
I am Eleanor, Vampire Queen and wife to King Julian. I used to be the one person he protected without question. Then his pureblood ex-lover, Victoria, came back to court, and his orders began to change. Tonight, rebels have breached the palace walls. Julian will have to decide who gets the strongest ward. I already know it will not be me.

The rebels breached the inner wall at the hour of the wolf, and I knew the instant the wards shifted. I was in the east gallery, alone, with one hand resting low on my stomach — the way I had been standing all week, as if the gesture were a secret the rest of me had already given up. Elder Healer Maeve had confirmed it six days ago, her hand flat on my abdomen, her face giving away nothing: eight weeks. I had asked her to keep silent until I told the King myself. I had planned to tell him tonight, after the victory, in the glass greenhouse I had built for the nursery — the one with the moon-herbs in silver rows, ready for a newborn's first sleep. Then the palace shook, and the Morning Star Ward left my heart. I felt it go the way you feel a thread snap in a garment you trusted. The ward
