A gust of wind prickled my flesh, feeding the storm brewing in my chest. I kept low, shifting my weight methodically as I moved along the cobbled road. The moss between the cracks muffled my steps, or at least I’d like to think. Tonight, I was finally going to meet a monster. My heart drummed too loud, drowning out everything else. Even after years of training, my senses dulled— it would hear me long before I could hear it.

        The walnut entrance loomed before me, uneven splinters spreading out along the door’s surface. I lifted my hand slowly, holding my breath as if that action alone could silence my movements. The cool brass handle did nothing to soothe the race in my veins. I pulled, and a groan erupted from the rotted hinges—loud enough to alert a specter or a man. My muscles tensed, bracing for a body to slam into me. My neck could be ripped apart before I drank in my last breath.

        But air filled my lungs once more.

        Carefully, I shut the door behind me, silently pleading for it to stop whining. As if in response to my prayer, the door fell silent, leaving only the howling wind and the pounding of my pulse.

        Then the door laughed with a final slam. I ripped my hand away and jumped, facing the bitter dark. My eyes strained, panic twisting shadows until color slowly returned, transforming the phantoms of night into a less threatening shape. A grand entrance.

        A golden chandelier hung low from the high ceiling. Each arm was wide, bearing many candles. Only a few illuminated the room. Their weak light flickered as shadows dominated the dance. Where its arms were bare, spiderwebs adorned the golden sheen. Dark wood patterned the floor in floral squares, barren of furniture. The dreary light revealed intricate designs carved along the wall trim, its color a deep mahogany. At the end of the room, two staircases rose on either side of a long dark hallway. The incline led up to a window with the only other light source. The full moon.

        Beneath my skin-tight blouse, goosebumps prickled as the still quiet drifted across my skin. I sank into the corner of the room, every entrance in view. I kept myself low to the ground, my gaze flicking between the doors and hallways. My training heightened my awareness. The walls at my back kept anyone from flanking me. The hairs on my arms stood, and my fingers twitched, whispering against the weapons on my belt.

        The ear-splitting silence spiraled into a high-pitched hum in my ears. I clicked my tongue, willing my senses to come back to life. Again, I checked the entrances—the hallway, the front door, and the two upper stairways.

        I froze, staring at the left balcony. Something was off. A weight dropped from my throat to my stomach, igniting a chill down my spine.

        I took a breath and squinted. Was it my eyes tricking me? I crouched again, realizing I had been leaning farther forward and standing taller than I should.

        The harder I stared, the more the shadow seemed to alter. It had to be a trick of the light, of my own perception. It just had to be. My trembling hand reached for one of the weapons on my left.

        The darkness warped, and this time I knew my eyes were not deceiving me. Ice consumed my veins as I watched the night itself crawl closer to me. The moon failed to grant me a glimpse of the monster’s face—only of its silhouette.

        A silhouette of a man with broad shoulders that threatened to consume me.

        Tightening my grip on the weapon, I forced fire to melt through the ice in my blood. To burn with an anger—a vengeance—a purpose.

        To destroy this creature.

        This creature. The one that destroyed lives. That killed. This creature—the same kind that devoured my family. The frost in my bones thawed. Muscle memory flared.

        I was not that helpless child who watched as the last few drops of blood seeped from my brother. I was not the young girl who cried and begged her uncle to avenge our dead. I was now a hunter—a hunter poised to strike at the murderers of my loved ones. I charged toward it, my movements practiced and exact, like a ballerina poised en pointe.

        Then it moved.

        His movements were elegant. Every step looked as if it were part of a dance practiced for centuries. He finally reached the candlelight. I almost tripped.

        I knew the delicate beauty of vampires. I had seen several of them—when they attacked my home. Even with their fangs buried in someone’s flesh, they looked perfect—a kind of perfection that hurt to look at.

        But him…

        White hair styled out of his face, perfectly framing the art that was his visage. Pale, smooth skin; a sharp jaw; elegantly crafted cheekbones. My fingers ached to explore every angle, to discover if the stubble felt the way I imagined.

        Thick eyebrows arched flawlessly above his eyes. An impeccable frame for the majesty of his deep crimson gaze. His nose looked as if it was carved by the same sculptor who fashioned the statues in the Queen’s art gallery. Its hard lines contrasted beautifully with the soft, beguiling shape of his lips.

        He wore a black undershirt that climbed high along his throat. A red vest lay over it, cut in a sharp V that revealed the dark fabric beneath. These layers were neatly tucked into tailored trousers. On top of those clothes was a dark coat that reached nearly to his knees. Its long collar and sweeping edges were laced with silver filigree.

        And yet even those layers failed to hide the sculpted strength beneath. Like a marble statue—only better.

