After thirteen days of incessant fighting, my exhaustion ran bone-deep.

Every step on the wide, shiny black staircase took more effort than I cared to admit.

I passed three human servants, who stared at my bloodied armor for one second too long before remembering their place and bowing deeply as I walked by.

I groaned. This place was crawling with humans.

Two men, dressed in the castle’s colors—black suit and deep red tie—stood in front of the double doors of Reynard’s office. They didn’t even look at me as I approached. They simply opened the doors, and I stepped aside.

“Drake,” Reynard’s voice floated toward me before I could place him. Them.

Though the room was filled with Reynard’s poignant scent, as I walked into the room, I smelled Alex’s presence, too.

With a glass of red liquid in his hand, Reynard poked his blond head around the corner of his office. “We’re in here.” I marched toward the long mahogany table and black leather armchairs, which sat before the large glass windows, then turned to the right. The office opened into a larger entertainment room, complete with pool table, low sofas, a big screen and movie theater like chairs. A bar stood against one wall crammed full of alcohol and blood.

Reynard stood between the pool table and the bar, sipping from his drink, while Alex leaned over the pool table, his mop of brown hair falling over his shoulders and face as he made a move. His cue stick hit the white ball with precision, and he pocketed four balls.

With a cat’s grin, Alex straightened and stared at me. “Hello, Drake. How were the northern mountains?”

I reigned in my hate for the insufferable prick and offered him the same predator’s smile. “Cold and distant.” Then, I turned to Reynard, our leader, and started on my report. “I tried solving the werewolves’ problems peacefully, but they weren’t having it. A battle ensued, and after thirteen days of fighting nonstop, I finally broke through. I killed their leaders, rounded the rest of the pack up, picked new leaders, and explained the rules to everyone.” I gestured down my bloodied armor. “I just got back.”

Reynard glanced at my clothes and clicked his tongue. “You should have rested before coming to me.”

“I can rest later,” I assured him. “Now, I just want a meal and a warm bath.”

“Oh, you’re hungry?” Alex asked, his voice amused. “Brianna, come here, darling.” As if pulled by a string, a young woman in a skimpy white dress appeared from behind the couch. She stood and I closed my eyes for a moment as if it hurt to look at such a young, pretty girl with several crusted over wounds on her once unmarred neck. Like a doll, she strolled toward Alex. “Take a bite,” he offered.

I suppressed a growl, though I was sure he could hear it rumbling inside my chest. “No, thank you,” I hissed.

He shook his head once. “Well, if you won’t have it …” He wound his arm around the young woman’s waist, pulled her close, and holding my gaze, he bared his teeth. His canines elongated, then he bit down on her neck.

The girl gasped in pleasure. The poor thing was probably a junkie, used to being a blood bag, used to our ecstasy-inducing saliva. A vampire’s bite was as addicting as it was dangerous.

Blood trickled down her neck, into the deep cleavage of her dress, between her plump breasts.

My mouth watered.

“Alex, you should put that blood slave out of her misery sooner rather than later,” Reynard barked, watching as Alex drank the girl’s blood with gusto. Reynard shook his head once, then turned to the bar. There, he picked one of many bottles filled with fresh blood and filled a fat glass to the brim. He offered it to me.

“Thank you,” I muttered, taking the glass. I inhaled deeply, letting the metallic heavy scent fill my senses. Then, I gulped it down as if there was a fire inside me and this drink, this red liquid, was the only thing that could quench it.

“There,” Alex said, letting go of the girl. Her body slumped to the floor like a potato sack. Like a real prince, Alex picked a handkerchief out of his suit’s pocket and cleaned his mouth. As for the girl, he didn’t even glance at her again. “I’ll have someone dispose of the body.”

Reynard ignored him and said to me, “That pack has been giving us trouble for years.” He absently reached for the silver cross pendant hanging over his shirt and twisted it between his thumb and index finger, as he usually did whenever he was thinking too hard.

I had been sent up there, to the northern, colder parts of Canada, to deal with it more times than I liked to remember. The crazy alpha had risen into power by sheer luck, and he resented the fact that his kind should remain hidden, should abide by rules. In one of his rage episodes, the alpha had led a team to decimate a small human village because some children decided to play in the forest and crossed into their territory by accident. Another time, vampires—good friends of Reynard—had been in the area visiting acquaintances. Apparently, one vampire got into a beef with a werewolf at a local bar, and the entire pack turned on the vampires. Usually, one to one, it was hard to tell who would win—it depended on the age of the vampire and the size of the werewolf, but dozens of werewolves against a handful of unprepared vampires? Not a chance.

Then rumors arrived that the alpha had been planning to round up other packs—they wanted an all-out war with the humans. If that were his plan, he needed to be stopped, and as the most powerful group of supernaturals on this side of the globe, we had to deal with him. And so, as one of the princes—a nickname for the few hand-chosen vampires Reynard trusted, the ones in the line of succession in case Reynard abdicated—I was sent to find out what was going on and solve it. In the end, the rumors were true, and the alpha had aligned with three other packs. In fact, the day I arrived, they attacked another village nearby. I wasn’t able to save those humans, but after days of fighting, I had put an end to that crazy plan.

Or so I hoped.

“It should be all solved now,” I said. The poor girl’s body on the floor felt like a magnet, but I fought against the pull and didn’t look at it.

“Great.” Reynard patted my shoulder twice. “You know I’ll want all the details, but you should go clean up. You have one hour to rest.” I lifted an eyebrow at him. “You forgot?”

Then it hit me. The bi-annual tour. It was today. Later tonight. Damn. I had stayed away for so long, I had forgotten.

“There’s too much on my mind,” I explained.

Alex snorted. “It’s the biggest event, and you forgot?”

Reynard went on, again ignoring Alex. “I’ll see you in the ballroom in an hour.”

I bowed my head. “Yes, my Lord.”

Reynard, with his appearance of late thirties, but with too many years on his back, practically rolled his eyes at me. “Don’t call me that.” He waved me off. “Now get ready for our feast.”