Page 37 of Treasured

Love was all-encompassing. It could complete you, consume your being, and transcend all rational thoughts and feelings. It was a force with no boundaries, a melody echoing in the hearts of connected souls, and a burning, raging, eternal flame that brought light to the darkest places.

As Luna shifted in her sleep, mumbling under her breath about looking for a particular book, I gazed down at her. There was no light in our room, but it didn’t matter. We did not need it.

Tracing the curve of her lips, her nose, and her cheeks with my thumb, I savored the feeling of her skin beneath mine.

Luna was my reason for living, my light, my hope.

Without her, I was nothing.

Yet, even as I reveled in our closeness, a nagging sense of unease clawed at the edges of my mind. Though the call of the summons was muted, it was still there, beckoning me back to the castle. It poked and prodded at my soul, seeking a way out of the confines the tonic had placed on it.

I shoved it down, pushing it as far as it could go. My shadows throbbed, and I released them, building a barrier of darkness between me and the summons.

Still, the queen’s shadowy tendrils crept closer to my heart. In the depths of my soul, beneath the darkness, I felt her calling me.

Come.

Falling Apart

MARGUERITE

A deep, bottomless pit resided in me where my emotions had once existed. I paced across my bedroom, the clack of my heels against the stone a reassuring beat to my weary ears. My Favorites were gone. Earlier this evening, I had banished them to their rooms. Not even their attention brought me any joy. Not right now.

Everything was falling apart.

Yesterday, my generals brought me several reports on the war with Ithenmyr. None of them were good. That scaly bitch who called herself queen wasn’t getting the hint: this was my country, not hers. War was exhausting, and even though we were successfully stopping all her advances through the Koln Mountains, there was no happiness in it.

Nothing made me happy. Not anymore. All I could think about was my treacherous son and his Bound Partner. Just the thought of them made my blood boil.

I sent summons after summons, pulling on that bond between us every few minutes, but he didn’t obey my call.

“Damn it!” I screeched into the empty room.

There was no response, of course. I pulled on my hair. Where was he? Guards were stationed at every known location Sebastian frequented, and I was waiting for him to show his face. He had to come out of hiding sometime.

I would catch him and his Tethered wife. When I did, they would lament the day they crossed me.

Nothing else mattered. My fangs ached, reminding me I hadn’t had a drink in several days, but I didn’t care. Blood was secondary to my desire to drive a stake through my daughter-in-law’s heart and sever the Tether.

How dare she do this? I took her from her lowly place—the fourth daughter of the Human Lord, barely a noble at all—and married her to a prince. My prince. She should have been content to live out her years Bound to my son, being the dutiful, quiet wife I required her to be.

Instead, she had the audacity to care about him. To make him care about her?

Anger ran through me, and I clenched my fists. I would not let them take my throne. I had worked far too hard for this.

The glimmer of the Blood Ruby in the mirror caught my eye, and I stopped pacing. The jewel was less lustrous than normal and no longer hummed as it used to. I’d worn it for centuries, and it had never been so dull.

And was that… a wrinkle on my forehead?

I stepped closer to the mirror, my eyes widening. A goddess-damned line was in the middle of my forehead, as obvious as a splash of color in a sea of black. A marker of age, it stood out until it was the only thing I could see.

What. The. Hell.

I was a vampire, for Ithiar’s sake. We did not age.

Ever.

I screamed.

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