Prologue

“Please! Don’t kill him!” Keira McDonough’s scream, high and desperate, rang out across the crowded chamber.

Her cry cut through the noise as easily as the silver blade that had just sliced into his chest. The blade that had stopped right at Alerac O’Neill’s heart.

The men around him hesitated. No, these were not men. They were monsters. Vampires, hiding behind the guise of mere mortals. They wanted his blood. Both to drink it and to see it staining the stone floor beneath his feet as he died.

Perhaps that dark wish was only fair, considering the fact that he wanted their blood, too. And I’ll have it. Alerac wouldn’t meet death without taking those bastards with him.

But then she was there. Keira blond hair whirled around her pale face as she shoved her way through the throng of vampires. They growled and flashed their fangs at her, but Keira didn’t stop. She didn’t fear the vampires gathered there.

She should.

“Lorcan…” She stared—her eyes wide and so damn blue that it almost hurt to look into them—at the man who’d just thrust that silver knife into Alerac’s chest. “Don’t do this. Please, I’m begging you!”

Keira should never beg. Especially not for his life.

Among her kind, she was a princess. A treasure. One that he’d tried to take.

“Don’t,” Alerac gritted out the word even as smoke rose from his chest. “Don’t you beg him for anything.” The silver blade burned, destroyed—that was its purpose. It was a weapon meant to be used against his kind.

Another monster, hiding under the guise of a man.

Only his beast was far more vicious than most could imagine.

Keira’s lips trembled, and she shot a quick glance his way before focusing on Lorcan once more. “I’ll take his punishment.”

The great room became dead silent. Every eye turned to Keira. Every eye, every ear, every fang.

“No,” Alerac shoved the word out. “You can’t!”

And he was shoved down to his knees. The knife was jerked from his chest and instead put to his throat.

Lorcan turned his head and pinned Keira in his sights. “His punishment is death. He came here, he used you, in order to get into our midst. To attack us from within.” Lorcan Teague’s voice cracked with fury.

The other vamps backed up in the face of his rage because Lorcan was the ruler. The leader of the vamp clan. A clan that Alerac had sworn to destroy.

He wanted these vamps to be nothing more than ash in the wind.

Except for her. Keira isn’t like the others.

He’d learned that lesson too late.

The silver blade burned and cut along Alerac’s throat. He wanted to tell Keira that Lorcan’s words were a lie, that he hadn’t been using her.

Only Lorcan wasn’t lying. Why bother with a lie when the truth was just as brutal?

Alerac’s plan had been simple enough, back in the beginning. Keira McDonough was the weak link in the vampire clan. The human who hadn’t turned, not completely. She’d been born to the blood, but her transformation to full vampire hadn’t occurred yet. He’d watched her from afar, because that was the only way to watch her.

The vampire princess. Locked away in her tower. Precious to her clan, so very valuable because of what she represented.

Hope.

She’d been locked away, but he’d always been good at picking locks. Getting to her side had been easy enough.

So had seducing her.

Keira had been his instrument of revenge. He’d hoped to use her to get killing close to Lorcan.

Only now, Lorcan was the one with the knife.

“I-I’ve started turning.” Her voice was hushed. The room was filled—easily—with at least twenty vampires. All men. Female blood born vampires were incredibly rare.

That was why they held such value.

“When,” Lorcan demanded.

“Y-yesterday.”

Lorcan yanked the knife away from Alerac’s throat and grabbed Keira. The vampire pulled her close, caught her chin in his hand, and tilted her face back so that he could stare into her eyes.

Alerac knew why Lorcan gazed so deeply into Keira’s eyes. If Keira were truly turning, then gold should be spreading in her gaze.

The gold will be there. Alerac had already seen it for himself. His hands clenched as he pulled at the silver manacles that bound him. He no longer felt the burn on his wrists or ankles. Right then, rage was all he could feel. He wanted Lorcan’s hands off Keira. He knew the vamp lusted for her—but you won’t have her. Not now. Not ever.

“You are turning,” Lorcan said as he held Keira’s chin. Then he cast a hard, suspicious stare at Alerac. “Have you fed for the first time?” His features—frozen forever in a mask of youth that made him look as if he’d barely passed his twenty-fifth year—were hard with tension.

“Y-yes.” Her stark whisper. “I’ve fed.” Her gaze darted to Alerac.

She took my blood. The blood of a werewolf.

First, she’d given him her body. Trusted him as she had no other. He’d seduced her slowly, day by day. Week by week.

He’d taken her body. Deepened the connection between them.

Then she’d bit him. His blood had been the first that she ever tasted.

In turn, Alerac had taken her blood and discovered a rush of power that he’d never anticipated.

Lorcan’s jaw locked. He lunged toward Alerac once more.

Alerac smiled at the bastard.

Aye, my blood, in her.

“He used you, Keira!” Lorcan snarled. Alerac’s blood dripped from the knife gripped in Lorcan’s left hand. “And yet you would give your life for him? Why?” His thundering voice echoed through the chamber.

The other vampires shifted nervously. When Lorcan was this enraged, people died. It was an understood fact.

Everyone there knew the pattern. Lorcan’s love of blood and death was too well documented.

“Why?” Another bellow from Lorcan when Keira didn’t answer quickly enough.

Alerac saw the faint movement of her throat as she swallowed. “Because I love him,” Keira said softly, but with certainty.

Alerac’s smile faded. Keira wasn’t supposed to love him. He wasn’t worthy of her love.

Now it was Lorcan who smiled. He shook his dark head. “You can’t die for him, Keira. You have too much value to us.”