-two,” said a human to my right. His wrist was facing up, and there was a stark white towel under it. I grabbed my glass and held it near his wrist, smiling as he removed the towel and brought forth a golden knife to slash his wrist open.
“Thank you,” I said once there was just enough blood in my cup for a few sips. He took his dismissal with a light bow, going right to Prince Icas after me.
He didn’t use his glass and opted to sink his teeth right into the man’s wrist like the animal he was. The man’s bright red blood leaked out the sides of his mouth and stained the white towel below. I didn’t avert my gaze fast enough to avoid seeing the blood seep into the towel and spread across its surface. It reminded me too much of a blossoming flower.
I tried to ignore the pained intake of breath from the young man.
I pulled my gaze away from the violent act and looked across the table at our guests. Some royals from across the country. I didn’t remember ever seeing them in my life, but the man and his wife were somehow important to my father.
They had three children, all of them over the age of fifty, and making quite a mess of their clothes as they too opted to take a bite out of the human tasters instead of using their cups.
I glanced behind me to see Vesper in all her glory standing right between my and the prince’s chairs. The sun from the windows hit her just right, her silver hair glowing in the light. Her gaze was on me, and she was as serious as ever. Her scars were highlighted against her skin, all except for the one that went through her eye and was interrupted by a purplish bruise under her eyes. The dark circles were a prominent reminder of our night.
I can’t believe the little mouse rejected me. It was impossible to believe that she could annoy me even more than she had. But somehow, she still kept surprising me.
I wonder what she thought of this show. Did it disgust her?
I hope it fucking does.
The embarrassment of her rejection caused my face and my entire body to heat. And it was nothing like what she had shown me at the party that night.
This one was wounding, but it made me that much more determined to figure out what the little mouse’s motives were for being here in the first place.
She wasn’t like the rest who had signed up, that much was painfully clear. The others wanted the status or the money that came with working for a family. But the way she watched me when she was on duty was not at all like a guard.
I was more like a hunter watching her prey.
I sent her a wicked grin and watched with satisfaction as her eyes narrowed at me. That’s right, little mouse, let that anger brew, and then maybe finally I’ll get another taste of whatever it is you’re?—
The painful squeeze of my thigh caused my gaze to snap to Prince Icas.
“Watch yourself,” I hissed under my breath, hopefully low enough for the guests not to hear, and tried to shake off his hand again, but he held on tight.
His grin was a slimy one.
“Too busy watching you, my love,” he said and lifted his hand from my leg to push my hair behind my ear and expose my neck. The same side he bit last night. It was hard to smother the urge to flinch away from him.
I gave him a smile for show but turned my head to look at our guests so I could get his disgusting hands off me.
The oldest daughter was looking at us with a grin that more closely resembled a sneer with the way she bared her bloodstained teeth at us. She wore a stark white sweater that had bloodred rubies sewn into it, making it look like she had accidentally spilled her tasting on herself.
“If only the Castle family had a son,” she said with an exaggerated sigh and plopped her head on her hand with a pout. “Maybe then we’d be talking about marriage plans to merge the families instead of this back and forth.”
Her parents and Father both paused. I almost thought Father was going to explode with the way his jaw tensed, but instead he let out a laugh. The two older vampires relaxed at the sound of it.
“Trust me, if I could have a daughter as cunning and ruthless as you, I would marry my son to you in a heartbeat,” he said, his eyes cutting to her parents. “I heard Priscilla alone is in charge of family punishment, is that right?”
As cunning and ruthless as her? He said it like I had never actually killed for him. Like I hadn’t plotted with him on the various ways to take over other small families and even a clan here and there.
I had done everything he expected of me and more.
His words were a burning insult.I calmed the anger that was coiling in my belly by taking a drink of the blood. I tried to focus on the heat that it sent through me instead of the anger that threatened to unravel my perfectly crafted control.
Her mother sat up at this. “Yes, actually, and she?—”
“Is that your plan, Icas?” Priscilla asked, her gaze still locked on the prince. “But last I heard, there was no plan to merge the families. Weird.”
She took a sip of her blood, the look in her eyes daring me to say something. As if it were my place to try and defend whatever motives the prince had for marrying me.
I won’t. I don’t want to fucking be in this situation in the first place.
“No. Unfortunately, Aurelia will be leaving us. My dealings with Prince Icas’s father have been a secret long before Aurelia was even in the picture,” my father said, a warm smile still on his face. “So yes, we would like to unite the families, but not in that way.”
His comment was news to me. Not in that way? Then in what way?
Obviously, Father had to have been bluffing for Prince Icas’s sake. For someone like Father to marry me off to Icas’s family and not get any of the people under their rule in return…it was unheard of.
But when I looked at the prince, his expression didn’t change. As if he already knew the supposed secret that had been decided by them so long ago.
What the hell?
