An uneasiness settled in my gut as I walked the narrow cobblestone streets of Trelan. The feeling of being watched buzzed along my nerves, twisting my stomach in knots.

The small village was the third I’d come to in the last year. It was about a two days’ travel from Kregon Kingdom in the opposite direction Kieran said to go and had been my home for the last four months.

The people here were nice. Plus, I was lucky to come across an elderly man by the name of Frank who needed help. I cooked and cleaned. We had a small garden and chickens. Life here was peaceful.

My peace turned to sadness when Frank passed on about a month ago. He left the house and everything with it to me. How was I to just leave it?

A little voice in my mind nagged that I’d stayed too long and it was time to move on.

After all, the guys would come looking for me. Or already were. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be found. Not yet. Their plan included taking me back to the palace one day. I wasn’t going back. Not while the king was there.

Dread sliced at my insides and I couldn’t pinpoint the source of the building panic. Darkness touched my awareness in a familiar way.

Taking a deep breath, holding it for several moments, and then releasing it, I tried to calm myself. I was being ridiculous. There was no way the king would search for me this far outside the kingdom. Or would he?

Then I saw him.

Kieran Grady.

My heart dropped to my feet while sadness and desire battled each other for dominance. The impulse to run to him, wrap my body around his, to feel his arms around me again, was too strong.

If I exposed myself, I’d have to go back. I wasn’t going back.

Ever.

Besides, I didn’t know if he was alone or other Royal Guards were around.

Darting into a breezeway leading toward the path through the woods to my small cottage, I ran. There was no outrunning a vampire. I just had to get enough of a head start to lose him.

I prayed to the heavens Kieran didn’t see me or catch my scent.

When I reached my home, I grabbed the saddle bags from the hook just inside the back door, then rushed to my bedroom and shoved a change of clothes, money, and my journal inside. Not giving a second look, I darted out the back to the barn where my horse was.

Before I reached the wooden building, I heard Penny kicking her stall door. She neighed with each kick. A warning?

Just then, Kieran filled the entrance of the barn. I stopped dead in my tracks, shaking all over. “Please, let me go.”

His dark brows dipped and he prowled closer. Tears filled my eyes. He was beautiful for a man. I was sure that was the vampire charm. A way to lure his prey in.

I stepped back, shaking my head. “I can’t go back there.”

With speed too fast for me to track, he was in front me, his arms wrapped around my waist. He pulled me close until our bodies melted into each other. A low growl rumbled from him, sending a shiver down my spine.

We’d spent so much time hiding our attraction. Him more than me. He’d told me he needed to wait until I came of age. Tradition held the female of the family was married off at seventeen.

I was nineteen. I’d stayed in the palace, enduring the king’s cruelty and punishments for a year longer than necessary before fleeing a month after my eighteenth birthday. Secretly, before I fled the palace, I had hoped Kieran would claim me as his. That day never came. Then I fell in love with the princes, who each friended me and made promises I knew they couldn’t keep.

Kieran nuzzled my neck and inhaled. Another growl vibrated from his chest. “You never have to endure the king’s abuse again.”

There was a promise in his words. “Then why are you here?”

He lifted his head and gazed into my eyes. His green depths swirled with so many emotions, I couldn’t decipher all of them. “My debt to the king is paid. I’m no longer part of his royal guard. Plus the plan had always been to find you.”

A renewed fear rose within me. I shoved at his chest until he let go. “And you led them right to me.”

I pushed out of his arms and rushed into the barn, but he was back in the doorway, blocking my way. “They’re not coming after you. The king believes you are dead.”

Relief flooded me and I almost sagged to the ground. Of course. Jonah must had told him he killed me when he pushed me off the cliff. “How did you know to come look for me?”

The corners of his lips lifted. “Remember when you gave me your blood after King Bastard locked me up without feeding?”

I nodded. It had been a few months after my mom died and I was supposed to clean the dungeon. I came across Kieran’s cell and couldn’t leave him like that. “I remember you called me a stupid girl. But I couldn’t let you go mad with bloodlust.”

“Yeah. Stubborn, stupid girl.” He smiled. So did I. The title he gave me became an endearment over the following two years. He cupped my face, bringing my attention back to his handsome face. “Your blood is part of me. I can track you anywhere.”

A shiver of terror went up my spine at the knowledge that it was possible for others to track me. Could King Balsatra track me? He’d most likely had the hounds out looking for me. “I have to go.”

When I pushed out of Kieran’s embrace and moved to the barn again, he grabbed my upper arm. “Stop running.”

Shaking my head, I scanned our surroundings, waiting for something to jump out of the shadows at us. “I can’t go back there.”

Kieran blew out a breath, then in one swift movement, scooped me up in his arms. “I already told you, you’re not going back. Not on my watch.”

I fell silent as he carried me into my cottage and I studied his features. The sense he was not telling me something brushed against my awareness. My mom had always told me for as long as I could remember that I had the ability to read people, to know if they were truthful or not.

Kieran was definitely withholding information.

When he set me on my feet in the middle of my living room, I crossed my arms and glared at him. “What are not telling me?”

One dark brow lifted, then he lowered his shoulders. “Have a seat. You must listen to everything I say. No questions or talking until I’m done.”

Uh oh. It was bad if he needed to warn me. I wasn’t a child anymore. I could handle whatever he said. After all, I had survived the last year on my own.

Once I sat on the sofa, I patted the spot next to me. The need to be near him was overwhelming. Plus I felt safe close to him.

