A handful of minutes later, my mom messages me that she got called into a meeting and won’t be over until early tomorrow morning. Effie messages me, as well, begging for deets. Since I still don’t know what I can tell her, I reply that I’ll explain everything when I can.

I hate myself a little bit for not telling her the truth. Hate being secretive with the only vampire, besides Anders, who ever went out of their way to make friends with me. But my self-hating thoughts quickly get distracted as I begin to get ready for dinner.

Apparently, having a stylist means overdressing for every occasion.

After putting waves in my hair and tracing my eyes with kohl liner, Dex tells me to put on the outfit he selected: a black, silky, lace trimmed dress; a leather jacket; knee-high tights; and velvet platforms for me to wear to dinner. To add to the look, he laces a silk choker around my neck and weaves a halo of silvery black bleeding stars and raveling vines through my hair to form a crown, telling me I’ll get to wear the real one soon.

Fake crown or not, I still resemble a princess. Or a queen. Which is the point, Dex said, when I tried to argue that I was too dressed up.

“You’re the vampire queen,” he stated. “And you look like it. Now go to dinner and make sure to drink enough blood to get rid of that dragon burn on your neck.”

And that was that. He ushered me out the door with Kingsley following at my heels.

“Where am I supposed to be going?” I call over my shoulder as I stroll down the wide hallway illuminated by iron lanterns.

Charmed mirrors decorate the crimson walls and reveal my reflection. If I were in an ordinary world, I wouldn’t be able to see myself. Lucky, I’ve never been to the ordinary world, only heard rumors of it, but it sounds like a dreadfully boring place.

“Just keep walking. I’ll let you know when you get there.” Kingsley’s texting on his phone with his head down, matching my steps perfectly, as if he’s wholly in sync with me.

I slow down my pace to see if he will and smile when he does. To test my theory further, I weave left than right. When I peer over my shoulder, my grin magnifies as Kingsley traces my route. I’m not even sure he’s aware he’s mimicking me, which makes this even more hilarious.

“Are you blood drunk this evening?” he asks without looking up. “Or do you just find yourself amusing?”

“The latter.” I jump left then right and snicker when he bounces like a hopping sprite after me.

“Mother of all annoying vampires, will you knock that off?” He bounces to a stop beside me and tears his gaze off his phone. “I’m not a puppet.”

“It sort of seems like you are.” I do a little dance and bust up laughing when he mirrors my jig.

Once I let him stop, he gives me an unimpressed look. “Will you please knock that off? I need to send a message and you’re distracting me.”

“Oh, fine, but only because you said please.” I start up the hallway again with him at my side. “Why are you mimicking me, anyway?”

“It’s an aftereffect of taking the oath,” he explains as he punches buttons on his phone. “It’ll wear off in a couple of days.”

I tap my fingers together, very evil villain-ish. “So, I have two whole days to torture you?”

He shifts uneasily. “Yeah, but you don’t need to torture me.”

“But I could.” Maybe it makes me twisted, but I’m enjoying his discomfort. All those years he went out of his way to make me miserable, and now I can make him do anything.

“You can’t make me do everything,” he explains, as if reading my thoughts. “Especially anything that will bring harm to you or me.”

“I wasn’t planning on doing anything harmful,” I say, slightly offended. “I’m not that mean.”

He tucks his phone into his pocket, fixing his undivided attention on me. “No, you’re not. I’m sorry if I made you feel that way.”

“Is the oath making you apologize to me?”

“No, I just want—need—to apologize … for a lot of things.” He doesn’t elaborate on what those things are, just motions for me to get a move on. “Now, hurry up. Dinner is waiting and you have guests.”

I tense. “What guests?”

“The fey king and queen.”

Shock ripples through me as I force my feet to move forward. “My first day here and I’m supposed to have dinner with the fey king and queen?” I absentmindedly touch the makeshift crown on my head. “No wonder Dex had me dress up.”

“It’s tradition for the queen to dress up for dinner,” Kingsley says as we stop in front of a set of wooden doors. “He’ll probably try to dress you up every time you leave the room. And even probably when you go to bed.”

My mood splatters across the tile floor. “So, I have to dress like this for bed?”

He chuckles, his gaze skimming up and down my body. Then he scratches the side of his eye. “Probably not the dress, but something like what you have on underneath it.”

Warmth rushes to my cheeks, but I hold my chin high. “He may try, but it’s not going to happen. I am queen, after all, so I change the rules.”

“Of course, my queen.” He bows to me, and I snort a laugh. He chuckles, standing upright. “I’m glad you find my respect amusing.”

