Crimson Thirties

Chapter 2

The ring hung between them like a drop of frozen blood.

Isolde couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Cassian’s words echoed in the hollow chapel, each syllable a blade sliding between her ribs.

The real Vivienne was alive.

Coming for the wedding.

Coming for her face.

Cassian watched her with the patience of a wolf who already knew the scent of his prey’s fear. “You have until the vows to decide,” he said quietly. “Side with me, and I will protect you from her. Side with her…” His gaze flicked to the black altar behind him. “And I will do what I must.”

Isolde’s laugh cracked like breaking glass. “Protect me? You were going to slit my throat in thirty nights.”

“That was before I knew who you truly were.” He stepped closer, close enough that she could feel the heat radiating from his skin Lycan heat, wild and untamed. “Before I realized the prophecy could be rewritten through you. Through us.”

Us. The word tasted like poison and honey.

She wanted to spit in his face. Wanted to drive her newly sharpened fangs into his throat and drink until the lies stopped. But she needed answers more than vengeance. For now.

“Where is she?” Isolde demanded. “The real Vivienne. How long has she been planning this?”

Cassian’s jaw tightened. “Three years. Ever since the poison failed. She vanished into the underground courts, gathering allies among the pureblood vampires who despise the truce. They call her the Crimson Princess now. She’s been wearing glamours, changing faces the way you once changed names. But today…” He tilted his head, listening to something she couldn’t hear. “Today she sheds them all. She wants the world to see what was stolen from her.”

A distant bell tolled the first call for guests to assemble in the grand cathedral above. Time was bleeding away.

Isolde’s mind raced. If Vivienne arrived before the vows, the truth would shatter everything. The forged documents, the poisoned wine, the body in an unmarked grave every secret would spill like blood on white marble. The Lycan court would tear her apart for the deception. The vampire delegation would demand her head for the attempted murder of their princess.

And Cassian… Cassian would be forced to choose between his crown and the prophecy.

She couldn’t let that happen.

Not yet.

“I need to see her,” Isolde said. “Before the ceremony.”

Cassian’s eyes narrowed. “Dangerous.”

“Necessary.” She met his gaze without flinching. “If there are two brides wearing the same face, one of us has to die before we reach the altar. Better I handle it quietly than let her make a spectacle.”

For a long moment, he studied her. Then, slowly, he nodded. “There’s a side entrance to the crypts. She’ll come through the old vampire tunnels. I can get you there unseen.”

He offered his arm.

She didn’t take it.

Instead, she swept past him toward the hidden door behind the altar, the train of her wedding gown whispering over ancient stone like a ghost dragging chains. Cassian followed, a shadow at her heels.

The tunnels beneath the palace were a labyrinth of forgotten history carved by vampire hands centuries before the Lycans claimed the land above. The air grew colder with every step, thick with the scent of damp earth and old blood. Torches here burned blue, fed by some alchemical flame that cast eerie light across walls etched with runes of binding and betrayal.

Cassian moved silently despite his size, guiding her through turns she would never have found alone. His presence behind her was both threat and shield she felt the weight of his gaze on her bare shoulders where the gown dipped low, felt the way his breathing changed when her scent shifted with fear or fury.

They descended deeper until the stone gave way to packed earth and roots that twisted like veins. Finally, a rusted iron gate barred their path. Beyond it, faint voices echoed female, cultured, laced with venom.

Vivienne.

Cassian pressed a hand to the gate. Old magic flared, recognizing his royal blood, and the bars groaned open.

“Stay behind me,” he murmured.

Isolde ignored him, stepping through first.

The chamber beyond was vast, supported by pillars carved into screaming faces. A pool of dark water reflected torchlight like spilled oil. And there, on a raised dais of black stone, stood the woman who wore Isolde’s stolen life.

Vivienne Draven was breathtaking.

The same face her face framed by raven hair pinned with diamonds that looked like frozen tears. The same gray-green eyes, but colder. Sharper. The wedding gown she wore was identical to Isolde’s, down to the silver embroidery, only hers was stained at the hem with crypt mud and something darker.

Around her stood six vampire lords in ceremonial crimson, fangs bared, eyes glowing in the gloom. Guards. Witnesses. Executioners.

Vivienne’s lips curved when she saw Isolde emerge from the shadows.

“Well,” she said, voice echoing like a funeral bell. “The thief finally shows her face. My face.”

Isolde stopped ten paces away, Cassian a wall of muscle at her back. She felt his tension, the way the beast inside him strained against its chains at the scent of so many enemies.

