Page 2 of A Story of Mates and Temptation

At least I know he won’t risk coming after me and being killed by them. He wouldn’t be able to get me without a dragon, and Maeve was hurt. She won’t be coming either. I want them safe. It’s best this way. Hopefully, he doesn’t come after me. I want him safe—even after everything he did. Even after killing my best friend. I love him. I want to see him again someday. I need him.

“He must have manipulated her somehow. She loves me—” Emyr is cut off by the king’s laugh.

“You can’t break a dog with beatings and expect it to love you when a kinder owner offers a hand.” The king turns his eyes on me, and I feel the coldness, right down to my bones.

“I’m not a dog,” I snap.

“I’m so sorry, father. She’s running her mouth, and it is unlike her.” Emyr steps closer to me. “Her time in the mansion has corrupted her mind against me.”

The king moves like a ghost towards me. His presence is too much because it feels wrong. Empty. He walks straight over to where I’m crouched on the floor by the stone wall that I was thrown into. “I won’t hurt you.”

“How many fae have you looked in the eyes and said that to and still hurt them?” I sarcastically question.

He doesn’t even pause to answer. “Hundreds. Thousands, maybe. I don’t know or care.”

I rise to my feet on my own, my hands shaking under the full weight of his stare.

“You look like her,” he murmurs, his gaze searching my face. My eyes. My hair. He seems to spend a long time looking at meand seeing the past. I know who he means, the princess who he married and then destroyed with hate. He never loved her and he chose to be a vampyre and burn the world down instead. “But you’re more beautiful. Different. That same determination in your eyes is there across your souls. It’s no wonder my son became so invested in you. If I’d seen you, I’d have been invested too.”

He moves a step closer and I press myself against the wall to escape any way I can. “I’m sure you’ve heard all the horrible things about me from my last blood slave. Avaluna.” He looks at my hair and picks up a lock, rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger. I swear there is longing in his voice when he says her name. I know she is free and she won’t be coming back to him. Calix will never let him close. “I know she was corrupted into leaving my side, but I had plans for her. She was not like the others.”

“She never spoke about you,” I say coldly, knowing it will hurt him more than anything else I could say.

His eyes flicker, but he doesn’t rise to the bait. He drops my hair though, and I’m glad for it.

“She’s mine,” he says simply, before sitting at the edge of the bed and gazing out the window. “I will have her again.”

My heart races as I press myself against the cold stone wall, trying to steady my breathing.

“The world is changing,” he says, almost to himself. “My Silkvir are spread across the lands where the mansion once stood and here in the East where the Sun kings once ruled. The lands of the Moon are going to be no more, but their city is nothing but dust now. The fae who escaped are running, hiding from mycreatures. It’s futile for them to escape and hide. I plan to level the entire land with fire and start anew. Build a brilliant city for my son and heir…and for you to rule beside him, Story Dehana. With you at my son’s side, as princess of the vampyres, the hope inspired by your name will die and the fae will stop looking to you for a hero to save them.” He pauses. “And once I have Avaluna back, she will be my new queen. Two of your kind ruling with us, as it should be.”

I force my voice to remain steady, though anger burns as hot as a dragon within my chest. “And where exactly do the kings of the fae—the real kings—fit into that vision? Do you honestly think King Daegan and King Ziven will bow to you? The dragons too? The fae are done with being slaves, and rebellions will always happen. We are done being your food, your slaves.”

His head tilts slightly, amused by my defiance. “And you speak for all of them, do you? I’m sure not every fae is so enamoured with your opinion. Freedom? They were freed from one type of ruler and given another. Buried kings used them as slaves, too. No, they haven’t truly been free before.”

I bite back the response rising in my throat, unwilling to give him the satisfaction of my anger. He wants me to react.

His expression changes like smoke in the wind. “I’m surprised you haven’t asked why you didn’t turn, Story?”

My blood is so cold I’m not fully convinced I’m not turning into a vampyre at this very moment. “Why didn’t I?”

“You died,” Emyr demands, his gaze flicking to me. “I felt it. You died in my arms, with vampyre blood already in your system from me, and it should have worked.” He grabs the bed base. “I brought you back here, expecting you to turn within hours.But you didn’t. Instead, you healed. Every wound on your body—every mark, even the one on your neck where you tried to kill yourself to escape me—closed as if they were never there. Still fae and perfectly fine, despite death.”

I say nothing, but his words send a chill through me that I can’t shake off.

“She’s a Twilight heir, and it would never have worked on her,” the king murmurs with a certainty I don’t like. Twilight heir? What exactly does that mean?

The king’s eyes narrow on me. “The red hair. The eyes of green like a fire that burned in the city, right outside the royal households. There were twelve noble families with the purest of blood when the world fell to its knees for me. She is a descendant of a noble household. Twilight blood is rare. Most of the Twilight Dynasty has been diluted. You’re one of them.”

He rises, his steps measured as he heads to the balcony. Sweat sticks to my skin from the heat. “The vampyre blood we give to turn others only works on those without the blood of deities. The Twilight Dynasty carries the blood of those gods, and it is what made them different. You don’t need to be a vampyre to achieve immortality when it is in your blood already. You can live as long as you wish. But the perfection of your bloodline had its flaws,” he continues with a cruel smile, his eyes dropping to my stomach. The cycles, the infertility. I read about it for the princess and now for me. I never got to ask Avaluna if she suffered like I do. “This one is broken, isn’t she? Like my wife was, and there was never a cure. If you’re looking for heirs, Emyr, you may need to search elsewhere.”

“I’ll make heirs for us to raise as our children. No one will know,” Emyr replies coldly, his eyes locked on mine. “This one is still mine. She always will be.”

The king nods, satisfied. “Very well. The wedding will be tomorrow. Let her have this one last day where she believes she’s free. Perhaps I should have offered your mother that courtesy. She might not have betrayed me if I had.”

Emyr doesn’t flinch at the jab, his face impassive.

“Her funeral is today,” the king continues. “Tomorrow, a wedding. A symbol of progress after winning the war.” He looks to the sky. “Before my own wedding to Avaluna, of course.”

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