The long, northern drive to Marquis and Ciopori’s remote homestead, deep in the Dark Moon Forest, had seemed to go on forever, the only sound being Saxson’s GMC Sierra making easy work of the rough terrain. The vampire had not even bothered to tie Kyla up: no chains, no handcuffs…no locked doors.

It was as if the pitiless warrior was daring her to jump from the cab and run—to try to make an escape. He wasn’t even worried that she might attack him—or try to fight—and cause the pickup to crash.

He knew.

And she knew…

That any such attempt would be futile.

He was faster. He was stronger. He was a superior creature in every way—and Kyla didn’t stand a chance.

What a difference a week had made.

If Kyla had ever wondered, even for a moment, why Saxson Olaru had been chosen to be a sentinel, one of the select, fearsome males trusted with the safety of the king—with keeping order in and outside the house of Jadon—she no longer had any question.

At his core, the male was ruthless.

His heart was as hard as stone when he wanted it to be.

The doting, romantic, sensual male who had claimed her, tried to love her—showed her infinite, unfailing patience—had all but vanished from her reality.

He was nothing but a distant memory…

Kyla had stared out the window, shivering at the swirling fog, which coated the ground like skeletal fingers, and she had gawked at the dark-gray moon, which had cast strange, haunting shadows upon the road before them, like dancing flames in a medieval torch.

The entire valley was electric with dread.

And so was she.

Breathing deeply didn’t work.

Meditation was out.

And trying to keep her mind empty of all thoughts—of morbid anticipation—had been futile, at best. She may as well have been trying to turn water into wine, to shimmy out of her skin, or to change places with her twin…yet again.

To put it bluntly, the drive had been a living hell.

Now, as Saxson brought the pickup to a slow, quiet halt on Marquis and Ciopori’s front lawn, Kyla wanted to jump out and run, at least to try to escape her looming fate; but there really was no use. She clenched her hands into fists instead, and tried to maintain her composure.

She was a vampire-hunter and a human warrior.

She would not go out like a quivering child.

When Saxson opened the door to the passenger side of the truck and reached for her arm, to haul her out of the cab, she yanked it away with violent defiance. “Don’t touch me!” she snarled. “I can walk on my own!”

Her dress was filthy and tattered. Her hair was oily and matted. And her bare feet felt tender against the uneven ground, her heels scraping on every rock, broken branch, or tree root, while tiny, scattered pine needles got caught between her toes.

Kyla didn’t care.

She simply followed Saxson Olaru, like a mindless drone, to the center of Marquis and Ciopori’s front lawn. And then the princess and her warrior-mate appeared—as if out of the fog—suddenly standing before her, and Kyla’s proud, defiant knees buckled beneath her.

Saxson caught her in an instant, drawing her back to her feet as the calm…cool…and collected raven-beauty approached.

Ciopori’s golden eyes, which had been dotted with amber sparkles before, were as vacant and empty as a shark’s, the amber sparkles now flickering red.

Kyla almost blurted, “I’m sorry!”

She almost sank to her knees in the wild grass and begged for the princess’s mercy…

But those vacant eyes told her all she needed to know—there would be no clemency coming.

“My son is doing well,” the princess said, as if carrying on a casual conversation. “He has healed from his injuries, and is slowly recovering…emotionally.”

Kyla gulped. She closed her eyes and waited.

There was nothing she could say, nothing that would make this terror any better.

She could only hope that the princess’s vengeance would be swift, efficient, and painless.

And then Ciopori reached out, extending her palm to Marquis, and the Ancient Master Warrior set a single spiked red heel in Ciopori’s elegant hand: the shoe Kyla had been wearing the night of Dario and Lily’s welcome-home party—the shoe with the sharpened heel—the one Kyla had tried to thrust into Nikolai’s heart.

Kyla’s teeth began to chatter and, for the first time, her eyes sought Saxson’s. “Saxson,” she whispered in terror. “Please don’t let them do this. You know me. The real me.”

Damn it all to hell, she had not wanted to show any weakness, but this barbaric display of supremacy—this taunting, drawn-out suspense—was unbearable. Rage and immediate condemnation would have been easier to take—and a lot less frightening. But this woman—this female vampire—she was so cold, clinical, and calculating…

Kyla took a few unwitting steps backward, shuffling against the hard ground, and Saxson pressed his iron chest against her back, halting the piteous flight.

There would be no retreat.

