Chapter 1
“You will be careful tonight. Do you hear me?” Maeve’s mother straightened her dress.
“No matter what happens and no matter how charming any of them seem, you will not let a vampire put his teeth in you,” she warned.
“Their bites are madly addictive. They ruin young girls and leave them hollow and desperate for the rest of their short lives. Promise me.”
Maeve barely heard the words.
She was already turning toward the mirror again and smoothing the dark waves of her hair so that they fell just so over one shoulder.
Her heart beat with anticipation of what was to come.
She had waited years for this night.
She had won the lottery to be one of the only mortals to attend the Vampire eclipse ball at the palace.
“I promise,” she said automatically and kissed her mother’s cheek without really looking at her. “I will be careful. I only want to see him.”
Her mother sighed and said nothing more.
Maeve left the house and rode in the open carriage for what seemed like hours until the hooves stopped.
Her nerves kept growing as the palace gates swung open soundlessly.
The carriage rolled into a massive courtyard with glistening fountains, greenery and fairy lights everywhere like stardust.
Inside the grand ballroom people had gathered from all over, they all looked wealthy and powerful.
Maeve looked utterly plain in comparison.
The dias at the apex of the ballroom glistened with black marble, and an obsidian throne sat above it.
King Otto’s throne. Maeve’s heart pounded even if the throne was empty.
Maeve took a glass of dark red wine from a silver tray and drank half of it in three long swallows because her throat felt dry.
She told herself she would stop after one but the wine was far too delicious.
Before she knew it, she was drinking her second, and third.
By the time she reached for the fourth, she had forgotten that human blood and strong wine did not mix well.
The great doors at the far end of the ballroom opened.
The entire ballroom fell quiet, even the music stopped.
Guests parted and every head turned. Vampire King Otto Vale walked into the light.
Maeve felt warm all over and suddenly, she could no longer breathe.
He was taller than any man she had ever seen and the white of his perfectly tailored coat made his pale skin look almost luminous.
His hair was pure silver and fell in a straight past his shoulders.
His eyes glowed a deep red that almost looked black. His walk was powerful, like he owned the room and everyone in it.
Maeve’s obsession had made her think about him constantly, she was in love with him, before she even knew what love was.
She had spent hours and hours of her life staring at portraits of Otto.
But none of them had prepared her for the reality of him.
She pushed forward through the crowd because she needed to be closer to him.
She needed to see him more clearly so she could brand the memory of his face permanently into her mind.
Someone behind her shifted and an elbow hit her hard between the shoulder blades.
Maeve stumbled and the glass in her hand tilted and wine went flying.
It landed squarely across the front of the King’s white coat.
For one frozen second, reality seemed to no longer exist.
Maeve felt her balance go and she would have fallen if a hand had not closed around her upper arm.
The grip was powerful and strangely warm.
She had always been told that vampires were cold but the heat of these fingers burned straight through the thin fabric of her sleeve and into her skin.
She looked up.
Otto Vale stared down at her with those intensely beautiful red eyes and for a moment, something like curiosity flickered across his face.
She was close enough to see the way his silver lashes cast shadows on his cheeks.
He was enormous and beautiful and terrifying.
When she regained her balance, he released her arm as if the touch had stung him.
“Do you have something to say?” his voice was deep and powerful. The perfect match for him.
Maeve’s tipsy haze shattered, she dropped into the lowest bow she could manage and the words tumbled out of her in a rush.
“I am so sorry, Your Majesty. Someone pushed me and I could not catch myself and the glass simply left my hand and I never meant—”
A tall official stepped forward and bowed more smoothly than Maeve ever could.
“Your Majesty should not trouble himself with a clumsy human girl. I will have a fresh coat brought at once. The evening need not be interrupted further.”
Otto said nothing more he simply turned and walked away toward a side door.
As he passed Maeve the air around her seemed to thicken and grow heavy.
For a single heartbeat she felt as if something vast and invisible had wrapped itself around her shoulders.
The sensation vanished as quickly as it had come.
She blinked and wondered if the wine had finally taken its full toll.
Then a blinding while light enveloped her vision
When the light faded Maeve was no longer standing in the great hall.
She stood in a smaller chamber lined with tall mirrors and racks of expensive looking garments.
Her hands were larger and longer than they had any right to be and the floor seemed farther away.
She lifted one of those unfamiliar hands and touched her own face and felt the cool smoothness of skin that was not hers.
In the mirror, a tall figure with silver hair and dark red eyes stared back at her.
The figure wore an open white shirt and held a fresh coat in one hand as if he had been in the middle of changing.
Maeve’s mouth opened in shock and the figure in the mirror did the same.
The same official who had spoken in the ballroom stepped into the doorway and bowed at her.
“Is anything amiss, Your Majesty?”
Maeve could only stare at him with her new red eyes and find no words at all.