Chapter 1

I lay on the cold obsidian altar waiting for the sacred Blood Awakening Ritual to unfold for the first heir shared between the Lord of the Asmodeus Coven and me.

My husband, Shawn Ashmore, the supreme leader of the coven, held my hand gently.

"Don't be afraid, Selena. Everything we're doing is for our child's future," Shawn whispered, his voice as soft and reassuring as it had always been.

Elders standing behind him chanted ancient verses. Yet the ceremonial dagger piercing my belly carried a fierce devouring force that spread deep inside my body.

Burning agony swept over me as I heard him issue a cold command to my elder brother, Cain Norman, "Move faster.

"While the Bloodcore still connects with the unborn child, draw the core heart blood from this unwanted bastard.

"Only the purest original vampire blood can help Lila complete a full immortal transformation."

Cain let out a furious shout. "Shawn, have you lost your mind? You will ruin her Bloodcore, and she will never conceive another child again."

Shawn spoke in an utterly frigid tone, "I have already shown her enough kindness by letting her keep this child for eight hundred years.

"No one but the child I have with Lila is qualified to inherit my noble bloodline.

"She stole Lila's identity to marry me long ago, and this is the consequence she has to bear."

*****

The moment the ceremonial dagger twisted inside me, I heard something crack inside my body.

At first, I thought it was bone, but it wasn't.

It was the outer shell of my Bloodcore, the delicate membrane that had taken eight hundred years to grow around my unborn child.

That membrane split open under the blade, and deep inside, the sleeping infant let out a voiceless scream that rippled through every vessel in my body.

I had spent eight hundred years pouring my blood and soul into this one small life.

Human women carried their babies for nine months, and I heard it was a tender time for them. Vampires weren't so lucky. There was a long and hopeless wait.

I spent eight centuries feeding my power into the Bloodcore, giving that little life everything I had, waiting for the day it would be strong enough to survive on its own.

Every full moon, I endured the agony of my Bloodcore swelling. Every hunt, I brought back twice the usual amount of blood. Every drop of strength went to the child growing inside me.

Shawn knew all of it. He knew every pain, every sacrifice.

Some nights, he would rub my belly and promise to take me to see the Northern Lights after the baby was born. He picked out a name, Noctis, for the baby. He said it meant night, and that night would always be ours.

It was all a lie.

"My Lord, the outer shell of the Bloodcore is fully open," the elder conducting the ritual reported, his voice wavering as he nervously turned to Shawn.

Shawn stood several steps from the altar, the coven crest on his cloak shimmering dark red in the candlelight. His face was calm, almost bored, with a flicker of impatience in his eyes.

"Take the baby's core heart blood," he ordered without hesitation.

The elder reached into my abdomen. When his fingertips brushed the small curled body inside my Bloodcore, I felt my child's fear.

It was shrinking away, trying to hide, but there was nowhere to go.

"No..." I screamed.

Before I could finish, a hand clamped over my mouth.

It was Stephen Garcia, the captain of Shawn's personal guard. He pressed my shoulders down against the altar, his face completely blank.

On the other side of the altar, my brother, Cain, was pinned to the ground by four guards. Blood ran down his forehead, and his eyes were red with rage.

"Selena," Cain called out, his voice hoarse and desperate.

When the elder pulled his hand from my abdomen, a drop of golden liquid was pinched between his fingers.

That was my child's heart blood, his entire life's essence squeezed into a single drop.

The second that golden drop fell into the crystal vial, the child inside my Bloodcore went quiet.

It was gone. The child I'd spent eight hundred years creating was dead.

Shawn walked over and took the vial. He held it up to the light for a second, and the corner of his mouth curled up.

I'd seen that expression for eight hundred years and always thought it was for me.

Without a word, he turned and started to walk away.

"One more thing." He stopped walking, but he didn't turn around. "Take her Bloodcore too."

The elders exchanged uneasy looks.

One of them gathered the courage to speak, "My Lord, taking the Bloodcore would mean..."

Shawn cut him off. "It would mean she's useless. I know."

He finally turned and looked at me.

After eight hundred years, that was the first time I saw something real in his eyes. It wasn't love. It was disgust.

"Once Lila finishes her transformation, she'll need a lot of high-bloodline power to feed on. Selena's Bloodcore will work perfectly," he said.

He paused for a moment before going on, "Besides, she and Lila are sisters. When Lila has kids, they'll call Selena aunt. She should be satisfied with that."

The elder reached for my abdomen again. The ceremonial dagger pressed against the base of my Bloodcore.

One cut, and I'd go from a pure-blooded noble to something worse than the lowest blood slave.

The Bloodcore was everything to a vampire.

It was where their power came from, the root of their bloodline, the anchor of their immortality.

Without it, a vampire couldn't heal anymore. Wounds wouldn't close. Strength wouldn't return. They couldn't even take in nutrients from blood.

They'd be alive, but they might as well be dead.

Cain was yelling from the other side, "Shawn, if you touch her Bloodcore, the Nosferatu Coven will never let this go. We'll fight you until we're dead."

Shawn didn't bother to look at him.

"The Nosferatu Coven?" There was clear mockery in his voice as he said that. "A washed-up branch coven that lost its lands and hung on through a marriage deal, and you think you can threaten me with that?

"If you hadn't sent Selena as a replacement bride, you wouldn't still have a spot in Criviston."

Cain fell silent. The insult had hit its mark.

The words "replacement bride" cut deep.

Memories from eight hundred years ago came rushing back.

Shawn had asked my coven for a heiress to be his Consort. My father told me Shawn had chosen me, and I was so thrilled that I said yes without thinking twice.

But the truth was, he wanted Lila. She was my sister, a mortal orphan my parents had taken in.