C2 The Prince's Concubine

There were no more wolves.

I heard once that the key to winning the hunt was to reach the wolves fastest. For that reason, I’d been working on my speed for months, increasing my agility, clawing my way to the top of the records.

It was all for nothing.

Silvercity had been my destiny since I was fourteen. It was where my father spent most of his life as a Vanguard, defending the palace from wolves—from the humans who sought to destroy the vampires within. But it was more than just a sentiment. Silvercity was the gateway to the casual world. To the mortal, human world.

Beyond its lustrous gates, Silvercity marked the border to a new country. One filled with people like me. People who walked in the sun and danced on the beach and had children and bought houses and did all the silly mundane things vampires didn’t. Somewhere beyond the gates of Silvercity was my mother.

I wondered what she looked like now. If she had aged, if she had married, if perhaps I had siblings didn’t know about.

I had to reach Silvercity. How was I supposed to do that now?

When I emerged from the forest, it was with Lance, my most precious of knives, shattered to bits in the palm of my hand. No wolf. No claws.

Others awaited already with their victories in tow, including Zia, who knelt in the grass with a severed hand rested in front of her, long black claws stretching from the fingertips. I felt something sharp in her heart. Zia of all people had killed a wolf? She was hardly within the top fifty-percentile of the class. My cheeks reddened as I looked down at the crumbles of her blade, recalling Zia in the locker room early that morning. It looked as though a screw had been removed from the hilt. Was this why it failed me?

I took Dancer from her sock and examined the screws on it, too. Just like Lance, one was missing.

Something in me snapped.

I lunged for Zia, tackling her to the ground, Dancer held threateningly in the palm of my fist. “You! You did this!” I screamed. We twisted on the ground, Zia throwing a punch that hit me in the broad size of her jaw. I head-butted her, a subtle crack sounding from her nose. The men were trying to peel us apart. The professors shouted at me to behave myself.

Then, suddenly came a voice. “Excuse me for my late arrival.”

I went still at the sound of him. I hadn’t expected the Bloodprince would arrive while I had my hands around Zia’s throat.

Zia kicked me off amid my distraction and I hit the grass with an ooof. I was quickly snatched off of the ground by the back of my collar, Benson frowning down at me with his gray, peppered beard. “You’ll be lucky if this doesn’t earn you an expulsion,” he snarled in my ear. I felt my face burn at the idea of being expelled one day before graduation…

“Everyone,” ordered Benson, “stop standing around. Present your trophies. Those of you who earned nothing—” his merciless gaze fell upon me when he said this, “—watch quietly and respectfully over there.”

I was shoved toward a crowd of twenty-or-so other rejects, who looked downcast and defeated to return from the forest empty handed. But as I glanced back over my shoulder, I found the prince was watching her with dark, intense eyes.

He was prettier than I thought he would be, with long black hair that curled around his ear and settled on his shoulder, and a fair, gentle face that twinged with curiosity as our eyes connected. I promptly tore my gaze away.

He walked the line of the worthy, inspecting the hands they’d collected. Many of the vampires were doused in blood,. Some only peppered. None of the worthy had come out entirely clean. He presented himself with a look of stoicism. An uncaring, indirect gaze that swept from trophy to trophy, never providing the luxury of a reaction.

“Congratulation on your bounties,” he said. Though his words were kind, his voice was like the rough edge of a stone. Cold and abrasive. His eyes moved with the quick calculations of a viper. The sharp, dark gaze that pinned to the places with a deadly fixation. They roved over the butchered hands and suddenly landed back on me.

“You,” he said, pointing a finger in my direction. “Come.”

I blanched, feeling my heart tick suddenly faster in my throat. How had he even noticed me in the crowd? Maybe because I was the only Daywalker among them. I didn’t look all that different form the other vampires, but I was often bullied for my smell. The scent of human blood still in my veins that garnered me far too much attention in the hallways during passing periods. Had the prince smelled me? The thought was devastating.

I stepped forward, standing empty-handed beside the worthy and their trophies.

“You’ve no gift for me?” asked the prince.

I did not respond, nor did I meet his gaze. Of course I had no trophy for him. Why rub salt in the wound?

“How long have you been a vampire?” the prince asked. I hated how unimpressed he sounded. Unimpressed by my failures, unimpressed by my existence. “You don’t smell of one.”

“Because she isn’t,” said Zia from where she rested in the grass. She looked all too smug as she added, “She’s a Daywalker. Her mom was human.”

I wanted badly to kick her or tackle her again and finish what I’d started, but suddenly, the prince was touching my face. It wasn’t like the prince to touch anyone, and at the slightest brush of his cool fingers, I jumped. He had wiped a bit of blood from my cheek. A small cut had been there from where the wolf had pressed the blade to my skin. He brought it to his mouth, the blood streaking across his tongue. Then his gentle brows settled into a thoughtful furrow.

“I see,” he muttered. Then once more. “I see.”

In a change of demeanor, he folded his hands behind his back and turned to Benson, speaking quietly in his ear.

Benson looked surprised. Gentle whispered rose from the others. “You’d…what?” asked the professor.

“I’ve been looking for something like her for quite some time,” the prince said. He turned to me and as he did, his fangs broke through his smile-less face. “She’ll join my concubines in the palace.”

The whispers grew to a rainy chatter. Zia looked up in astonishment.

To live in Silver City was one thing…but to live in the palace with the prince.

And as his concubine?

I couldn’t imagine a girl at Nightcrest who wouldn’t kill to give herself to the king in exchange for that kind of luxury.

But I was not a lowly concubine. I had worked hard for years to become a Vanguard. Everything I’d done—every late night spent leaping from trees until I learned to keep her footing on the slender branches. Every night spent hunting lizards in the rain to improve my speed and sight. Every test, every lecture, every hour of combat practice was nothing now.

Suddenly, the prince captured my chin in his hand and lifted my head to meet his gaze. A shade of icy blue slid over his eyes and his fangs peeked out from his lips. The look of a vampire moments before a feast. “I don’t wish to use you that way,” he said. “I need you for something else.”

“For…what?” I asked.

“Gather your things,” was all the prince said. “I’ll send my men for you tomorrow.”