Chapter 2

There were no more wolves.

Lily had once heard that the key to winning the hunt was to reach the wolves fastest. For that reason, she’d been working on her speed for months, increasing her agility, clawing her way to the top of the records.

It was all for nothing.

Silvercity had been her destiny since she was fourteen. It was where her father spent most of his life as a Vanguard, defending the palace from wolves—from the humans who sought to destroy the vampires within. But it was more than just a sentiment. Silvercity was the gateway to the casual world. To the mortal, human world.

Beyond its lustrous gates, Silvercity marked the border to a new country—one filled with people like her. People who walked in the sun and danced on the beach and had children and bought houses and did all the silly mundane things vampires didn’t. Somewhere beyond the gates of Silvercity was her mother.

She wondered what she looked like now. If she had aged, if she had married, if perhaps there were some siblings Lily didn’t know about.

She had to reach Silvercity. How was she supposed to do that now?

When she emerged from the forest, it was with Lance, her most precious of knives, shattered to bits in the palm of her hand. No wolf. No claws.

Others awaited already with their victories in tow—including Zia, who knelt in the grass with a severed hand rested before her, long black claws stretching from the fingertips. Lily felt something sharp in her heart. Zia of all people had killed a wolf? She was hardly within the top fifty-percentile of the class. Lily’s cheeks reddened as she looked down at the crumbles of her blade, recalling Zia in the locker room early that morning. It looked as though a screw had been removed from the hilt. Was this why it failed her?

She withdrew Dancer from her sock and examined the screws on it, too. Just like Lance, one was missing.

Something in Lily snapped.

She lunged for Zia, tackling her to the ground, Dancer held threateningly in the palm of her fist. "You! You did this!" she screamed. They twisted on the ground, Zia throwing a punch that hit her in the broad size of her jaw. Lily head-butted her, a subtle crack sounding from her nose. The men were trying to peel them apart. The professors shouted at Lily to behave herself.

Then, suddenly came a voice. "Excuse me for my late arrival."

Lily went still at the sound of him. She hadn’t expected the Bloodprince would arrive while she had her hands around Zia’s throat.

Zia kicked her off amid her distraction and Lily hit the grass with an ooof. She was quickly snatched off of the ground by the back of her collar, Benson frowning down at her with his gray, peppered beard. "You’ll be lucky if this doesn’t earn you an expulsion," he snarled in her ear. Lily felt her face burn. To be expelled one day before graduation…

"Everyone," ordered Benson, "stop standing around. Present your trophies. Those of you who earned nothing—" his merciless gaze fell upon Lily when he said this, "—watch quietly and respectfully over there."

Lilly was shoved toward a crowd of twenty-or-so other rejects, who looked downcast and defeated to return from the forest empty handed. But as she glanced back over her shoulder, she found the prince was watching her with dark, intense eyes.

He was prettier than she recalled from his last visit to the academy—long black hair that curled around his ear and settled on his shoulder, and a fair, gentle face that twinged with curiosity as their eyes connected. Lily promptly tore her gaze away.

He walked the line of the worthy, inspecting the hands they’d collected. Many of the vampires were doused in blood—some only peppered. None of the worthy had come out entirely clean. He presented himself with a look of stoicism—an uncaring, indirect gaze that swept from trophy to trophy, never providing the luxury of a reaction.

"Congratulation on your bounties," he said. Though his words were kind, his voice was like the rough edge of a stone—cold and abrasive. His eyes moved with the quick calculations of a viper. The sharp, dark gaze that pinned to the places with a deadly fixation. They roved over the butchered hands and suddenly landed back on Lily.

"You," he said, pointing a finger in her direction. "Come."

Lily blanched, feeling her heart tick suddenly faster in her throat. How had he even noticed her in the crowd? Perhaps because she was the only Daywalker among them. She didn’t look all that different from the other vampires, but she was often bullied for her smell—the scent of human blood still in her veins that garnered her far too much attention in the hallways during passing periods. Had the prince smelled her? The thought was devastating.

She stepped forward, standing empty-handed beside the worthy and their trophies.

"You’ve no gift for me?" asked the prince.

Lily did not respond, nor meet his gaze. Of course she had no trophy for him. It was unnecessary to run salt in the wound!

"How long have you been a vampire?" the prince asked. Lily hated how unimpressed he sounded. Unimpressed by her failures, unimpressed by her existence. "You don’t smell of one."

"Because she isn’t," said Zia from where she rested in the grass. She looked all too smug as she added, "She’s a Daywalker. Her mom was human."

Lily wanted badly to kick her or tackle her again and finish what she’d started, but suddenly, the prince was touching her face. It wasn’t like the prince to touch anyone, and at the slightest brush of his cool fingers, she jumped. He had wiped a bit of blood from her cheek—a small cut where the wolf had pressed the blade to her skin. He brought it to his mouth, the blood streaking across his tongue. Then his gentle brows settled into a thoughtful furrow.

"I see," he muttered. Then once more. "I see."

In a change of demeanor, he folded his hands behind his back and turned to Benson, speaking quietly in his ear.

Benson looked surprised. Gentle whispered rose from the others. "You’d—what?" asked the professor.

"I’ve been looking for something like her for quite some time," the prince said. He gazed upon Lily as he did, his fangs breaking through his smile-less face. "She’ll join my concubines in the palace."

The whispers grew to a rainy chatter. Zia looked up in astonishment.

To live in Silver City was one thing…but to live in the palace with the prince.

And as his concubine?

Lily couldn’t imagine a girl at Nightcrest who wouldn’t kill to give herself to the king in exchange for that kind of luxury.

But Lily was not a lowly concubine. She had worked hard for years to become a Vanguard. Everything she’d done—every late night spent leaping from trees until she learned to keep her footing on the slender branches. Every night spent hunting lizards in the rain to improve her speed and sight. Every test, every lecture, every hour of combat practice was nothing now.

Suddenly, the prince captured her chin in his hand and lifted her head to meet his gaze. A shade of icy blue slid over his eyes and his fangs peeked out from his lips. The look of a vampire moments before a feast. "I don’t wish to use you that way," he said. "I need you for something else."

"For…what?" asked Lily.

"Gather your things," was all the prince said. "I’ll send my men for you tomorrow."