Chapter 1

One

The digital clock says it’s a little after eleven a.m. when I wake, but blackout blinds have the room feeling like it’s the middle of the night.

Even though I can’t see him, I sense Bran filling up the bed beside me.

He’s mine. All mine. I can’t believe it.

There was a time when I thought he hated me.

And now he’s confessed he loves me.

I’m not going to dismiss his warning that I don’t entirely understand what it means to have the love of a Duval, but I’m not going to waste it either.

Does Kelly know what it is to have the love of a Duval?

Damien attacked in the middle of a vampire court to get her to safety, and while there is inherently some value in keeping her safe—because of who I am and who Kelly is to me—I think he did it mostly for himself.

Is he currently sleeping next to her?

The little sister in me is just nosy enough to want to know.

I ease from the bed. Bran doesn’t stir. I’m not entirely sure what it means for a vampire to sleep, since they’re technically dead- ish . Do they breathe? Are they dead-dead while they sleep?

We’re taught a lot about vampires in school, but there are some secrets they’ve always closely guarded. Like how a vampire becomes a vampire. I still don’t know. But I have heard it’s a long, drawn-out process and incredibly painful.

I tiptoe from bed, carefully open the door, and slip out.

Diffused daylight fills the Anneliese. What an odd design decision for a vampire. The house is literally a snow globe.

From the kitchen, there’s the distinct sound of pans clanging together and the smell of fresh coffee.

Jimmy assured me the Anneliese was the safest place in Midnight, but a clever human could probably break inside.

Clever human, dumb human. You couldn’t pay me a million dollars to break into a Duval property.

When I turn the corner into the kitchen, I find my sister at the stove.

“Hey,” I say.

She jumps, putting her hand to her chest. “Christ. I didn’t hear you get up.”

“I’m quiet. Like a mouse.”

She looks at me and then bursts into laughter. I can’t help it. I laugh too.

“What are you making?” I ask her.

“Eggs and toast. That’s all there was in the fridge. I’m guessing they didn’t have time to plan ahead for humans to be staying here.”

I go over to the cupboards and start opening doors. I find black coffee mugs in the cupboard by the sink and fill one with fresh coffee just as my sister heats up a cast iron pan on the stove.

“How do you feel?” I ask and pull myself up on the counter by the sink, legs dangling over the edge.

“Better.” She taps an egg on the pan, cracks it open. The white sizzles when it hits the heat.

“Did Damien stay with you?”

She says nothing, adds a second egg.

“Kels, did he?”

“I slept alone. As it should be.”

“But—”

“There is no Damien and I,” she says.

“Yes, there clearly is.”

She sighs and brings her hand to her forehead, presses at the center as if massaging out an ache. “It’s complicated.”

“Well, I’m not going anywhere.”

She flips the eggs with a spatula. “He’s mad at me. Damien isn’t as easy to please as your vampire.”

I snort. “Easy to please? Bran is like one of those novelty puzzles. You know the ones you impulse buy at gift shops and don’t actually have solutions?”

“Yes, they do. And if that’s your comparison, then Damien is the creator of the puzzle.”

I lift my brows. “Oh? Okay. Well. I’m sorry?”

I recall overhearing a conversation my sister had on the phone with one of her coworkers. Damien had come into the City Clerk Office for what I assumed was business. She told her coworker that Damien was an iceberg. I thought she meant because he was cold. But now I wonder if she meant that with him, you only see what’s above the surface, that the real danger lingers beneath in the dark.

“There was a time when I thought Damien sent Bran to live next door,” Kelly admits.

“Really?”

She presses the button on the toaster, sinking the bread to the bottom. “I thought he wanted to keep an eye on me, but now—” She looks over at me. “Clearly it was only you.”

I frown at her. “Kels. That’s not…I mean…I think Damien does care about you. If that’s what you want? Is it what you want?”

“I don’t know what I want,” she admits.

The kitchen fills with the smell of toasting bread and fried eggs. She reaches around me for two plates she set aside. Using a towel for the pan handle, she lifts it and slides the eggs onto the plates.

“Want to have breakfast in the belvedere?” she asks me.

I smile over at her. “Nothing would make me happier.”

With plates and coffee cups in hand, we go to the dining room surrounded on all sides by windows. I was right in my assumption last night—we’re surrounded mostly by greenery but have a clear view on the one side of the courtyard and Duval House. The main house is mostly dark and sleepy right now, considering most who live there are vampires.

“So what do you think happens next?” I push the tines of the fork into the egg yolk and the liquid spills out. I quickly soak it up with the toast.

