Page 102

Not from weakness but from the overwhelming reality of where I am.

This is Sangremere. This is his kingdom. And it looks nothing like I expected.

Purgatory Island was always filthy, and the docks there reeked of everything bad the world has to offer. Fish guts, rotting wood, spoiled food, and the sweat of humans worked past breaking point. Here the air moves without dragging filth with it. It’s nothing like Purgatory.

This port is clean; the stone streets are swept, and the buildings lining the waterfront are tall and angular with dark slate roofs and gray-framed windows that overlook the sea ports. There is beauty in it, the kind that makes your chest ache even while your instincts scream that beauty can be deadly.

The town sprawls between the docks and the castle, which dominates the horizon like a dark crown set upon a mountain with its gothic-looking spires. Even from here, the castle is enormous, its towers black against the twilight, imposing in a way that makes the council buildings and merchant houses below it look like children crouching at the feet of a giant. The sight of it makes my stomach drop.

That is where he intends to take me. That is the cage I’ll be imprisoned in, and it is far grander and far more permanent than any cage I called home before.

We move through the streets, and I stick close to Kylian, pretty much on his heels, as I take in everything. That’s when I notice the humans, so many humans.

They are everywhere, walking with their heads bowed, carrying baskets, sweeping storefronts, hauling crates from carts. They move with purpose, but there is a quality to their movements that I recognize in my own bones, the careful deliberateness of people who have learned that drawing attention is dangerous but not moving makes you look lazy.

When Kylian passes, they don’t just lower their eyes; they stop entirely. A woman clutching a child’s hand pulls the boy behind her skirt so quickly that the child stumbles. A man carrying firewood freezes mid-step, his face draining of color as his gaze catches the king’s silhouette.

The guards flanking us look just as intimidating as their king; their uniforms dark and immaculate, their expressions carved from the same cold stone as the buildings surrounding us. They don’t speak to humans. They don’t need to. Their very presence communicates that these streets, this town, this kingdom belongs to predators, and everyone else is permitted to exist within it.

I watch Kylian from behind, the strong set of his shoulders, the unhurried confidence of his stride, the way his presence alone seems to stop people in their tracks. I try to compare this creature with the man who bathed and cared for me while unconscious. The man who stopped himself from taking my virginity because he saw hesitation in my eyes. The man who risked being burned by the sun to save me.

That man does not exist here. Right now, there is only the Vampire King, and every flinch, every averted gaze, every mother shielding her child tells me exactly what he is to these people.

Death wearing a crown.

The council building sits at the edge of a large quadrangle paved in dark stone. A tall fountain sits at its center, gushing water over each tier to the pond below, which is surrounded by pebbles. The building itself is huge, three stories of blackened timber, its entrance flanked by guards who snap to attention at Kylian’s approach.

We’re led inside, through a corridor that smells of old wood and books, then up a narrow staircase that opens onto a wide balcony overlooking the docks below and the quaint center of town. As my gaze moves to the water, I realize that I can see everything and nothing at the same time. A port full of ships, and beyond it, an endless sea.

Kylian moves to the railing, his arms draping over it as he surveys the pier with the detached look of a man inspecting property. The wind catches his dark hair, and for a moment he looks almost statuesque, carved from the same stone as his kingdom.

“Once the ship is unloaded and I’ve dealt with things here, I’ll take you to the castle,” he says without looking at me. His tone implies I am another item on his list of things to be sorted.

Eagan appears beside us, a ledger tucked under his arm, and he slips into his new role effortlessly. From friend to advisor. From second-in-command on a ship full of men to the keeper of records. It’s unsettling. This is the same man who pulled my scraps of dress over my body to protect me from the crew’s leering gazes, only now he’s flipping through pages of inventory as if he’s wearing another skin entirely.

“Seventy-three in total,” Eagan says, scanning the pages. “Forty-one adults, nineteen adolescents, thirteen children under twelve. Six family units. The rest are unattached.”

Kylian nods slowly, his gaze tracking the movement below as men haul cargo from the ship. “Sort them the usual way. But we need to get some to the blood banks. We have shortages here. Tell anyone who is able to donate blood that doing so will feed them for the day.”

They discuss it so casually. Like counting potato sacks or tallying coins. My fingers grip the railing until my knuckles ache because below me, I watch the ship’s hold being opened. The chains come first. That is what I notice before anything else, the sound of them, a dull metallic clink carrying up from the pier.

They emerge in a line from the ship’s belly, blinking against the twilight as if even this dim light is too much after days in darkness. Men and women stumbling on stiff legs, wrists bound in front of them with thick shackles connected by a single length of chain that links each person to the next like beads on a string. Some are barefoot, their feet raw and swollen against the cold stone of the pier. They look like the walking dead, hollowed out by fear and deprivation, and the sight of them punches the air from my lungs because I know that look. I have worn the same one.

My chest tightens until it hurts. I was one of those people not so long ago. Chained, sorted, sold. And now I stand on a balcony beside the king, watching it happen to others, and the distance between us feels like the cruelest trick this world has played yet.

My thoughts turn to Sable. Wherever she is, someone might be sorting her too. Deciding her value. Writing her name and debt on a ledger or contract. And I am here, useless, watching, unable to help any of these people.

Guards bark orders below, directing the line toward a cleared section of the quadrangle where wooden tables have been set up with papers, ink, and what appears to be medical instruments. The sorting begins with brutal efficiency. A guard grabs the first man’s jaw, tilting his face toward the torchlight, checking his teeth like a buyer inspecting livestock. Another guard runs hands down a woman’s arms, squeezing her biceps, testing the strength in her frame before scratching something onto a page and shoving her to the left.

Left for the strong. Right for the weak. Children are pulled to a separate area entirely, clustered together near a female guard who at least has the decency to crouch to their level when she speaks to them.

“The six family units,” Eagan says, not looking up from his ledger.

A strangled scream cuts through the air, making me jump. Peering down, a woman is clutching her child, while a guard is trying to pull them apart. The female vampire rushes over, trying to calm the woman down, but she’s fighting frantically.

“Keep them together like always,” Kylian answers, still watching the pier with that same detached composure, as if none of this reaches him. “House them in the western quarter with the other family workers. Standard terms.”

My brows furrow as the frantic woman is being removed from her cuffs, and the female vampire now has the boy on a gurney and is fixing his knee with a bandage. The mother instantly rushes to her child, snatching him, and the female guard looks annoyed.