“Sullivan! My friend! It’s so good to see you.” Magnus’s smile was blinding in its cheeriness.

  It made Sullivan’s skin crawl.

  “I just love what you’ve done with the place. I hardly recognized it.”

  Magnus took another deliberate step closer, gaze sweeping, smile still annoying.

  “You’ve made some… impressive changes.”

  “Magnus,” Sullivan greeted him flatly. He wouldn’t play this game. Not tonight. The smell of long dried blood on stone still made him retch.

  “Gosh, I’m sorry I’m so late! I think my invitation got lost in the mail.” He patted his clothes, as if trying to find his wallet and ID.“You weren’t invited.”Magnus laughed, a little too loud, a little too long. His disbelief was palpable.

  “Haaa! Sully, I always love how funny you are.” The bright cheer in his voice soured but a fraction.

  Sullivan’s grip tightened around Aleiya, jaw clenched—just the slightest flare of his nostril—as he felt the sharp needling in his nick-name alone. He pulled her just a bit closer, staking his claim before Magnus could make one.

  He felt Aleiya stiffen, but then ease back into stillness. Even the soft beat of her heart against him slowly stilled.

  Sullivan’s gesture, no matter how small, did not go unnoticed, however. The small twinge of glee tugged at the corner of Magnus’s mouth—locking his teeth behind a perfectly amicable mask.

  He knew this would be fun.

  All the old bat needed was a bit of bait, and Sullivan always took it.

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  Always.

  His gaze shot to the tiny slip of a woman in his adversary’s arms, acting as if he was taken aback by the very sight of her—hand to his heart.

  Like a collector, he stopped to admire the painting before him.

  “Now tell me, just who, might I ask, is this vision of beauty?” His gaze lasciviously raked over her every detail—slow, deliberate—as if she was not only beautiful, but utterly indecent.

  Voices called out from the onlooking crowd.

  “Tempesta’s daughter, Your Majesty!”

  “You mean the Bitch Queen’s spawn.”

  Drunken laughter crashed against the marble like dropped goblets. Aleiya’s eyes flicked over the crowd, taking in their mockery with practiced disinterest, but was caught on the word spawn briefly.

  The term was incorrect. She was no spawn. She was of Tempesta’s brood. Perhaps they didn’t know. Or perhaps the terms were different here.

  She couldn’t ask, but at the very least she finally understood who the “Bitch Queen” was. Just not their joy.

  As if they were celebrating her death.

  “Ah, my condolences, Princess.” Magnus’s hand pressed to his chest, curling faintly into a fist as though he sought to strangle grief itself. His tone dripped with mock sympathy. Yet his eyes glittered, savoring the crowd’s laughter as if it were a toast in his honor.

  One less monarch to deal with in his eyes. And it confirmed that his mercy towards the vampires had finally bore him fruit. Sullivan’s wins were Magnus’s wins.

  There was a beat—half a breath, half a blink—where time split in two.

  Aleiya’s dread hung heavy at his words, but then… she gently smiled. Dread did not retreat, but dressed itself in soft, white lace and a demure flower crown. Another monster intruded into Aleiya’s world, this one cloaked in manners the way Sullivan wore silk gloves.

  Trained to obey even false kindness, she fell into step like a dancer cued by metronome. Her spine straightened. Her eyes softened. Her lips remembered how to portray the perfect smile. Right before their very eyes, the woman vanished into ornament once more.

  The rakish gaze was a whip she was inured to, slipping off her skin like water on glass.

  To anyone else, the shift would’ve gone unnoticed. Magnus, however, had watched the whole performance unfold.

  His new favorite play.

  She moved like clockwork—wound for display. A graceful little marionette, plucked from some forgotten fairytale, tilting just so at his beck and call. Her smile was painted perfection—no tremble in her lip, no hesitation in her spine. Just a quiet, well-behaved doll, posed to appease her new monarch.

  Her new King.

  It pleased him, this illusion of gentility.

  What a shame, really, for Sullivan to waste such exquisite obedience on a leash so loose.

  Magnus, the gentleman that he was, held out an open, inviting hand. Expecting. Waiting. Knowing that the doll-like vision had no real choice but to take it. Not a single soul here would dare go against such basic social decorum.

  He loved a game he couldn’t lose.