“I wondered how long you’d hide in the shadows,” Isolde replied. Her voice didn’t shake. Good. “Three years is a long time to nurse a grudge.”

Vivienne laughed, the sound sharp enough to cut. “Three years to plan your death, you mean. Did you truly think a slum rat’s poison could kill a Draven? My heart stopped for seven minutes. Long enough for you to bury me. Short enough for my sire to bring me back.”

One of the vampire lords stepped forward, ancient eyes fixed on Cassian with hatred older than nations. “The treaty is broken today, wolf king. You wed a corpse-stealer. The alliance ends in blood.”

Cassian’s growl rumbled through the chamber, low and lethal. “The treaty holds as long as I draw breath. Harm her, and you’ll find how much breath I have left.”

Vivienne raised a hand, silencing her guard. Her gaze never left Isolde.

“I’m not here for war,” she said softly. “Not yet. I’m here for justice. One bride enters the cathedral today. The other feeds the earth.”

She drew a dagger from her sleeve thin, silver, etched with runes that burned Isolde’s eyes to look at. Consecrated to sever vampire bloodlines. One cut would paralyze her long enough for decapitation.

Isolde’s fangs ached in response. Her body Vivienne’s body recognized the threat on an instinctual level.

Cassian shifted, ready to lunge.

Isolde lifted a hand, stopping him.

“This is between us,” she said. To Vivienne: “You want your life back? Earn it.”

Vivienne’s smile was slow, predatory. “Gladly.”

The vampire lords formed a circle, sealing the chamber with old wards that hummed against Isolde’s skin. No escape. No interference.

Just two women wearing the same face, circling each other in wedding white.

Vivienne moved first blindingly fast, a blur of silk and steel. The dagger flashed toward Isolde’s throat.

Isolde ducked, years of street fighting overriding centuries of aristocratic grace. She drove her elbow into Vivienne’s ribs, felt the c***k of bone that healed almost instantly. Vampire resilience.

They crashed together in a whirlwind of claws and fangs and wedding lace tearing like screams.

Vivienne was stronger pureblood, trained, fueled by three years of rage. She pinned Isolde against a pillar, dagger pressing into the soft skin beneath her jaw.

“Any last lies?” Vivienne hissed. “Any pretty pleas before I take back what’s mine?”

Isolde tasted blood her own, rich and coppery. She smiled through it.

“Only one,” she whispered. “I’m pregnant.”

The dagger froze.

Vivienne’s eyes widened, shock breaking through centuries of poise. “Impossible. We’ve never”

“Not you,” Isolde said. “Me. In the other life. Thirty nights with him. One night it took.”

A lie. A desperate, vicious lie.

But Vivienne didn’t know that.

Behind them, Cassian went utterly still.

Vivienne’s grip faltered. Just enough.

Isolde surged upward, fangs sinking deep into the real princess’s throat. Blood hot, ancient, powerful flooded her mouth. She drank greedily, feeling strength pour into limbs that had never truly been hers.

Vivienne screamed, the sound ripping through the wards like shattering crystal. The vampire lords lunged, but Cassian was already moving—claws extended, eyes pure gold, the beast unleashed in defense of his mate.

Chaos exploded.

Isolde tore free, spitting blood as Vivienne staggered back, hand pressed to the ragged wound that refused to close. Silver poisoning from Isolde’s borrowed fangs vampire venom turned against its own kind.

“You… b***h,” Vivienne gasped. “You think a child will save you?”

“I think it buys me time,” Isolde said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Crimson stained white lace like war paint. “Because now you have to decide—kill me and risk murdering the only heir the Lycan king might ever have… or let me walk into that cathedral and become queen in your place. Again.”

Vivienne’s face twisted with fury and something darker fear.

Above them, the cathedral bells began to peal in earnest. The ceremony was beginning.

Cassian appeared at Isolde’s side, covered in blood that wasn’t his, one vampire lord’s severed head dangling from his fist. The others lay broken around the chamber.

“Time to choose, Princess,” he said to Vivienne, voice calm despite the c*****e. “Come peacefully as a guest… or don’t come at all.”

Vivienne straightened, wound knitting closed with visible effort. Her eyes promised retribution.

“I’ll come,” she said. “As the duke’s daughter. As the true bride. And when the truth is revealed…” She smiled, all teeth. “I’ll watch you both burn.”

She swept past them, gown trailing blood, her surviving lords falling in behind her like crimson shadows.

Cassian offered Isolde his hand, this time stained red.

She took it.

Together, they climbed toward the light, toward the cathedral filled with hundreds of witnesses who would see two identical brides walk down the aisle.

One to the altar.

One to death.

The real war hadn’t even begun.