        A heat overtook me, my legs struggling to keep up with my speed. I had not realized how lost my mind had gotten in the vampire until I bit my lip and the sharp pain cleared reality back into place.

        I was not here to fall victim to the allure of a vampire. To be eaten and devoured and discarded as my family was. I was here to kill him—to kill it. Because that was what it was. A monster—not a man.

        For Father and Mother—for Tomàs.

        He moved down the remainder of the steps, and even with such broad shoulders his movements were refined. His blood-red gaze trailed over me. I mentally retched at the thought that he was assessing the tastiness of my blood and how to best drain me dry.

        The vampire stopped at the foot of the stairs. A smile curled onto his pretty face, exposing a single fang.

        A frost threatened to overtake me again, coiling around the fire of my courage.

        Too little too late.

        I was here. He was already in front of me. And my stake was already locked in my palm.

        I could not stop—I could not let fear overtake me. If I did, if I ruined this opportunity, then I was dead.

        The creature’s stance was so still, so impossibly still that he would have blended into the dark if he were not so pale.

        I held the stake, my grip solid from all the times I had practiced. Just right through the ribs. I had to angle it properly, and with enough pressure he would be dead.

        A scream ripped through my chest as I closed the final inches, lunging my arms forward, both hands driving the stake. I willed it to collide with his flesh.

        He was close. His chest was so close I could smell him. A waft of smoke and honey flooded my senses, momentarily blinding me.

        As he was there—he was gone. The stake tore through the dusty carpet of the stairs, the impact ricocheting through me and giving me only a moment to catch myself.

        I missed him.

        How did I miss him? He was right there.

        Were they truly that fast?

        An idea dropped from my brain into my gut, an idea I refused to acknowledge. I struggled to swallow as I turned around, expecting my last moment to be a mouth with two fangs.

        A few feet away, as still as a statue, he stood. His lips quirked and his eyebrows raised in a smug expression.

        I bared my teeth, fighting off the fear with anger as I ran at him again. The only way I was getting out of this was by driving this overgrown splinter through his heart.

        Again, I reached him and smelled that smoke and honey. And again, I ran through him, catching myself at the lack of impact before I collided with the floor.

        I faced the creature, my blood boiling beneath my flesh.

        “So feisty,” he said, his voice deep and velvet-smooth.

        “Fucking fight me,” I snarled, the words scorching my throat with fury. “Or are you too scared of death?” I forced myself to ignore the trail of ice in my veins my words had brought, leaning farther into the safety of anger and hate.

        The vampire seemed to have taken this as a joke, with the way he smiled. “Are you death?” he asked, his head slightly tilted. My face twitched at the action. I thought he was using compulsion on me, because I found the gesture almost endearing.

        “I am yours,” I replied, hoping the words would come true. I took the stake and threw it at him as hard as I could, already reaching for the other one with my right hand.

        He caught it, and winked at me.

        “Perhaps,” he said, as if this gesture alone had told him everything about who I was.

        He disappeared again as I was preparing to launch a second one. Large hands wrapped around my left arm, cold even through the light fabric.

        He twirled me around, the movement blurring the world as my back slammed into his chest. Somehow, both of my wrists ended up in his grip. His free fingers pried the stake from my fist and dropped it beside him. Wood against wood clattered around the empty room.

        My bones solidified as realization hit. I squirmed in his grasp, pulling my arms from his hold as hard as I could. His hold felt like stone. Holy shit, he truly was like the statues.

        The vampire pulled my back into his chest, tightening his grip and likely stopping me from wrenching my shoulder out of place.

        His stature was solid behind me, his presence drifting across my skin as his scent engulfed me. I found myself wanting to sink into him—into the smell. I flared my nostrils and held my breath, pulling with my wrists even harder.

        “Or perhaps,” the vampire whispered in my ear, “I am yours.” His voice was low, with a growl that was anything but threatening. Goosebumps blossomed along my skin, starting from where his breath touched. A flame of ice swirled in my stomach, drifting lower and lower.

        He was definitely using vampiric compulsion on me.

        His hand pushed my hair from my neck, the creature’s palm surprisingly calloused. My posture stiffened, and my skin prickled at my impending doom. I felt him shift behind me, his breath moving from my ear to my exposed neck.

        A flame prickled within me, foreign and entirely unwanted. I attempted to shake the feeling.

        The vampire inhaled my scent, and his grip loosened long enough for me to react.

        First, I wrenched my hands free, then ducked out of the way of his monstrous maw. I whipped around to face him, but whatever expression he wore I did not have time to read before I lifted my leg to kick him where my uncle told me men hated to be kicked.

        The creature twirled his body around my attack, locking his leg with the one I still had on the ground. I lost my balance, and he caught me. Before I could comprehend how softly I had landed on the floor, he was above my frame, and in the next second his body was straddled over mine. One arm held my wrists in place above me.

