Chapter 1
It wasn't until my body was completely drained and my soul was damned to hell that I finally learned the truth. My parents' so-called love was nothing but a years-long, bloody imprisonment.
They sliced open my veins, not out of concern, but to keep my frail sister alive with my rare Holy O-Type blood, preparing her to marry the pureblood vampire Grand Duke.
When I returned to the day of the blood contract, my sister once again covered her heart and pretended to be weak.
My mother ordered me with a cold face, "Cut your wrist open and feed the blood to your sister!"
I took a step back with a sneer and picked up the Holy Court's blood-testing crystal on the table. "What's the hurry, mother? Holy blood does not allow any impurities.
"Before the Grand Duke comes, why don't you let my sister test the blood type first?"
When the icy, razor-sharp silver blade touched her skin, that piercing chill snapped Carly Buckley awake.
The endless darkness and stench of the dungeon were gone. Instead, she found herself inside the grand yet foreboding Blackstone Castle, which was located in the Buckley Land.
Overhead, velvet drapes hung with dark red tassels, the fireplace crackled with burning pine, and the air was thick with a cloying, nauseating scent of rose perfume.
"Carly, why are you just standing there? Hold out your wrist now!"
The sharp rebuke exploded in her ear.
Carly turned stiffly and saw Rosemary Buckley sitting at the edge of the bed.
She was her mother in name only. Rosemary gripped the ornate silver blade so tightly that her perfectly manicured nails were almost digging into Carly's flesh.
There wasn't a hint of affection for her eldest daughter on her face, only a frantic, nearly deranged urgency.
At the center of the bed, Carly's younger sister, Mia Buckley, lay half-reclined among layers of lace pillows.
She wore a pure white silk nightgown, her face as pale as paper, and her honey-colored hair spilled over shoulders as pale as marble.
She was gasping for breath, her eyes locked on Carly with that well-rehearsed, innocent, fawn-like fragility.
"Carly, I feel so awful. It's like my chest is on fire. the Grand Duke's carriage has already entered the Black Forest.
"If my blood doesn't settle down soon, I'll die on the altar during the Embrace tonight."
Mia's voice was barely a whisper, and a single tear slipped artfully from the corner of her eye, rolling down into the hollow of her pale neck.
At the foot of the bed, Manfred Buckley slammed his gold-plated cane against the floor, his face so dark it looked like a storm was about to break.
"The Grand Duke Morton is the oldest and most ruthless ruler among the thirteen pureblood clans. The Buckley family has been plotting for this day for a whole decade.
"Mia is a natural-born Holy Blood host. Only if she marries him can our family reclaim our seat in the Eternal Night Council.
"Carly, keeping your sister alive is your duty. Don't you dare play helpless at a time like this. Start bleeding now!"
Those lines were so cliché that they almost made Carly want to laugh. She glanced down at her left wrist.
It was perfectly intact. There were just a few faint white scars.
She had time-traveled to the past.
She went back to three years ago, the day Harrison showed up in person at Buckley Castle to take Mia as his bride.
Back then, her parents and sister had surrounded her bed just like this. Mia pulled her tried-and-true "chest pain" act.
With her parents' usual "for the family's glory" shackles, they forced Carly to cut open her own veins.
Her blood, Holy O-Type, was so rare it was practically legendary. It was not only the most exquisite nectar for vampires, but also a divine elixir capable of soothing any bloodline frenzy.
That night, so Mia could display flawless "Holy Blood purity" at the Embrace ceremony, two whole silver bowls of blood were drained out of Carly's body.
She collapsed from blood loss in the attic, while Mia, with the surge of Holy O-Type in her veins, successfully deceived Harrison's blood test and rose to become the exalted Grand Duchess.
As a result, after Mia married Harrison, her craving for Holy O-Type became utterly insatiable.
To keep up her act as the prodigy of Holy Blood among the vampire elite, she had people secretly return to the castle every fortnight to harvest more of Carly's blood.
Carly's parents locked her away in a pitch-black underground iron cage, treating her worse than livestock.
They chained her limbs, jabbed special tubes into her wrists and ankles, and drained her blood day and night.
They'd seal it away in ice chests and smuggle it to Harrison's territory.