Ciopori shook her head in disgust. “Not quite as brave when you aren’t staking a child, are you?” She exchanged a momentary glance with Marquis, gestured toward a nearby lodgepole pine, and nodded.

What happened next was a blur.

The massive Ancient Master Warrior shot into the air like a rocket, landed in front of the tree, and wrenched it out of the ground like it was nothing more than a bothersome weed. He returned to the spot where they were standing and staked it into the ground, driving the base of the trunk at least five feet deep, then stripping the tree of branches with a ray of searing light from his eyes.

It all happened so fast, Kyla couldn’t quite make sense of it.

And then Marquis Silivasi sprang in her direction, grasped her by the throat, and hoisted her off the ground, slamming her partially exposed back against the rough bark of the tree.

Kyla cried out in shock and horror as the terrifying vampire held her in place with one brutish hand and pinned both arms above her head with the other.

Ciopori rose from the ground like a plume of smoke from a recently doused fire, floating upward to the top of the tree. She grasped Kyla’s pinned arms and placed one palm on top of the other, and then the agony hit a few seconds later as Ciopori drove the sharpened spike of the heel right through Kyla’s hands, staking her to the bare lodgepole pine like a barbaric sacrifice, leaving her to dangle in the air.

“Saxson!” Kyla screamed like a banshee, no longer caring if she sounded weak. “Please…please! Take it out! Get me down!” She squirmed like an electric eel, twisting this way and that, trying to wrench her hands free, trying to stop the searing, unbearable pain, if only momentarily.

Ciopori waved a dismissive hand through the air, trapping Kyla’s screams in her throat—she silenced the female with a gesture, then snorted in derision. “We welcomed you into our valley. We treated you with kindness and respect. I allowed you to go check on my precious son, unsupervised, as a show of honor and trust. And you repaid me—you repaid Saxson—you repaid all of us with treachery. I neither want to see you bleed, nor care to draw this out. I simply want you to know that I have searched my soul regarding this Blood Vengeance, and my conscience is clear. In the kingdom where I grew up, when my father was the king, before the horrid events that led to the Curse, he would ask three questions at court when a condemned prisoner was brought before him: Is the criminal sorry for what he or she has done; if given a chance, would he or she do it again; and is the community, at large, safer without them—would their continued existence place others in peril? As I’ve said, I’ve searched my soul, and the answers are clear: No, you have not repented; yes, you would do it again; and yes, I believe the world as we know it is a better—and safer—place without you.” She held two fingers in the air as if to denote an exception. “Do not mistake me, Kyla Sparrow, it is not my place to judge your soul—your human deity will have that task shortly—as will my soul also be judged by the goddess Cygnus and Lord Draco, when I return to the Valley of Spirit and Light. We shall both be held accountable, and I welcome the scrutiny. But as for today, as for this night, I sentence you to death for the attempted murder of my son, and I sentence you to terror and agony, for the terror and agony you caused an innocent child.”

Kyla’s head was spinning from the tumultuous words. Like numerous ingredients in a blender, the words tossed around in her mind, violently assailing her conscience. She felt her throat relax—Ciopori must have released her voice—but there was nothing she could say to change the princess’s mind.

This was all happening much too fast.

For some reason—for some pitiful, unknown, inexplicable reason—Kyla Sparrow had continued to believe, or hope, that there would be a different outcome.

Somehow.

Someway.

Saxson would step in.

He had to.

He just had to.

The male had loved her…once.

The wind began to howl in the forest canopy, and the thick, viscous fog, swirling above the ground, began to inch up the base of the tree. Marquis Silivasi reached into the inner lining of his lightweight leather jacket and retrieved a white-and-red container—some sort of squeeze bottle—and Kyla strained to see what it was, even as she continued to gasp in pain…to kick and squirm, regardless of the sharp, unrelenting agony it caused her hands.

And then Ciopori soaked the trunk of the tree with the bottle’s contents and tossed the empty container to the ground.

Kyla’s eyes bulged out of her head—she could smell the lighter fluid clearly.

“No!” she wailed, in a full-fledged panic. “Saxson, do something!”

The princess struck a match.

“No! No! Saxson! Saxsonnnnnnn!”

Something compassionate, yet fleeting, flashed in Saxson’s eyes, and the warrior turned away. He stared at the ground. He wasn’t going to stop this…

Kyla’s terror—and her screams—merged with the hungry fire until all three became a macabre inferno…

Flames.

Suffering.

Then silence.