        He smiled, and a dimple revealed itself on his already perfect visage. The hair he had pushed back caught against his ear, a few strands falling in front of his face. The vampire looked down at me, the deep red of his gaze so intense that my stomach began to flip—fanning the flames of a feeling I dared never put a name to.

        A white-hot hatred for these stirrings forced me to thrash in his grip. Anything to free myself from the way his hair framed his face and the horribly enchanting smell of smoked honey flooding my damned nostrils.

        I kicked my feet, tried to kick him, yanked on my hands, used my nails to claw into his wrists; I even tried to bite him—but nothing worked. He was like iron, his hold on me cemented.

        Then—the first thought I had when I was faced with his true strength came to mind.

        He was fast—much faster than the vampires I remembered, faster than I could have imagined.

        I could not win.

        I would die here.

        A hollow pit formed in my gut, my hands and legs going limp.

        For a moment.

        I would not fucking die here. My uncle had told me if I was ever pinned down like this, the way to break free was to buck my hips. And that was what I did. I pushed up as much as I could.

        “Tell me,” the vampire said. “What are your plans if you escape?” One of my attempts seemed to have disrupted him, but before I could put my knees up he repositioned himself.

        “To kill you,” my voice was strained as I focused on my movements and not on how little he was budging.

        He laughed as if I were lying perfectly still. “Now we both know that will not happen, and I am sure you do not want to die. Am I correct?”

        “I will not die,” I replied, giving up on my legs and trying to break free with my hands again.

        “That could be true,” he said. “At the very least, in this moment.” He readjusted his position so that his legs were flatter on me, locking me in place. “If you have tea with me.”

        This new proximity lifted the head of the foreign and disgusting feeling. “What?” I asked him, trying my best to ignore it and struggle with my fingers. I have to get out of here somehow.

        “I do not want to kill you,” he said. “I want you to have tea with me. However, I am afraid that an affirmation is the only acceptable outcome here. I do not want to have to kill you.” The moon’s eerie luminosity created a red glow in his eyes.

        “Why?” I asked, my attempts to escape losing momentum as I pondered what the hells he was playing at.

        The vampire leaned toward me, his mouth at my ear. A low, rumbling whisper caused my toes to curl. “Have tea with me and find out,” he said.

        Maybe it was morbid curiosity or a desire for an opportunity to learn more about vampires—but my lips opened before I could stop them, “Fine.”

        He was straddled over me, and then, before I could blink, he was standing above me.

        “Perfect.” He held out his hand and gave me a smile that looked too trusting while still exposing his fang.

        That expression alone caught my breath—I could not tell if it was in fear or because of something else entirely. Something deeper. Something I did not want to name.

        I pushed myself away from him, dusting off my clothes as I stood. His red gaze never left mine, and the grin never faltered when he returned his hand to his side. “Come,” he said, turning and walking toward the hallway between the two stairs. I watched his silhouette in the dark, squinting to see if I could identify what kind of trap I was walking into.

        “Are you coming?” The vampire’s voice bounced off the walls of the dark.

        I gaped into the darkness.

        Having found this vampire by chance, I ran here believing my years of training would be enough. That was the thing about training, though: the real thing was never what you would expect.

        I held onto the memories of vampires, studied everything I could about them, and trained every day to be as accurate as possible—the phantoms of the past haunting me ever onward. My uncle assisted with these preparations, motivating me when I could not push myself.

        It was not easy, what with the word alone being outlawed.

        But imagination and the experience itself are two very different things. And knowing how drastically ill prepared I was, I knew the truth.

        I would either die here, or I would be offered valuable information.

        With that thought, I walked into the shadows.

        The chandeliers and the moon’s light only kissed the edge of the hallway, its shadows swallowing me the farther I went. I blinked, willing my eyes to adjust—only the outlines of walls and his silhouette guided me through the haze.

        Every step I took was slow and careful, paranoia etching itself through me like a blade. Did he really want to have tea with me? If so, I wondered if he knew I could not see. He kept pausing and then continuing on. Was he looking to see if I was following him? Could he not hear me? Who was this vampire?

        “What should I call you?” I asked him.

        I could hear the satisfied smirk in his voice as he spoke. “My name is Count Xanthus Angelis. And what shall I call you?”

        I bit on my back teeth, wondering if revealing myself might warrant my uncle’s death. “Roesia,” I said, only willing to offer my first name.

        “Roesia.” He sounded out every syllable as if it were sugar on the ears.

        My skin prickled, and my cheeks warmed at his voice.I touched the place where my stake would have been if it were not lying on the floor behind me.

        We made a turn, and a warm light cast into the hallway. With the faint glow I could see the intricate designs along the walls—a floral pattern similar to the one in the grand entrance. Frames of people and landscapes I could not differentiate adorned the walls.