“I really, really do,” I say. “Still, I think you should probably stop doing that.”

“Bowing?” he asks, and I nod. “It’s part of my job description.”

“Well … I’m abolishing you from doing it.”

“Abolishing, huh? Sounds pretty official.”

“That’s because it is. Now, no more bowing, at least to me.” I reach for the door handle, but pause. “Wait? Why am I even having dinner with the fey king and queen? And, on day one here, for that matter? And when I know practically nothing about being queen?”

“It’s not a business meeting.” His fingers fold around the door handle. “Just a meet and greet.”

“How … casual.” I chew nervously on my fingernail. I’ve never been good with meeting new people. “Will there be others there?”

He lifts a shoulder, shrugging. “Rhyland, me, a couple of other guards and, of course, the fey guards.”

I scratch at the burns on my neck. “That sounds like a lot of guards.”

Kingsley stares at my neck, a frown forming on his lips. “You should’ve drunk some of Rhyland’s blood already to hide those.”

“I was planning on doing it at dinner.” I brush a few pieces of flaky skin off my neck. “I didn’t realize we had company. Is it going to be a problem?”

“I think it might be best if you don’t show up for the first time to meet the fey king and queen with a dragon fire burn on your neck, especially when dragons are so rare. It’ll make you seem suspicious.” He holds up a finger. “Wait out here for a second.” He cracks open the door and slips inside the room.

I free a trapped breath I wasn’t aware I was holding. Never in a hundred centuries would I have thought I’d be in this position, where I’m chatting with Kingsley, laughing and joking, while heading to have dinner with the fey king and queen … and Rhyland.

How is this my life now? How do I just forgive them so easily after everything that’s occurred between us?

Well, if you can get the Eternal Readers to speak to Fate for you, you may not have to—

The door opens back up, giving me not much of an opportunity to analyze my plan.

“Hey.” Rhyland slips into the hallway and closes the door, greeting me with a small smile. A small smile that throws me off, like everything else that’s happened this evening.

I wonder how long it will take me to get used to this new life, to get used to him being nice to me. And Kingsley, too. And how much of their niceness comes from the fact that I’m queen. Would they have ever been nice to me if Fate hadn’t given me a crown of stars on my head?

“Hey,” I reply, remaining informal, despite our overdressed status. And we’re both overdressed to match.

Like me, Rhyland is decked out in all black, from his boots, to his jeans, to the button-down shirt and vest. A studded belt loops his waist, and leather bands embellished with coiling steel decorate his wrists. He also has on a red tie that matches my choker, along with a crown of bleeding stars and metallic vines.

The only main difference is his crown is perched on his chin-length blond hair while mine weaves around my long raven black locks.

“We match,” I state the obvious, loathing that we do, that we go together so well.

Except for the hair.

That announces our differences, and anyone who knows anything about the vampire world will be able to tell. Tell that he was made to be king, while I was not. Even Dex said so. Although, he didn’t use those exact words. Just stated that I’m the first queen in a long time to have raven black hair and eyes.

“Yes, we do.” Rhyland scans me from head to toe, and then he sinks his teeth into his lip. “You look beautiful.”

I suppress a laugh. “Um, thanks.”

“I mean it,” he insists. “You’re beautiful, Raven, whether you think so or not.”

“And did you think I was beautiful all those times you helped Nadine lock me in the attic?” I sink my fang into my tongue. This isn’t the time to start a fight, Raven.

He stares out the window where shadowy figures belonging to the guards shadow the fields. “You being beautiful had nothing to do with that.”

“Then, what did it have to do with?” I observe him, the way he squirms, the way he won’t look me directly in the eye. He’s uneasy about something.

He gives a stiff shrug. “A lot of things.”

“There you go being vague again.” I huff out a breath. “How do you ever expect this to work between us if you won’t even answer simple questions?”

“They’re not simple questions,” he mutters then squares his shoulders. “But you’re right; I do need to work on answering your questions.”

I perk up the slightest bit. “So, you’ll explain some things to me?”

His gaze skates to mine, and he nods. “After we have dinner. I don’t want to talk about anything important with the fey in the castle. Their hearing is impeccable.”

“Can I ask one small question? It’s something that’s been bugging me.”

“I guess so.”

I pick at my midnight blue nail polish. “When you were talking to me in my mind last night … Can you do that all the time? Read my thoughts, I mean?”

He remains silent for several heartbeats. “It’s not really that I read your mind, so much as I can communicate with you.”

“My parents can do something similar, but only because they’re soulmates.”

“They’re lucky, then.”

“Why can we do it?”

