Chapter 2

The storm raged outside, but inside, the air was thick with the scent of dark magic and ozone.

I stood over the stranger collapsed in my hallway, my chest heaving with both a faint exhaustion and a bit of annoyance.

"For someone with such stature, he's heavier than he looks," I muttered under my breath.

I knelt beside him, flipping him onto his back. A groan of pain tore through his lips and his jaw tightened. I pulled back his torn velvet coat, revealing a silver signet brooch pinned over his heart. It was a double-headed dragon coiled around a broken crown. And embedded deeply and boldly was a name.

'Malakor.'

"Well, well, well." My lips pursed into a tight line and my eyebrows perked up in interest. "The infamous Prince of the Eastern Court."

The tales of this man had spread through to my territory. He was the ruthless warrior who had slaughtered armies without flinching. A beast whose name was spoken in whispers of fear across the continent.

And now, here he was, dying on my floor.

I examined the wound across his chest with traces of my index finger. It wasn't a normal blade strike. The skin was turned black and necrotic, pulsating with thin, pitch-black veins that crept upward toward his throat like spiderwebs.

"Shadow-rot," I whispered, my eyes lighting up in recognition.

It was cursed, dark-magic poison meant to decay a vampire’s core from the inside out. My fingers brushed the edge of the burn and he flinched, a sharp gasp escaping his lips.

"You fool," I muttered, "Shadow-rot consumes everything like locusts to a cornfield. Even your royal blood can't fight this."

His hand shot up and gripped my wrist. His skin was burning hot—a terrible sign for an immortal. His eyes slowly cracked open. At first they were unfocused, but still retained their slight glow of an immense power. And then they locked onto my face.

"Which is why... I need yours," he choked out.

Ignoring the tight grip of his hand which would bring a temporary bruise later to my pale skin, I glared at him.

"You are still insisting on this futile desire?"

"Your venom is pure toxicity." He nodded. "There is a possibility that it will devour the curse. Sometimes, two negative elements can cancel each other."

I stared at him blankly for a minute and then my head shook side to side with a disbelieving laughter.

"And if you're wrong?" I asked.

"Then the curse might devour me."

"It will not devour you, you delirious idiot," I snapped, trying to wrench my wrist free. " It will kill you outrightly. You don't understand what my blood does to our kind. It doesn't heal. It's a bloody fire. It incinerates. You'll bleed from your eyes before your heart bursts."

"Then let it burn!" he suddenly snapped, dragging me down until our faces were inches apart. I could feel the intense, unnatural heat radiating off his body, smelling the dark, intoxicating scent of his blood mixed with the bitter rot.

"Let me take the bloody risk," he continued. "I would rather die screaming on your floor than let my brother take my crown!"

"You're insane." I frowned. "Completely mad."

"I don't care what you think," he rasped, his eyes dropping to the pulse point at my throat. "Do it. Give me your poison, Belladonna. Claim me or kill me. I don't care which."

I shook my head slowly in wonder. No one had ever asked for my venom. Everyone who had ever tasted it had done so by accident and paid with their lives.

But looking down at this arrogant, dying prince, a thrill arose within me.

"I'll ask you one final time." My lips curled into a sneer. "Is this what you wish for?"

"Yes." His eyes steeled with resolution. "I'm ready to face the consequences."

A deep exhale flew through my nose.

"Remember this choice, Malakor," I whispered, leaning down until my lips brushed the shell of his ear. "When you feel your veins turn to liquid fire, remember that you begged for this."

I yanked up the sleeve of my silk robe, exposing the pale skin of my forearm. I sliced my skin with a thumbnail, and a single, thick drop of dark, iridescent crimson welled up.

"Drink." I pressed my bleeding arm against his mouth.

Malakor didn't hesitate. His fangs snapped out, sinking deep into my flesh with a brutal, hungry force.

A sharp gasp tore from my throat as he latched onto me. The connection was instant and violent. As his lips drank in my venomous blood, a shockwave of raw, unadulterated sensation flooded my veins.

He shut his eyes as he drank greedily like a wanderer finding an oasis in the desert. And for a few minutes that seemed like eternity, the sound of his gulps were the only thing that challenged the silence.

'This is it,' I thought. 'He'll come to his senses when it's too late."

Suddenly, Malakor’s entire body went rigid. His eyes snapped wide, turning completely black as the veins in his neck bulged, turning a violent, glowing violet. A gut-wrenching scream tore from his throat. It was a sound so raw it shook the dust from the rafters.

He collapsed backward, thrashing about and clutching his throat as my poison tore through his body, engaging in a bloody, violent war with the shadow-rot.

I stumbled back, cradling my bleeding arm, watching the prince writhe in sheer agony at my feet.

Before me, a strange scene of entertainment I had not witnessed in years played before me.

He had taken the poison. Now, it was the time to see if he could survive it.