She was the blood mage.

The whole time. Every single second I’d spent with her, she had been the traitor in our midst.

Rage boiled inside me, driving me mad. I couldn’t think straight, couldn’t think past the pain that was slicing through me like a knife.

She’d betrayed me.

I felt a cracking inside me.

What was this pain?

She stared back at me through the red haze that colored my vision. Her skin, normally a rich tan, had gone pale. Her eyes were brimming with unshed tears, and for a moment there was an illogical need inside me to gather her into my arms and destroy whatever had upset her.

But it was me. I was the one terrifying her, and she ought to be afraid of me.

I shoved the illogical emotions aside and focused on the one truth I knew.

She betrayed me.

I stalked toward her, and to her credit she didn’t flinch away. I grabbed her forearm, locking my fingers around it like a trap.

“You’ll pay for this,” I hissed, glaring at her.

She lifted her chin. “For saving your life?”

Her words taunted me with an impossible truth.

She had, in fact, saved my life when no one else could have. There had been a moment when I was staring up at the face of death in the form of an unholy creature that should never have been born, and I’d known that it was the end of me.

And then I’d witnessed a destruction I’d never seen before.

This was what she was: the killer in the darkness, the murderer of my people, the weapon that could end our world.

There was no room in my heart for thanks or pity.

No matter that everything inside me screamed that she was mine to protect, and that what I was doing was wrong.

It all made sense now—why she’d driven me to distraction on that rooftop, why I’d been so compelled to Choose her, why I hadn’t been able to think straight around her or without her.

She’d been in my mind, twisting it and tainting it, using me like a puppet.

Blood magic.

My lips twisted into a snarl, and I dragged her back into the castle. She stumbled behind me, and though my muscles screamed at me to gather her into my arms and ensure she came to no harm, I ignored them.

If she could rend that creature in two, she could certainly walk up a few steps without help.

“Gray, please listen to me,” she begged, her free hand gripping my upper arm.

I yanked hard on her arm, which only made her stumble even more, but I ignored her.

She wouldn’t affect me now. I’d close my heart to her, and she’d learn what it meant to anger a vampire.

“Gray, what’s going on?” Alex came jogging up to me, concern on his face.

I supposed it must look odd indeed to see the King dragging his favorite pet through the foyer towards the stairs that led to the dungeons.

“It’s her,” I growled.

Alex’s eyes widened, but he said nothing.

What was there to say?

No one could possibly understand the pain in my heart, the constant beating inside me that told me this whole situation was wrong, wrong, wrong.

What could I do but put her back in a cell until her fate could be decided?

The Council would have her executed for all that she’d done. It wouldn’t be enough to throw her in the cells with the other blood mages. She’d escaped once before, and she’d do it again given the chance.

She would destroy us all, viper that she was.

We reached the door at the far end of the hall, and I threw it open.

Now, she really began to panic.

“No, Gray, no! Don’t do this! Please, please, don’t do this. I can’t go back there. I can’t.” She was sobbing now, and damn if her words didn’t tear at my heart.

“Silence,” I said, the words coming out as sharp as a whipcrack.

I spoke them as much for her benefit as my own. My mind was going round and round, trying to make sense of what had happened and somehow figure a way out of it for both of us.

There would be no happy ending here. She’d made certain of that.

“Grayson...” It was Alex who spoke now. He was standing in the doorway. We’d only made it a few steps down, and I paused to look back at him with one eyebrow raised.

The fingers of my free hand trembled, the only indication of the barely contained rage inside me.

“If you do this, there’s no going back.”

I reared back as if he’d struck me and regarded him as if he were a different man. “Why would I want to take this back?”

“I’ve seen the way you look at her, Gray. This is going to break you. Give it a day. Think it over.”

“Are you still not getting it? She’s the blood mage. She’s the killer. She’s been murdering our people, and you want me to wait?”

What treachery was this?

Alex looked down at the floor, heaving out a sigh. “I don’t want to see you hurt.”

“She’s in your mind, Alex. Fight her.”

“I’m not!”

I looked down at Nina. It felt like I was looking at her from a thousand miles away, as if she were somehow separated from me.

“I’m not in his mind,” she said, her lower lip trembling. “I wouldn’t do that to him. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

Her words were soft, as if she didn’t dare raise her voice.

Good. She should be afraid. She should fear my wrath, for these next few days would be nothing but painful for her.

“Your word cannot be trusted,” I said, and with that I yanked her farther down the stairs, leading her to her doom.

I heard the sound of the door closing and assumed that Alex had left us alone.

“Gray, please—”

“Don’t call me that,” I snarled.

I couldn’t bear to hear my name on her lips.

Had she used that nickname before? I couldn’t remember. Only my mother and Alex used it. It was a very intimate form of address, and an hour ago I would have yearned to hear her say it. I would have died a thousand times to have one moment with her when I knew she wanted to be with me as much as I wanted her.