He gives a one shoulder shrug. “I think it’s a protective mechanism between the king and queen. Last night, when I first did it, it was because you put yourself in danger. The connection faded once you were safe, probably because our link is still so new and fragile.”

“Our king and queen link?” I ask, and he nods. “You can’t read my mind right now?”

He shakes his head, but he grins impishly. “Your worry makes me really wonder what you’re thinking about.”

“Toenails and warts,” I say with a straight face.

He chuckles, his eyes crinkling around the corners. “Sounds like you’re pretty morbid, if you ask me.”

“I totally am. Hope that makes you want to stay out of my head from now on.”

He’s all smiles and sparkling crowns in the lantern light. If I didn’t hate him so much, and if I wasn’t so shy, I’d tell him he’s beautiful.

His laughter fades when I scrape off a piece of singed skin from my neck.

Frowning, he begins unbuttoning the sleeve of his shirt. “We need to feed you before you go in there.”

“That’s what Kingsley said.” I thrum my fingers against the sides of my legs, a question burning at the tip of my fangs. “If I’m only supposed to drink your blood, then how do you feed?”

He shrugs. “Like I always have—by the bottle.”

“And yet you have your powers?” I pout. “That doesn’t seem very fair. That I have to drink your blood to get my powers, but you can drink any vampire’s blood you want and still be powerful.”

He rubs his lips together, hesitating. “If you told me not to drink any other vampire’s blood ever again—only yours—I’d obey.”

“I don’t want to force you to do anything … That’s not the kind of queen I want to be.”

“You wouldn’t be forcing me.” He looks me dead in the eye, as if waiting for … Well, I’m not sure. For me to tell him not to drink any other vampire’s blood again. For me to divulge that I want him to drink only my blood. If that’s what he’s waiting for, he’ll be waiting until his veins run dry and he withers into ashes, because I will never ask Rhyland to drink from me.

Why does he act like he wants me to declare that I want him to?

It must be a king and queen thing. Perhaps his new title draws him to me.

I clear my throat. “Still, all drinking aside, it seems extremely unfair that you just get your powers without working for it.”

“You call drinking my blood work?” Amusement glitters in his eyes.

“The hardest form of work I’ve ever known.” I bite back a grin.

He shakes his head, tugging on a strand of my hair. “Such a tease.”

“Oh, I’m not teasing.”

“No. You’re just flirting.”

My lips part in shock. “I am not.” Am I? God, I hope I’m not, but I’m not much of a flirt, so I wouldn’t know.

“You are, too.” The smug grin on his face makes me want to smack him.

My damn cheeks glow with warmth again. “Whatever. My point is: you get your powers so easily. It’s kind of not fair.”

“I have my powers first so I can protect you while yours grow.” He sticks his hand into his pocket. “If I didn’t, there’d be no one who could completely protect you with their heart and soul.”

Heart and soul seems a bit dramatic, if you ask me … and sort of poetic.

“That’s not true. There’s a whole mafia army standing outside.” I gesture at the fields outside the window, at the figures of bodyguards wandering around. “Plus, I have Kingsley.”

His jaw muscle spasms. “That may be true, but when it all comes down to it, I’m the one who can protect you the most.” He withdraws his hand from his pocket and laces his fingers through mine, startling me. “They may protect you with their lives”—he nods his head at the window—“and so will Kingsley, but I’m the only one who has enough power right now to protect you from the evilest dangers lurking in our world. And those evils will come looking for you.” His sucks in a breath and whispers, “They always do.”

I can feel his pulse thrashing against my fingertips, his nervousness violently coursing through me. “They’ll always come after me?”

His fingers constrict around mine as he dazes off, pain radiating from his features. Then he blinks, and the pain evaporates. “After the queen. Evil always comes after the queen. And that’s why you have so many bodyguards. And Kingsley … and me. We’re here … to save you.”

He’s hiding something, but am I that surprised? This is Rhyland, my tormentor. Not the love of my life.

I want to unlace my fingers from his and walk away—stay away from him—but an unfamiliar, possessive instinct consumes me, and I latch on tighter to his hand. “Why did you choose Kingsley to be my Blood Protector?”

He caresses the back of my hand with his thumb. “Because I trust him more than I trust anyone.”

“But, I don’t.” I resist a frown as he gives my hand a squeeze and then untangles his fingers from mine. “And since he’s supposed to be protecting me, shouldn’t I trust him?”

“You can trust him, I promise.” He brings his forearm to his lips. “In fact, you should only trust him and me from now on.”

“That’s what my mom said. Or, well, she said just to trust you. She never mentioned Kingsley.”

