His Vampire Heart Never Beat For Me

Chapter 2 Gaslighting and Thorns

Elder Healer Maeve kept one hand on my abdomen while she checked for the fetal spirit a second time. When she pulled away, her fingers were shaking.

"The spirit is gone, Your Majesty. The attack scattered it."

Before she could call an attendant, I made her kneel. "Swear on your immortal soul that no one hears of this. Especially the King."

Maeve swore.

After she left, I stripped the blood-soaked sheets from the bed and fed them to the hearth myself. The last stains curled black in the flames. By sunrise, the room held no trace of my child.

Julian returned at dawn with Victoria clinging to his arm.

She kept her hand pressed to her chest, though there was no blood on her clothes and no wound underneath. When Julian released her, she stood without help.

"You've always been stronger than anyone at court, Eleanor," he said. "I knew you would endure."

He waited for the answer I had always given him. I looked from his clean coat to Victoria's unmarked hands and said nothing.

The next day, I went to the glass greenhouse at the southern edge of the palace grounds. I had built it for the nursery.

Rare moon-herbs filled the growing beds, their magic meant to settle a newborn and ease it into sleep.

I smelled bloodroses before the door was fully open. Their sweetness clogged the glass house and caught in my throat. The silver scent of moon-herb was gone.

Every growing bed had been dug up. Crushed silver leaves covered the floor. In their place stood dozens of crimson bloodroses, Victoria's favorite flower, with mild poison on every thorn.

"I thought they might lift her spirits." Julian stood in the doorway, pleased with the work. "The attack frightened her. Surely you can take some comfort in her recovery."

I dug my nails into my palms. "This was for the nursery, Julian. For our child."

I stopped there. "For the future," I said instead.

He sighed. "Must you be so possessive? They're plants. You are my Queen. Show some tolerance and be the bigger person."

I stepped around the uprooted beds and left him among the bloodroses.

I did not return to my chambers. At the far end of the Royal Library, I stopped before the locked iron gate of the Forbidden Section.

The Queen's spell released the lock. One narrow beam of light crossed the shelves beyond it. The air smelled of old paper and burnt herbs.

I checked the forgotten volumes one by one until my hand found a book bound in scorched leather. Its spine had no title.

Gold letters appeared across the cover when I touched it.

*The Sun-Severance.*

The ritual stripped a vampire of immortality. Sunlight completed the work. Death by fire or survival as a mortal: those were the only outcomes.

I tucked the book under my arm.

Tonight, the court would celebrate Julian's victory over the rebels. I would attend as Queen for the last time.