Vivienne lifted her gaze from the floor and stared at the king’s shadows as he approached her.
She failed me.
This was it.
The king would kill her now.
Honestly, she wasn’t surprised. Death had been looking over her shoulder ever since she lost the prince on the night of the ball. At least she wouldn’t die at the hands of the villagers. They wouldn’t have killed her quickly or painlessly.
Not that dying at the king’s hands would be a walk in the park. Vivienne had witnessed his dark brand of death several times. The hunger devouring her hollow stomach from the inside out would soon be the least of her worries.
At least the prince was back with his family.
Vivienne would die knowing that Marius was safe, and he’d live. Castle Sanguis had healers for Marius’s cough. The royals would send someone else after the feral First. Eventually, the prince would go on anadventure that wouldn’t get him killed. Maybe he’d find a partner and settle down.
Everyone else would get their happily ever after.
There wouldn’t be a happy ending for Vivienne. No way for her to come out of this smiling. But she would be done, and that was…
Okay.
It had to be, because the king wouldn’t allow her to live.
Shadows streamed from the royal vampire, but Vivienne paid them no mind. She let her mind drift back a hundred years to memories she’d buried long ago. Skipping over the awful night of her Making, with those three men who’d thought they could take advantage of her just because she was a woman, she thought back to her parents.
Their faces flashed through her mind.
She pictured her mother, Aurora, with her kind brown eyes and white hair that she always kept in a bun at the nape of her neck.
Wrinkles had always decorated Aurora’s forehead, complementing the laugh lines that had been present for as long as Vivienne could remember. Even at the end, after Vivienne’s Making, Aurora hadn’t stopped smiling.
Vivienne’s father, Pierre, had been silent but strong. He’d barely spoken, at least compared to Aurora’s constant babble, but there hadn’t been a single day where he hadn’t gazed upon his wife and daughter with deep affection.
Her parents’ love for each other had been as deep as the Black Sea and as vast as the Four Kingdoms, and they had raised her in a happy, healthy home. They’d been older when Vivienne was born, and they called her their miracle.
Even after her Making, Vivienne had remained by her parents’ side as much as possible. She had spent her Fledgling years living part-time with Ian, her Maker, to learn the ways of vampires. The rest of the time, shestayed with her parents and took care of them. While living in the village, she hunted deer, subsiding off their blood.
Even after finding out that their daughter had become a creature of the night, Aurora and Pierre had never rebuked Vivienne. They just kept on loving her right until their final days.
Their deaths had come in quick succession.
A few years after Vivienne’s Making, her mother had slipped away peacefully in her sleep. Later that same day, Pierre had followed. It was as though he couldn’t bear to remain in this world one more night without his love.
And now, Vivienne would join them.
Boots appeared in her vision. Dark power flowed off the king, and the air vibrated in morose anticipation.
Vivienne’s heart, slow beating though it was, sped up. Knowing pain was coming didn’t ease the dread of anticipation. She would suffer for weeks, if not months, or even years before death’s cold arms finally wrapped around her.
She wouldn’t fight back, though.
She deserved this.
To her credit, she didn’t flinch as the king stopped in front of her, bent, and ripped off her gag. Dark wisps swarmed at the king’s feet, a promise of impending pain.
“Vivienne Beaumont.” The king snarled her name, and she shivered. Never had those two words sounded so dark. “Do you recall the vow you took when you knelt before these very thrones?”
How could she forget? It had barely been a month ago. Then, she’d assumed that her new position would be one of relative ease.
