CHAPTER 3
WHEN ALEXANDER VISCONTI, SECONDBORN son and Crown Prince of the vampires, reformed from a swirl of smoke and particles at the deserted servant’s hall at the back of the castle, he instantly sensed there was trouble.
As his body retook corporeal form, he stood frozen in place for several tense seconds, waiting to see if the castle’s wards would be triggered by his arrival.
Nothing.
Hurrying to a storeroom, he pulled down the rucksack containing the extra clothes he kept on hand, and quickly changed. By the time he emerged, Henri was waiting for him.
“You got past the checkpoints?” Alex tossed him the bag.
“I may have implied you were having an indiscretion and would return to the castle on your own shortly.”
“Well, that could be useful.” He touched the cut at the edge of his jaw. It had almost stopped bleeding.
“Perhaps in the future, if we could decide which of your treasonous misadventures I’ll be required to accompany you on, all of which are likely to get me executed by your father, I could better attend to your schedule?”
“What would be the fun in that?” Alexander lowered his voice as they approached a grand marble hallway. “Speaking of my father—?”
“He and Dante have been going at it for half an hour.”
“Well, that’s hardly noteworthy.”
“Your brother threw a Renoir out the window into the moat.”
“Oh, please.” Alex paused at the door to the drawing room to adjust his cuffs. True to Henri’s word, there indeed seemed to be an inordinate amount of shouting coming from within. “We all know that Renoir was a fake.”
Henri came forward to fix his tie.
“Be careful in there, Your Highness. Your father is in a particularly dark mood tonight.” Their eyes met and held briefly.
Henri had been his bodyguard and personal assistant for nearly a decade. Things had been easier before he’d been first in line to the throne.
Spare instead of heir.
Back then, his father had paid him little notice, allowing him the indulgence of attending school, even looking the other way when he snuck out to volunteer at the center.
Everything had shifted when his sister had fled the palace in the night two years earlier. She’d refused to take part in the elaborate courtship rituals and lavish balls that would have culminated in an alliance and marriage to the fae king.
There were very few people in his life that Alex currently trusted, and even fewer that he considered friends. Henri was both, something he never took for granted.
“Thank you, Henri. And for what you did earlier, as well.”
“Of course, sire.” At his nod, Henri opened the door to the drawing room, ushering him inside.
“You’re late,” his father snapped by way of greeting.
The king’s black hair and hazel eyes were a mirror image of Alex’s own.
It was something he’d long despised, wishing he could have taken after his mother in looks.
Queen Charlotte had been lovely inside and out, with long auburn hair and kind green eyes.
Sometimes he wondered what she’d ever seen in Judas Visconti, particularly now as his father crossed the room, face a thundercloud.
Be careful.
“Sorry,” he said in a tone that implied precisely the opposite.
Far better to be struck for being impudent than have his father guess where he’d really been tonight.
Pausing to pour himself a drink, he added, “I assumed it would take time for you to scrape together bail for Dante’s latest indiscretion and no one would miss me. ”
“That happened once.” His younger brother rubbed his temples. “And bite me.”
He caught the flash of disappointment in Dante’s eyes in the second before his gaze flitted away. He was pissed and exhausted, no doubt from another double shift at the hospital, but of course, Dante was always pissed about something lately it seemed, so what else was new?
If his brother wasn’t sneaking back to the castle in the middle of the night, he was getting arrested for participating in protests that were decidedly not pro-vampire.
The last time, Judas had locked him in the dungeons for a week, warning Alex and their sister Isabella that if they brought him food, he’d only make him stay longer.
Alex had snuck his brother food anyway. Not that it had mattered in the end. The moment Dante had been released, he’d packed a bag and slept at the hospital for a month.
They were two years apart, and had once been close.
But their mother’s long illness had torn their family apart in ways large and small, and when she’d first begun to weaken right at the time Dante had started school, his brother had withdrawn into himself, growing rebellious and angry where he’d once been quiet and studious like Alex.
After her death, he’d eventually dropped out of school, returning a few years later only with great pressure from Alex and their oldest sister.
They’d said terrible things to each other during those years.
Alex quietly feared his brother despised him, believed he hid behind a thousand facades.
Cruel Prince Alexander. The indifferent heir. The dutiful son.