Now, every word she spoke was a shard of glass in my mind.

Her voice had been the sweetest music to my ears, and every look she’d given me was so beautiful and refreshing, but I couldn’t risk that now. I couldn’t risk her turning me from my course of action.

I couldn’t let her in again.

She’d destroy me.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“You’re sorry?” I bared my fangs to her and whirled to press her against the wall with my forearm pressed to her throat. “What are you sorry for? You used me. You tricked me.”

She shook her head. “I never touched your mind. Everything between us, it was real.”

“Liar.” I couldn’t believe that. Couldn’t believe I’d been so weak.

It was only by believing that she’d tainted my mind that I could live with knowing that I hadn’t noticed what she was before now.

I felt her pulse beating against my arm.

Her fear poured out of her in waves.

She clung to my forearm, letting a tear fall. “Don’t do this. Please.”

“You’ve sealed your fate.”

She broke. Sobs escaped her lips, and her whole body trembled against mine.

How was it that she could still have this effect on me? How was it that all I wanted to do in that moment was cradle her in my arms, wipe her tears, and tell her everything would be all right?

I disgusted myself.

I pushed away from her, grasped her forearm again, and continued down the stairs.

She went quietly now, her only sound being the soft sobs bubbling out of her.

I dismissed every guard we walked past, ordering them out of the dungeons. I couldn’t stand to have them see this.

Even now, after all she’d done, my instinct was to protect her from the shame, the embarrassment of having others watch her descent into the dungeons.

Down, down, down we went.

We passed the level for the cells she’d lived in before and kept going.

I felt the weight of her gaze settle on me, but I refused to meet her eyes.

“Where are you taking me?”

I didn’t answer her.

Her breathing picked up to hyperventilation levels.

Was she claustrophobic?

I hated that she worried me. I hated that I cared how she felt. I hated that she’d done this to me.

A thick darkness claimed us as we descended into the bowels of the castle, farther down than anyone normally went. There were no guards down here, because there were no prisoners down here.

Yet I could still see. The vision of a vampire wasn’t impeded by darkness.

Hers was, though. The rate of her stumbling picked up, and now she was clinging fully to me.

Only when she fell, slamming onto her ass and nearly yanking me to the floor, did I stop.

“Get up.”

“I can’t.” She shook her head, folding in on herself. “I can’t. I can’t do this. Please, just kill me.”

Her words knifed through me. She wanted to die?

I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kill her any more than I could have killed her when I caught her in that room.

She’s yours to protect.

No. No, I wouldn’t listen to that treacherous voice now.

With a grunt, I swept her into my arms and carried her down the stairs. She rested her head against my chest, and her sobs subsided.

“Please. If you ever cared about me, you’ll just kill me now. I can’t go back to the cages, Gray.”

“Why did you have to be this, Nina? Why did you have to be this person?”

Bitter laughter greeted my ears. “What would you have me be?”

“Anything other than this.”

She fell silent.

It was a lie, and I knew it. Would I love her if she were anything other than this fierce creature who had driven me mad with her wild behavior? Everything that went into her creation had led to the person she’d become, and if I changed any of it, she wouldn’t be the same woman.

In my heart, I knew that.

She isn’t anything you thought she was. She’s a snake, capable of transforming herself to be whatever she needs to be. Capable of transforming the minds of those around her so they accept her. Nothing you felt for her was real.

I told myself this to ease the ache in my heart.

To pretend that it wasn’t her soft form cradled against my chest that was calming me.

At last, we reached the final floor, the last level to the dungeons. So far down that there would be no one to see what happened.

No one would ever come for her down here, yet I knew that didn’t matter.

She wouldn’t survive the week.

I placed her on the floor, my body screaming at me for letting her go, and dragged her the rest of the way to her cell.

I opened the door and shoved her inside. She stumbled and fell to the floor, looking around wildly. Trying to see, though the darkness choked her.

“Please...”

She couldn’t finish the thought. I didn’t know what she would beg for, and apparently, neither did she.

She closed her eyes and buried her face in her hands, letting out a rough sob. The sound tugged on my heartstrings, and again I felt the urge to go to her.

I crushed it with a ruthless fist.

This was the pathetic creature she’d made me into. Caring for the enemy.

I’d do anything in my power to forget her now. She wouldn’t have dominion over me ever again.

Go now, while you still can.

Why didn’t I? Why couldn’t I leave her down here?

I closed my eyes, fighting an internal struggle worse than any before.

My mind was torn in two. Half of me wanted to go to her and half of me hated her for what she’d done. For what she was.

I turned and left, at last.

Every breath I took as I walked away from her hurt, like dragging shards of glass into my throat, and every step felt as if I were walking on knives.

My feet carried me up the stairs somehow, and once I was certain that I was far enough away from her that she couldn’t hear me, I turned and slammed a fist against the wall.

“How could you do this, Nina?”