His smile is all glinting fangs. “Your mom’s a smart vampire if she told you to trust me.”

The sight of his fangs makes my own fangs achingly pulsate, making a grand appearance. “I used to think so, too, but now I’m questioning if she’s lost some of her marbles.” I run my tongue along my teeth, silently urging my fangs to stay put.

“You’re amusing, Raven. I think that’ll come in very helpful while you rule.” He dips his head and etches his fang along his forearm, splitting open the flesh. Blood pools out from his skin, and my fangs slice downward as his scent floods my nostrils.

When he lifts his head and spots my fangs poking out from my lips, his eyes flare and his lips part. “Do you want to drink it from the vein—”

I promptly shake my head. “No.” My fangs tremble in disagreement, but I force them back into my gums.

I won’t give in. Not yet. Not until I know for sure that I’m the queen and that I must.

Seeming hurt, he reaches toward me with his good arm and gently circles his fingers around my wrist. With a soft tug, he guides me toward him and turns me sideways with my shoulder pressing against his chest. Then he wraps an arm around my back.

“Lean back,” he whispers.

Taking a deep and completely unnecessary breath, I slant back against his arm. He supports my weight and allows me to tip my head back before positioning his bleeding arm above my mouth. My lips eagerly part as he angles his arm to the side, allowing blood to drizzle into my mouth.

The taste of potent magic and power instantly bursts across my tastebuds as I devour the potency, devour the taste of him, lapping up drop after drop.

He watches me in wonder, in hunger, as if watching me feed on his blood is the most fascinating thing he’s ever laid eyes on.

“God, you’re so beautiful,” he murmurs. Or, I think he murmurs, anyway. “I forgot how beautiful this is to watch.”

Honestly, I could’ve heard him incorrectly. A mad frenzy is roaring so loudly in my mind I can scarcely hear anything except the need to feed. My fangs snap back out as I lift my head, ready to plunge into his veins. Like last night, he stops me, moving his arm away and helping me stand upright.

“I’m sorry,” I breathe profusely. “I don’t know why I don’t have any self-control.”

“You’re fine.” He gives the wound time to heal, then tugs down his sleeve. “It’s a normal reaction.”

“It is?”

“With some vampires, it is.”

“Not all of them?”

He shakes his head as he buttons his sleeve.

I wipe my lips with the back of my hand. “Is it because we’re king and queen?”

Tension winds in his shoulders. “Maybe. I don’t know for sure.”

“What else could it be?” For some insane reason, last night’s dream, memory—whatever it was—unexpectedly pops into my mind. I tasted a bit of the frenzy then, too, not for Rhyland’s blood, but to keep my lips sealed to his.

He shrugs, his hand falling to his side. “A lot of things.”

Always so evasive.

But he’s giving you answers later, so relax.

I try my hardest to listen to my thoughts and chill the fuck out. “Whatever it is, it makes me worry about what’s going to happen if I ever do drink from straight from your vein.”

A fiery, foreign emotion blazes in his eyes. “I’m not worried at all.”

My heart pumps faster in my chest. “Well, you should be. You’re the one I’m going to drink dry if I can’t control myself.”

He presses back a grin. “I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

“I hope so.” I turn for the door, when he captures my elbow.

“Hold on.” He extends his hand toward my lips, and I flinch. So does he. “You have some blood on your lips, and while the fey king and queen know what we are, I don’t want to frighten them.”

“Oh.”

I stay still as he touches my lips, swiping softly to clean up the blood.

As he pulls his hand away, the intoxicating scent of his blood ravenously overpowers my senses. Under the control of my hunger, I slant forward and lick the blood off his finger.

His fangs tremble out from his parted lips, and a warmth rushes to my cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” I sputter. “I don’t know why I did that.”

“You’re fine.” He takes a measured breath before slipping his fangs away and offering me his elbow. “Ready?” His calming shift in attitude gives me whiplash, but I loop my arm through his, anyway.

“Yep, let’s go meet and greet with the fey king and queen.”

Yep, never thought those words would ever pass my lips.

Guess there’s a first time for everything.

“And Raven,” he whispers under his breath as he steers me through the doorway. “The fey king and queen need to believe that we’ve Proclaimed already.”

“Proclaimed?” I whisper as the door bangs shut behind us.

“That we’re in love, our powers completely intertwined,” he whispers. “So, please play the part with me.” With those final words, he leads me farther into the room, in full view of the fey king and queen.

And I’m left with the irking feeling he purposefully waited until the very last second to tell me so I’d have no choice but to play along and not ask questions.