That in itself was an insult, one I wouldn’t respond to. The Eldest Sister was an old woman, who had been anointed long enough that her gums had turned a darkened gray. Claw marks had left jagged scars on her face and hands.

And then I saw the girl.

Time slowed as I took her in, the fine bones and gleaming red hair, large eyes that searched the shadows beneath my hood. She was old Veladari blood, the shade of that gaze a green so deep it was like staring into a primordial forest.

I had not expected beauty. Not for something like me.

Nor had I expected such composure, a very pleasant surprise. She stood with her back straight, chin lifted… and then I took in what they had done to her.

She wore a crimson Veladari wedding dress, hastily tailored to her small frame. A sloppily-braided crown of rowan perched on her fiery hair. Silver bells gleamed at her wrists.

Another insult. I supposed I could count myself fortunate that they had skipped their bridal tradition of brushing silver dust over her throat.

The girl swallowed hard as she stared back at me, her throat moving, and my gaze was inexorably drawn to the pulse of her heart, just beneath that pale skin.

Beneath the stench of rowan, her scent was clean, fresh. Like the Rift.

The bubble in time was broken as Wyn made an approving sound under her breath, marking her notes without looking at the pages. “Oh, lovely. I smell no sickness in her, and she’s not so young as to make this situation uncomfortable. And that hair… she’s from one of the old noble houses, mark my words.”

I couldn’t bring myself to speak under that measuring green gaze.

With several steps, I stood at the altar, close enough to touch my new bride. She did not look away, watching me curiously, still trying to glance under my hood.

Wyn made a final notation on her papers, making the Eldest Sister wait for her attention, and finally looked up at her. “May I present Bane the Lifegiver, Lord of the Rift, Skinner of Wolves.”

I nodded to the Sisters. “My thanks, priestesses, for my bride—and hosting our wedding.”

The Eldest Sister favored us with a crooked smile. “Welcome.” From her tone, we were anything but. “I give you Cirrien lai Darran as your tithed bride, my Lord. Let us join you in, ah… holy matrimony.”

Cirrien… it was a pretty name. Not as pretty as she was, but I found myself marveling at my sudden turn of fortune as I stood in front of the altar, only a foot away from that mouthwatering scent.

Soap and roses… and beneath it, sweet blood.

But she was a lai, a high noble bloodline. The situation made no sense—they dressed her to insult me, but gave me nobility for a bride?

I wondered what their game was. What was the sting in the tail?

She was from the Sisterhood… perhaps she would try to bury a silver dagger in my heart the first moment I dropped my guard. Or maybe she had been anointed with those cursed silver teeth.

The Eldest Sister was speaking, distant noises in the background as I glanced sidelong at my future wife. Her hands were trembling; one of the bells on her wrist chimed, the high sound sending sharp pains through my fangs.

Then it chimed louder as she reached for the cup of wine, bringing it to her mouth for a quick sip. I caught a glimpse of white teeth, no silver to be seen.

The Eldest Sister gestured at her imperiously.

Cirrien turned to me, offering me the cup—and as she took in my clawed, long-fingered hands, large enough to crush her skull, her own hands shook harder.

Another thin streak of pain raced through my skull as the bells sang.

I took the cup and lifted it to my mouth, eager to be out of the lung-burning presence of rowan and silver.

“I now pronounce you man and wife,” the Eldest Sister said quickly. “We have upheld our end of the agreement.”

Wyn presented her with a paper, giving her the pen. The vampire slayer scrawled her name at the bottom, and thus the Blood Accords remained unbroken—on the human side, at least. This was no true wedding, according to our own customs.

My bride was still watching me as my advisor handled the paperwork. Beautiful, delicate… and I could not resist the desire to give her one last chance.

One last chance to save herself before it was truly too late.

I reached up and pushed my hood back, revealing the full aberration of what she was to vow herself to.

Her eyes widened. The bells chimed once more, suddenly silenced as she curled her fingers at her sides. Several stifled gasps rose from the witnessing Sisters, more than one moving back a step before catching themselves.

I stared at her, waiting for the scream. The horror. The despair.

Cirrien gazed back. My ears swiveled, narrowing in on the frantic gallop of her heart, but she didn’t move an inch—only her eyes moved, studying my face. She had gone several shades paler, but the shriek never arrived.

With her paperwork concluded, Olwyn turned to find me hoodless, and Cirrien frozen like a doe before the hunter. From long experience, I knew she was resisting the urge to slap a hand to her face.

“Well, she didn’t scream,” my advisor said brightly. “An auspicious beginning!”

The Eldest Sister let out a harsh laugh that echoed through the empty cathedral. “This one doesn’t scream. I think you’ll find that this one doesn’t say much at all.”

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Chapter 3 Cirri

We were rushed out of the Cathedral, the Sisters unwilling to entertain a vampire in their midst for any longer than it took to marry me off to one.

I walked at Lord Bane’s side, trying and almost succeeding to keep my breathing slow and steady. The top of my head failed to clear his shoulder. The vampire took up almost the entire hallway with his bulk, and I felt crushed inwards by his presence, nothing more than a speck of dust drifting in his wake.

A carriage, hitched to ebony geldings, waited for us in the stableyard. It was massive, clearly designed to hold a fiend—lacquered blood-red, only a few shades away from black, with the crest of Ravenscry detailed in gold on its side. Dust had coated much of its splendor.

The driver was another vampire. He was no fiend; his face was handsome in a pretty, boyish sort of way, skin as smooth and poreless as porcelain, eyes gleaming green and cut vertically with thin pupils. When he smiled, tipping his hat to me, he revealed two long, neat incisors.

It was hard to imagine that the Lord of the Rift had once looked anything like that.

I licked my dry lips as the driver held the carriage door open, and my husband gestured, his black claws catching the midday sun. Each claw was the length of one of my fingers.

“After you, my lady.”

I had heard many voices in my life described as ‘deep’. The choirs of the priesthood boasted bassos whose voices seemed to hum in my bones.

Lord Bane’s voice went beyond that. When he spoke, my bones hummed, but my heart also raced. He sounded… hardly human, not like the smooth-spoken vampires I’d seen in Argent. There was a savage roughness overlaying the rumbling bass of his voice.

When he showed me what lay hidden under the cloak and hood, I understood.

He spoke through a mouth full of fangs, with a forked tongue.

I signed with one hand, a quick and nervous gesture of appreciation for his manners, and the bell on my wrist chimed, filling the air with its sweet sound.

There was an almost imperceptible flinch in the vampires’ shoulders.

The Sisters had not given me a choice in my wedding attire; they’d insisted on the bells and the rowan crown, and the red wedding gown of Veladari custom. No human bride in this country would ever marry in a color other than scarlet.