Crossing the room, Judas Visconti gripped his chin. “What the hell happened to you?”
Alex swayed in place. Black spots appeared before his vision as his father’s magic drew more from him. His dark power was a black, bottomless void, never able to be sated.
“Fight over a girl,” he mumbled, staggering back in relief when Judas at last released him.
“You?” Dante said under his breath. “Please.”
Turning, the king slapped Dante so hard he dropped his drink. “You think this is funny?”
Slowly, his brother straightened. “No, sire.”
“A little while ago, an elite werewolf military unit came within minutes of breaching the city walls. It was only by sheer luck that we had a counterterrorism team in place that managed to stop them in time.”
Alex cleared his throat. “What was their target?”
“They were carrying a detailed schematic of the palace and enough explosives to make good on their threat.”
“They wouldn’t have gotten past the checkpoints.”
“You don’t know that.” His father swiped a tired hand over his face.
“The war has gone on too long, and we’re fighting it on too many fronts, in a cold war against the fae, who want our technological advantages and industrial city centers, and the human resistance, who thirty years after their defeat, still refuses to sign peace accords and accept our rule. ”
Alexander thought of Daniela Girard, who walked miles to her factory job in a secondhand coat, and worked her fingers to the bone so that her sister could get the medicine she needed.
A virus that had spread across the world like wildfire had forever altered futures, casting fates like the cruelest of fortune tellers.
His mother had worked in the legal aid center long before he had, providing slim shreds of hope to those who had none.
She refused to accept the class system that sought to restructure society based on shifter, vampire and fae superiority.
And now, the human resistance was a heartbeat from being crushed.
It was in moments like this, that Alex was almost glad his mother wasn’t here to see what their world had become over the last few years.
Almost.
“We are out of funds,” his father continued. “Morale is at an all-time low. We need this royal wedding to remind the people why they love the aristocracy and the crown.”
Alex and Dante exchanged a look. “Do you think we run the risk that with the food shortages, such extravagance could be seen as insensitive?”
Alex worded the question carefully, holding his breath and waiting to see if he, or worse, his brother, would be struck.
With Judas, there was a fine line between drawing his ire for appearing disinterested, or for daring to question his judgment.
He’d certainly paid the price for having the audacity to suggest the line about artisanal cheese would be seen as pretentious and out of touch.
The king waved a hand. “It’s Christmas. They want the romance and you’re going to give it to them.”
His stomach churned. “Yes, father.”
“Your sister’s choice to abdicate and walk away from this family did great damage to our public image.
We can’t have a similar mistake.” He gestured to Alex’s face.
“No drunken spectacles. No brawls. The public wants to see a charming prince choose his bride at the end of the month. We need this good PR. Your brother is on hand if they want to read juicy fodder on the front page of the tabloids.”
“I don’t see why we’re acting as if I even have a choice,” Alex said carefully. “Every woman in the surrounding sectors could show up the night of the ball, and I would still be expected to pick Lara Cavalieri.”
“This isn’t about love. It’s about making a good political match.
That’s what your sister failed to understand.
” His father’s tone sharpened. “I know you want what’s best for the people of this sector and for the greater kingdom.
You’ve always had my strong head for leadership and your mother’s heart in that regard.
I know you’ll make the right decision when the time comes. ”
Judas paused to cough. Alex kept his expression carefully neutral. Despite the rumors, he’d never believed the king was truly sick. The timing was far too suspect. It would be just like Judas to fake an illness right after his mother’s death in order to force Alex’s hand and rush him into marriage.
“Yes, sire.”
Dante flicked a glance his way. Subtly, Alex shook his head. His brother looked away.
He hated this. Hated that he rarely got to speak to his own brother when they weren’t being watched, either by the cameras or the staff, most of whom were Judas Visconti’s loyalists.
The night his oldest sister had been forced to flee, she’d made Alex swear he would hold the fractured pieces of their family together.
No matter what happened, he couldn’t allow them to fall apart now.
But two years after she’d left, Dante was more withdrawn than ever.
Their youngest sister Isabella rarely left her research lab.
And in one month’s time, he would be forced into a marriage alliance with the Cavalieri family, handing his father unlimited wealth that he would use to crush any last traces of the human resistance.
And he was powerless to stop any of it.