I tuned out the noises of Father and his guests talking, urging the prince to look at me. But when he finally did, he met me with another one of his slimy smiles, as if to say, What, something Daddy’s favorite didn’t know?
Prince Icas leaned back with a satisfied grin and wiped my blood from his mouth.
His room was bright, the curtains thrown wide open and letting the bright daylight seep through. There was no hiding what we were doing. No pretending it wasn’t happening.
“Add something else to sweeten the deal, Aurelia,” he commanded, his eyes trailing down the front of my dress and lingering on my chest. He tried to make his voice come out like a purr, but it sounded terribly forced and cringy. It took a lot to not visibly grimace at his words. “I promise I’ll spill all of Daddy’s secrets.”
“Let’s start with how they are uniting the families,” I purred and placed my hands on his knees, sensually massaging up his thighs, the evidence of how much he liked it already showing in the front of his trousers.
So easy. And here the male vampires thought it was the women who gave their bodies up so freely. Prince Icas was a perfect example of a male who thought more with his cock than his head.
He was a simpleton. I just needed to figure out how to use it in my favor and get over that overinflated ego of his.
My neck was still painfully sore. My venom did what it could to heal the deepest holes, but I hadn’t drunk enough during the day for it to heal fully. If I wasn’t careful, the lack of blood would have me spiraling.
“Come on, baby,” he said, running his hands down my arms. “The engagement announcement was a long time ago, and we still haven’t done anything. Maybe if you show me how grateful you are, I’ll spill.”
Even my blood was more than I should have been forced to give. And I only kept it up so he wouldn’t go squealing to Father that I wasn’t fulfilling my duties.
Worse. There was a chance he could go to the stepbitch, and she would use it as her way to pit Father against me.
I knew her game too well, and I wasn’t going to let her get her way.
But his request? It was too far. There was no way I’d be fucking him.
I leaned forward, getting as close to his face as possible, before grabbing a handful of that offending thing between his legs and squeezing.
The panic and pain that flashed across his face were immediate. The pained groan was more satisfying than anything I’d ever experienced. I wanted to rip it off. Wanted to watch as he screamed bloody murder and begged for me to save him.
It was easy to get drunk on the power…but alas, I had to keep up appearances.
“Tell me now, and you get to keep this,” I warned in a low voice. “What does your father want with me?”
“You’re gonna pay for this, you bitch,” he growled and tangled his hand in my hair, attempting to get me to let go, but I only gripped harder.
“Cooperate, babe,” I said in a sickly-sweet tone. “What does your father want?”
“He wants an heir! One with your mother’s bloodline!” he answered in a pained voice. “Your cheap father wouldn’t give any of his family over, but he had no problem handing you over as a bargaining chip. Do you know how many people your child would bring?”
If the confession wasn’t this shocking, I might have let myself feel proud of how easy it had been to get him to spill.
My mother’s bloodline?
“You’re his heir,” I spat. It didn’t make sense to me.
He let out a bitter laugh.
“An heir who brings in no people and no new money,” he said. “Did you know there’s a bet going around the palace as to who will knock you up first? Him or me?”
I jerked away from him and slammed the palm of my hand into his cheek. The crack of his bones was almost for sure a sign of fracture, but I didn’t care.
The horrifying image of what was to come as soon as I left the palace did enough damage.
What the actual fuck?
That couldn’t be true. Father wouldn’t allow that…would he? That was a new level of cruelty, even for him.
I never expected my father to actually protect me, but it was a new level of betrayal I didn’t see coming.
I had bitterly joked that I was nothing more than a broodmare, but they were serious.
Memories of the way my stepmother’s spawn looked at me and whispered those exact words with an evil grin on her face hit me like a slap in the face.
Did they know too? All this time…Had I been the only one who didn’t know?
I had to ball my hands to stop them from shaking.
“His heir,” I repeated. “His, not yours.”
Prince Icas looked up at me with a spiteful smile. “That’s right, so I suggest you work on opening your legs for me, or else he’ll fill the space for me.”
It was too much. The red was seeping in, and the only thing I could think of was letting out the murderous monster that had been festering behind the locked cage I kept in the back of my mind.
I wanted to slit his throat open. Bathe in his blood and paint the walls with it to send the message that no one could ever say such a horrific thing again.
“Remember who you’re fucking talking to,” I threatened, backing away from him. My body was shaking with rage. My eyes turned fully red, and a low growl rumbled in my chest. “You think I’ll just sit around and let this happen?”
“You have no choice,” he replied, leaning back and looking over at me with a disgusting look in his eyes. “Face it, babe. Your days are numbered.”
Fuck that. Fuck him. And fuck Father.
I never expected much out of the man who sired me. He was cruel and always lived up to his name. Did I really think he would treat his favorite daughter differently?
Fuck him.
I turned away from the prince and rushed out the door. I would make them pay.
I would make all of them pay. Even if it meant going up against him.