I’m not one of you.

To complete the look, I’d added the cursed copper shackles as cuffs. They were useless as weapons, but they worked just fine as a warning.

“Dance with me,” Raphael said.

I blinked up at him. “Why?”

He grinned. “If you’re in my arms, I can keep an eye on you, since it seems Amalthea can’t be trusted to not give into her whims.” He made some gestures, and music billowed over the chatter. I hadn’t been able to hear it properly, but now that I could, it was all I could do to not sway my body with the sounds.

Waves of notes surrounded me, and I was greedy for them. It had been so long, so damnably long. My chest tightened as the music crescendo swelled, climbing, climbing, and then crashing over me. When the song ended and another began, my throat was dry.

Raphael cocked his head, studying me like I was something all too interesting. Could he feel what the music meant to me?

“Talk to me, Samara.”

How to explain what it was to go years and years with nothing but screams and insults to break up hours of bleak silence? That having my senses filled with something so beautiful, so lovely, and alive, made my knees want to buckle?

“Perhaps we will dance later,” he murmured, guiding me away from the dance floor.

I struggled to focus on his words when all I wanted was to find the source of the music and sit at the feet of whoever made it. “I… I like music.”

The three words were hard to get out. Music was mine. It was private, secret. Making myself give that up to a male who should have been my mortal enemy felt wrong.

And yet some part of me wanted him to know me.

“Do you play?” he asked, oblivious to my internal struggle.

I pursed my lips. “No. My mother said it wasn’t proper for someone of my status. She was convinced I was to be a lady, who had others playing music on command.”

Raphael didn’t say anything to that, and with the silence, I found myself wanting to give voice to a memory. “When she was away, I’d try to make my own instruments. The closest I came was a flute made from a carrot. Of course, there was no quiet way to play my carrot-flute, so I was quickly discovered.”

“And then?” Raphael said as I trailed off. We were being watched from behind cups and tilted heads. Raphael didn’t pay an iota of attention to the onlookers as we moved around the room. His attention was entirely on me.

“She had it tossed in the evening stew.”

Raphael drew up short. “That was cruel.”

I shrugged, the chains over my shoulders making a soft sound. “It wasn’t meant to be. She did it for my own good.”

Raphael didn’t reply to that, but I sensed he had more to say. We’d nearly reached the refreshment table when a male vampire approached.

“Greetings, Your Majesty,” the noble said. His elevated status was obvious from the finely made clothing and comfort with which he moved through the room.

“Lazarus,” Raphael acknowledged.

“It’s wonderful to see you back at Damerel,” Lazarus crooned. “And you’ve taken a human.”

I didn’t want to meet any vampires, but as with all predators, any display of weakness would just arouse those deadly instincts. When the vampire looked at me, I didn’t shrink away. Instead, I straightened my spine, resisting the urge to fiddle with my cursed copper cuffs as I fixed my feet under the dress into the same formation Iademos had drilled into me earlier that day.

Raphael inclined his head. Obviously, his taciturn habits were part of his nature, not personal as I’d once assumed.

“We’re all so curious about her,” Lazarus continued, paying no mind to Raphael’s lack of response. “And everything that transpired while you were gone. Was your quest successful? Are we once more safe from the abomination?” The noble managed to drip his honeyed words in the barest hint of contempt.

Raphael smiled, but all I saw were fangs I was glad not to have pointed at me. “All is as I wish it to be.”

Lazarus was quick to make his excuses while I tried to puzzle out his words. Raphael had been on a quest to get the Black Grimoire. He’d been waylaid and mistakenly gone to Greymere instead of the marshes. But what abomination? The Grimoire? It was an odd term, and Raphael hadn’t attempted to burn it or anything.

Perhaps the true reason for Raphael’s time away wasn’t widespread. But that still begged the question: What did they all think Raphael meant to do in the Witch Kingdom?

We continued, landing at the refreshments table. Several vampires eyed their king but thought better of approaching. The long table at the edge of the room was piled high with glasses, a pyramid of champagne flutes on one side of an ice sculpture that wasn’t fine enough to be magic made. The other side held a matching tower of chalices filled with deep red liquid. My stomach revolted at the sight.

Raphael extended a glass of golden champagne to me. “Here.”

I shook my head.

“You’re not thirsty?”

“I don’t imbibe.” I’d never really had the chance. Any spirits that made their way to Greymere were quickly hoarded by Nelson and distributed among his favored few. The behavior that followed did more to frighten me than inspire envy. Those were nights to hide in the farthest, coldest corners of the prison. Losing my senses in the midst of all these vampires from the same drink? That was what my nightmares were made of.

“Water, then.” He gave some small signal and a servant—human—approached. He instructed him to bring fresh spring water and dismissed him with a turned shoulder.

The sight rankled. “Are all humans in your kingdom servants?”

Raphael arched a brow at me. “Anyone who tried to treat Amalthea as a servant would find themselves laughed out of castle and country.”

“All voids, then?”

“We all serve something higher, do we not?” he drawled. “But no. Otherwise this table would be covered in blood mead.”

The table was divided between both drinks. Yet there were no humans in attendance among the nobility. There were hundreds in attendance, but Amalthea was alone in her not-pure-white hair.

“Look closer,” Raphael said in my ear.

I stiffened as the heat of his breath caressed me, the tingle curling down the back of my neck. I hadn’t realized we were so close. But I obeyed, examining those nearest to us more carefully. A pair of women chattering behind feathered fans, hiding their necks. A trio of men, gathered around a high-top table, one gesturing wildly as he recounted some story. I cocked my head, trying to make sense of what I saw. All had cropped white hair of slightly varying lengths, and each had red eyes… but my attention snagged on the one on the right. His eyes seemed just a shade less vibrant. His skin didn’t have the same blue tint as the others had. And perhaps most telling, he was older. Maybe sixty, sixty-five, if I were to lay a bet.

There was only one explanation.

“No,” I breathed.

“Oh, yes.”

By the sixth hell. Bad enough they wanted to be vampires, but they even aped their appearance. Amalthea had said disguise cards were difficult to come by, so they must have spent a magical fortune in a Vampire Kingdom to match their appearances.

“All the time?”

“Mostly for special occasions, council meetings, and so on. Perhaps ten or twenty percent at most among the gentry are human. The nobles are a mix of long-standing houses and appointed posts. Obviously, humans can only rise in position from the latter, and when your competition has an endless amount of time to reach a post, you’re at a disadvantage. Make no mistake, the humans you find among them are some of the craftiest creatures in this room.”

“And so they want to fit in, for the vampires to forget they’re not like them?”

“As if the chasm between immortal and mortal is so easily crossed,” Raphael said with the barest snort. “The endless drum of their beating hearts and labored breaths will always give them away.”