“I honestly don’t know. What happened last night at court won’t go unanswered and—” She pulls to a stop.

“What?”

“Tomorrow is your birthday.” Her eyes are wide.

“Yes. And?”

“Tomorrow is your birthday! And your Pledge and the party!”

“We’ve covered this, Kels. Don’t you remember? We don’t have to do a party.”

“But it’s your birthday.”

“But is it?”

Her mouth drops open as if she means to argue, but the energy behind it quickly wanes when she realizes the truth—we don’t actually know when I was born.

We don’t know anything about who I am or where I came from. Clearly the fae realm, but why? Who gave me to my mother? Was it my birth parents? What kind of fae were they?

Out of all the supernatural beings in Midnight Harbor, the fae are the kind I’m least familiar with. The gate was already closed by the time I was old enough to pay attention. I know a few fae families—there was the family I babysat for as a teenager—but their numbers are scant compared to the vampires and witches and shifters.

What I do know is that on the fae side, they have legit courts, the royal kind, and that they’re broken up into Seelie and Unseelie. The light and the dark. The Unseelie rarely frequented our side, so those that live in Midnight are all Seelie.

The fact that I could be either is both frightening and exciting.

“Even if we don’t know your true birthday, we’ll move ahead as if we do. Besides, you have to Pledge and you’ll accept the Duval bid.”

“Oh, will I?”

“Jessie.” She gives me her mom look, the one with the wide, stern eyes.

“Yes, you will.”

Kelly and I both jump at the sound of Bran’s voice.

“This is the part I hate about living with vampires,” Kelly says. “I’m always on the edge of a heart attack.”

Bran’s shirtless and his jeans hang low on his hips, revealing that fine-as-hell V that is like an arrow pointing at his cock.

Fucking hell.

Why does everything about him have to be so deliriously sexual?

He walks into a room and I’m wet.

That’s literally all he has to do.

He pulls out the chair across the table from me and sits in a slouch. The muscles and tendons running across his shoulders flex with the movements.

I look down at my egg, but the seeping golden liquid just has me thinking of blood and cum and it doesn’t help me at all.

“Damien will bid on you,” Bran says, “and you will accept.”

“Even though none of us know what I am?”

“Even though.” He reaches across the table and snatches my coffee cup, taking a long swig even though it’s piping hot.

The steam kisses his face as he looks at me over the dark rim.

“I could be a liability,” I say.

“We can’t protect you if you’re not under our House.”

“It’s the right move, Jess,” Kelly says.

“I know you think so. You already went to Damien about it. It’s the whole reason Bran came to the coffeeshop to warn me.”

Kelly turns to Bran. “You did?”

He’s still looking at me. “She deserved to know.”

“Was that before or after you seduced her?”

“Kelly. That’s not—” I start.

Bran sets the coffee down. He turns to my sister in a way that is decidedly sinister.

“I’ve risked my life for Jessie. What the fuck have you done? You’ve just made a mess of?—”

The front door opens and suddenly Damien is standing at the end of the table.

“No,” he says.

Just one word.

That’s all Damien Duval has to say to quiet a room.

Kelly licks her lips and swallows so hard, I can hear it across the table.

“Kelly did what she thought she needed to do,” Damien says. “We’ll not hold it against her. Understood?”

Bran takes in a long, exasperated breath. “Yes, fine, dear brother. As you wish.”

“He didn’t seduce me,” I say.

They all look at me.

“What? I’m a big girl. My sex life is not up for discussion. All right?”

Bran winks at me, causing me to blush.

“Finish your breakfast,” Damien says. “Jessie needs to file her paperwork for her Pledge. Unless you’ve done so already?”

“I haven’t,” I answer. I had thought I’d be long gone by now. “After what happened last night, I didn’t think we’d want to leave the house.”

“The court is powerless against me,” Damien admits. There’s no bravado in his voice. It’s just a fact. “The vasill will be too afraid to speak ill, and the shifter and the witch won’t defend one dead vampire.”

It’s a little disconcerting, the fact that Damien and Bran can just walk into a court and start tearing out hearts with very little consequence.

But I’m grateful for the power, nonetheless. Because I need it. I need them on my side unless I want to be a slave to Julian.

I don’t know who—or what I am—but my mother’s warning keeps ringing in my head.

The things you did, Jessie…you were only a year old and it terrified me.

What did I do?

Why couldn’t she tell me in the letter?

I don’t feel powerful. I don’t feel terrifying.

And yet…

I can’t help but feel like my Pledge is only the beginning of the unraveling of my secrets and the beginning of so many terrifying things to come.