Page 71

I stared at him. “Edith wasn’t alive one hundred and twelve years ago.”

“She was twenty-six when Cecily died. Lenora gave her small amounts of vampire blood after that. It slowed her ageing without turning her.”

“My grandmother told me she was eighty-four.”

“Your grandmother hid a vampire court under her house. Lying about her date of birth was probably the easy part.”

“She was over a hundred and thirty?”

“Yes. She kept you away from our blood because she wanted you to have a human life.”

Edith had found Cecily dead and Stellan covered in her blood, with Adrian already there to control the explanation.

“Did Cecily know what you were doing?” I asked.

Pain tightened his face. “I don’t know. She looked at me when I pulled her close, and for one second her eyes cleared. She said my name. I’ve spent a century deciding whether she was asking for help or understood that I was about to kill her. I still don’t know.”

I rose and faced him. “You chose to save the people she was forcing your guards to kill.”

“I chose the fastest way to end the command. I might have found another if I’d held her longer. More people would have died while I tried.”

I looked back at the carving. “And Adrian walked away.”

“He had already left the chapel by the time the command broke. He let Edith find me with Cecily. By sunrise, the chains were closed and he was regent.”

Anger made my voice rough. “That fucking bastard.”

Stellan’s mouth tightened. “On that, we agree.”

I looked at the crooked Crown Cecily had carved when it was still a joke she could make. Six years later, it had used her body to kill her own people and left Stellan with her blood in his mouth.

He’d told me the ugly part without pretending he knew what Cecily wanted. I believed him. It didn’t settle everything between us.

Stellan had needed my blood from the moment I entered Harrowmere, and he’d known attraction could bring me closer. Adrian wanted me as a route to Stellan’s power. Both had seen what my blood could unlock.

I let go of Stellan’s hand.

His attention moved to my face. “Bryony?”

“When you first felt me enter Harrowmere, did you plan to use me to get free and leave me here with Adrian?”

19

STELLAN

“Yes. That was exactly what I planned.”

Bryony went still. The truth might cost me everything I wanted, but I wouldn’t soften it now.

I stayed near Cecily’s fireplace and kept my hands where Bryony could see them. The waist chain lay loose across the floor, long enough for me to reach her. I didn’t take a single step.

“Adrian told me a human heir was coming to Harrowmere,” I said. “He gave me your name and enough facts to let me recognise you. When you entered the estate, I felt your blood wake the court. I knew you could open the prison, and I decided I’d use you to do it.”

Her face lost the warmth it had held in the garden and in my arms. “Tell me the whole plan.”

Every warning about Adrian would be true, and I’d be the only person willing to explain the danger. Need would keep Bryony returning while I encouraged the attraction between us.

“I was going to make you want the man you needed.”