He sat without question. Either he too craved closeness, or he sensed my neediness. “Don’t look so scared.”

He wrapped an arm around me and pulled me so my head rested on his chest. A soft sigh escaped me. “Just tell me.”

“Like I said earlier, the king believes you are dead. Jonah confirmed your death to him.” I stiffened but remained silent. It was hard because the questions churned in my mind. Like did Kieran know it was Jonah who pushed me off the cliff? But if Jonah confirmed my death, why did he lie to the king? Unless Jonah believed I was dead.

Kieran tightened his hold on me as if to send a silent reminder to let him finish. “When I heard of your death and that Jonah was the one to kill you, I went to the wolf intent on tearing him apart. To my surprise, your step-brothers beat me to Jonah. The three of them had the guard pinned to a wall, each taking turns…um, never mind. I think seeing how the princes reacted to the news almost as violently as I made me pause. In that moment, I realized that my connection to you was still there, meaning you were not dead.”

Kieran paused and kissed the top of head. My thoughts whirled. What happened after I left? Kieran continued with his head leaned against the back of the sofa. “After I secured the area so no others would overhear us, I told them you weren’t dead, but not how I knew. The princes stared at me suspiciously. I ignored them and asked Jonah why he lied. The male simply said no child should be a slave or beaten and it was better if the king believed you were dead.

“The five of us have been putting things into place to carry out our plan. It’s taken a little longer than we wanted. That’s why it took me so long to hunt you down.” Kieran fell silent and stroked my hair, running his fingers through the dark blonde strands.

I lifted my head and stared into his green eyes. There was more to the story. I waited, raising my brows. When Kieran didn’t speak, I did. “There is more to the story. What is this plan? How is it supposed to make me feel better?”

“The king is preoccupied with other things.”

Ha! “What other things?”

Kieran sighed and cupped my cheek. “I told them you were too smart. Conell has stepped up his training and with Jonah’s help, constantly reminds the king that the people loved your mother. So much so that if word got out the queen was poisoned and the king did nothing to find the one responsible, the people would turn on him.”

A smile lifted my lips as tears blurred my vision. My mother was responsible for setting a voting system in place. The people of the Kregon Kingdom had a voice when it came to new laws. Plus, the king had already said my mother fell ill and passed in her sleep from a fever.

“If the people found out the king lied to them, they could demand an investigation.” I frowned. “And if he knew I was alive to tell them the truth, he’d have me killed.”

He bopped my nose. “That’s why we will make sure you stay dead.”

We. “Does this secret plan mean the other four will show up?”

“Eventually and not all at once. Not until everything is in place.”

Hmm. “Everything like what?”

He shrugged. “Conell has all the details. Once he fixed the books to show my father’s debt was paid and the king had no choice but to let me go, I came searching for you.” He leaned in and kissed my nose.

When I lived at the palace, I hadn’t asked Kieran a lot of personal questions. Our stolen moments of time together were always brief. There had never been a lot of time for small talk. “What kind of debt would a vampire have with the king?”

Kieran frowned, then his gaze darkened. “My father wasn’t a strong man. He suffered from bloodlust. I was a child when the king stumbled upon us. My father had slaughtered a small village. The king lured my father out into the sun. When the sun started burning my father’s flesh, the king promised to make it so he’d never have to hide from the sun again.”

A low growl rumbled from Kieran. The king kept all his vampires well-fed with blood, food, and a potion that allowed them immunity from the sun’s rays. A promise to be free from burning up in the sun would be one way to get a rogue vampire’s attention.

“What about the bloodlust?”

“The king promised him all the humans he wanted if my father would join his army. If he refused, the king said he’d tie him out in the center of town while the sun slowly burned him to death. Punishment for slaughtering a village.” A mask of sadness and anger fell over Kieran’s features. “Like I said, my father was a weak man. When he died in battle, the king demanded I take my father’s place in his army.”

I fisted my hand in his shirt. “That’s blackmail.”

Kieran uncurled my hand and kissed my fingers. “The king has ways of keeping the soldiers and guards in line. The ban on technology and magic doesn’t apply to him. He truly is a sick bastard.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “Why did you stay?”

“I hoped to get close enough to kill him.” Kieran watched me as if his words would scare me off. When I snuggled into him, not replying, he changed the subject. “By the way, it wasn’t easy for me to find you. You did an amazing job covering your tracks and your scent. It took me three days too long to find you.”

Pride bloomed within. If he had a difficult time then the Hounds would take even longer. “Tell me about the blood thing. What did you mean by a connection?”

He averted his gaze briefly and I thought he wouldn’t answer me. After a few moments, he said, “Vampires can track people they’ve fed on. But the connection weakens over time, especially if they don’t feed on the person again. You are different because you are my mate.”

My mouth fell open. “What? You knew then?”

He nodded. “I had to wait until you were of age and ready to understand what it meant to be the mate of a vampire. However, things have changed. With this plan and everything going on…things have come to light that makes it…complicated.”

I pursed my lips. I hated when he kept things from me. He did it the whole year after I saved his life with my blood. Even though we became friends, I always knew he kept me at a distance. Was this why? Because I was his mate?

“Don’t pout. There are still too many uncertainties right now.” He gathered me in his arms and pulled me close. His spicy scent enveloped me, warming me to the core. “You trust me, right?”

I nodded and snuggled against him. “I do.”

When my step-brothers got there, I would be demanding some answers. Especially if I was to stay dead to stay alive.