Page 89 of The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King

I was one of the most powerful vampires in the House of Night. In all of Obitraes. I had that power, even if I didn’t know how to access it. It was in me.

This bitch did not get to be the one to kill me.

An idea solidified in this understanding—a risky one.

“You’re still his blood,” I whispered. “Whether he recognized that or not.”

She scoffed, but I went on, “I don’t want bad blood between us, cousin. You deserved more. And I—I would give you the sword. If you want it.”

She hesitated. One of the children, a little girl, stood, interest piqued, her fair gaze spearing me—like she saw what I was doing.

“You’re owed that much, don’t you think?” I said. “For what he did to you?”

Evelaena’s eyes fell to me, then the sword in her hands. And then back to me again.

They shone with lust. Evelaena was a creature driven wild with starvation—for blood, for power, for love, for validation. The only reason I was alive right now was because she had so gorged herself the night before, but the hint of blood lust still visible in her face right now was due to a much deeper hunger, one that had been following her, I suspected, for two hundred years.

She didn’t even know what she wanted to do with me. Love me, hate me, eat me, fuck me, kill me. Hell, all of those things, maybe.

This seemed like a revelation.

I’d spent my entire life fixated on all the ways vampires were different than me. I’d been so certain that all my confusion and frustration was because of my fragile human nature.

But Raihn was right. Vampires were every bit as fucked up.

I didn’t even need to be that good of an actress. Evelaena was desperate to believe me.

“You can’t wield it now,” I said, “because it’s mine. It belongs to the Hiaj Heir.”

I nodded down—to my chest, and the tattoo pulsing across it.

“But,” I said. “I could transfer ownership to you.”

“I’m not foolish enough to let you hold that blade.”

“You don’t have to,” I said. “Just let me touch it. That’s all. And it’s yours.”

She went still—that unnatural vampire still. I could see the calculation behind her eyes.

She’d kill me anyway, of course. That was what she was thinking. She wanted it all—the companionship, the Heir Mark, the sword, the crown, my blood. She wasn’t willing to give up any of those things after centuries of constant sacrifice.

“Fine,” she said.

She brought the sword closer to me, holding it out, while maintaining a strong grip on it over the cloth.

“I need my hands,” I said.

Her mouth thinned. Still, she nodded to one of her children. The little girl, the one who had been watching me so warily, approached me with a little dagger. Her abrupt slice through the binding cut my wrist, too.

Hands free. That was something. Not enough. But something.

I gave her a weak smile and gingerly pulled back the cloth wrapped around the blade. The red glow seemed much stronger than usual now, warming my face and reflecting in Evelaena’s eyes, which were wide and unblinking.

I stared at it. My father’s blade, supposedly carrying a piece of his heart. Just being this close to it again made me feel as if Vincent was standing just over my shoulder, forever out of sight.

If you are,I thought,you’d better help me here. You owe me that.

That’s a rude way to speak to your father,Vincent replied, and I almost scoffed aloud.

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