        “Welcome to my tearoom, Miss Roesia,” he said, with only a pinch of the previous inflection. I peered from behind him, then moved into the room, feeling his gaze tracing my every move.

        The space had the same hardwood flooring as the hallway, paired with chocolate trimmings on the walls and swirling eggshell-white wallpaper. A chandelier with two small rings hung from the high ceiling. Unlike the entrance, this room had freshly lit candles, void of cobwebs.

        Arranged in a more intimate design around the ignited fireplace were couches that matched the walls in style. In front of the seating area, a coffee table sat on a deep red rug.

        On the opposite side of the entrance were two large windows with curtains that paired well with the hue of the carpet. Behind the sitting area sat a grand piano, and beside it, floral decorations were interwoven across the wood of a bookshelf.

        Xanthus moved out from behind me, taking the seat beneath the window. I sat as far away from him as I could. His expression never shifted from amused.

        I found myself leaning back into the soft cushions, and my cold skin welcomed the warmth of the hearth. I almost sighed in relief—until I met his red gaze, where the flames danced in his eyes, creating a swirl of blood and fire. A sight so haunting it was beautiful.

        I looked away from him and watched the wood burning in the hearth.

        The heat scorched question after question, thought after thought—landing me on a single path.

        Why was I not a bloodless corpse?

        I had broken into a vampire’s home with a clear intent to kill, and he asked me to tea? Was this just a game to him?

        Foreplay before the big kill?

        Was I just his toy?

        'Tell me, Miss Roesia, why is your heart thundering so loudly? What are you thinking?” Xanthus asked. He sat forward in the chair, one hand on the armrest and the other beneath his chin. A sly smile with the most mischievous intentions revealed a singular fang.

        My pulse thumped wildly in my ears. “Why am I not dead?” I asked him.

        The grin widened, exposing that cursed dimple, and he straightened. “Why would you be dead? You accepted my invitation for tea.”

        I took a slow breath and dug my fingernails into my palms as I asked the next question. “Are you just playing with your food?”

        The vampire’s smile spread so wide I could see both canines as clearly as day. “No,” he said, as if intentionally showing off his fangs. “Unless you want me to.” His voice sounded like a purr, and my stomach flipped.

        “No! Why the hells would I want that?” I crinkled my nose and perched my eyebrows.

        The wildest glint I had ever seen darkened his expression, a look that sent a thrill of fear and foreign excitement from my chest down my legs. “So where is this tea, anyway?” I asked, looking around the room and trying to change the topic.

        A door I had not noticed, hidden behind a bookshelf opened—revealing a very large dog with a dark brown pelt and lighter underbelly. I stared at the creature, something uncanny itching at the edge of my mind. Its face was too angular, its snout too long.

        Not a dog.

        A wolf.

        The wolf looked at me with an intelligence and comprehension in its hazel eyes.

        Xanthus turned in his seat, moving to meet the animal. “Thank you, Bailey,” he said as he picked up the silver tray on her back that I had finally noticed. With the plate removed, the most peculiar thing caught my eye.

        A rat. A rat sat atop the tray; tiny glasses perched on its nose. It had black-and-white fur with a little pink tail. Wrapped around its neck was a tiny red bowtie.

        The vampire set the tray down on the coffee table, and I watched as the rat began to prepare the tea for us.

        “Georgo is very careful, you do not need to worry,” Xanthus explained, as if my expression were concern for the rat’s safety.

        I was not necessarily questioning Georgo the rat’s ability to pour tea—he had some strange contraption with a lever that allowed him to fill the cups. It was more so…the entire event.

        “Are rats…not clean?” I asked, my gaze moving between Georgo and Xanthus.

        And are vampires not vicious murderers?

        That thought was much quieter as the rat stopped what he was doing, squeaks erupting from him, and a tiny fist wagged at me. I blinked and rubbed my eyes. Nope, he was still there. I pinched myself. Again, I was still awake.

        “He is very clean,” the vampire said to me as he picked up a teacup from the rat’s tray. The rodent nodded and mimed washing his hands. “Would you like any sugar?”

        I had not realized it, but my mouth was wide open. I clamped it shut. “Uh—I am fine, thank you,” I responded, barely aware of my own words.

        The rat pulled out his own teacup and began sipping, his pinkie pointed out. He seemed unbothered by my incessant staring. I watched as he dusted a small seat before him. He turned, fanned out his tail, and sat down on it, crossing his legs and taking delicate sips from his cup.

        Georgo was probably just trained, right? I could remember a time at the capital when one of the families had a dog who could dance on command. It was probably something like that. Rats are smart too, right? That was the only rational explanation.

        But what the hells is with the wolf? Was it—

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